Father’s Day is coming. (Or was yesterday – I’m not sure when you found this.) But you could get Dad another grilling accessory he’ll use twice, a card he’ll read once, or… hear me out… a BOOK that will actually make him laugh out loud in a chair while everyone wonders what’s wrong with him.
Welcome to the definitive list of funny books for dads. Where dad humor comes in many forms – and NONE are the tired and cliche Dad joke. Clean and family friendly. Dry and Midwestern. Brutally honest with a few well-placed expletives for emphasis. Whatever kind of dad you’re shopping for (or whatever kind of dad you are) there’s something here.
These aren’t the books that sit on a nightstand untouched. These are the ones that get finished, quoted at dinner, and occasionally read aloud to an audience that didn’t ask. (Teenagers cringing, “Dad, Can You Not??” – which is actually a bit of foreshadowing…)
Throughout this list you’ll find links to grab each book. I always lead with Bookshop.org for print because they support independent bookstores. Amazon is there too if that’s your preference. Affiliate links help keep this blog running at no extra cost to you.
Table of Contents
1. Dad Is Fat — Jim Gaffigan
Memoir, Humor • 2013
Jim Gaffigan. Ever heard of him? Well, he is raising five kids in a New York City apartment the size of a walk-in closet, and he has stories about it. This is the book you hand any dad who has ever lost his mind at the ridiculousness of raising children. Or at least watching his wife raise the children but still being really annoyed and exhausted by it all.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
Looking for funny books for Moms? I have those too! Funny Books About Motherhood: Save Mom’s Sanity
2. Food: A Love Story — Jim Gaffigan
Humor, Essays • 2014
Yes, two Gaffigan books on one list. No, I’m not sorry. If Dad Is Fat is about the chaos of fatherhood, Food: A Love Story is about the one thing that gets a dad through it: eating. Gaffigan turns his well-documented obsession with food into a full essay collection that is consistently funny. This is the book for the dad who considers a gas station hot dog a delicacy and has strong opinions about consuming “LAWB-stah” (a.k.a. lobster. a.k.a. bug meat.)
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
Looking for more funny books by comedians? I have those! Best Books by Comedians: 11 Stand-Up Comics Who Can Actually Write
3. Paddle Your Own Canoe — Nick Offerman
Memoir, Humor • 2013
Nick Offerman is what would happen if Ron Swanson were a real person who also happened to be thoughtful, well-read, and genuinely funny. This book is part memoir, part life philosophy, part woodworking manual. And entirely the kind of thing a dad reads and then quotes for the next six months. If the dad in your life has ever built something with his hands or used the phrase “back in my day” without irony, this book was written specifically for him.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
4. Things My Son Needs to Know About the World — Fredrik Backman
Humor, Essays • 2019
Fredrik Backman wrote A Man Called Ove, which made everyone cry. In a good way. This one makes you laugh instead, which is frankly more useful. It’s a collection of letters and observations from a new dad trying to figure out what on earth he’s supposed to be teaching his kid when he’s still figuring most of it out himself. Every dad who has ever confidently given advice and then immediately wondered if that advice was correct will recognize themselves here.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
5. Walking With Sam — Andrew McCarthy
Travel Memoir • 2023
Yes, that Andrew McCarthy: the 80s actor from Pretty in Pink and Weekend at Bernies for those keeping score at home. He and his 19-year-old son walked 500 miles across Spain together on the Camino de Santiago. Which sounds like either a beautiful bonding experience or a recipe for a very long argument. Turns out it was both. The dad-son dynamic here is real and funny and occasionally uncomfortable in exactly the way every father-son relationship is. My personal favorite detail: his son calls him “Bro” for most of the trip. This makes sense to anyone who has a teenage son right now.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
6. Little Victories — Jason Gay
Humor, Essays • 2015
Jason Gay is a sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal. After reading Little Victories, I decided Jason Gay is also my spirit animal. Gay understands that most of life’s important moments happen in the margins. The small, weird, funny stuff that doesn’t make headlines but makes up actual existence. This is a short essay collection about being a dad, a husband, a sports fan, and a generally confused adult male. If you’ve ever celebrated something extremely minor as if it were a major achievement, Gay wrote this book for you. Which means he wrote it for every dad.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
Still can’t find the right funny book? How about this pile of 50 suggestions? 50 Funny Books That Will Actually Make You Laugh
7. Essays Out of Left Field — Scott Johnson (me)
Humor, Essays • 2023
Full disclosure: I wrote this one. Which makes me either the most qualified or least qualified person to recommend it, depending on your perspective. It’s a collection of humor essays about dad life, Midwest living, and explaining everything through sports references whether the explanation calls for it or not. There’s an essay about accidentally collecting 55 gallons of dog poop. There’s one about surviving a 5th grade band concert. There’s a lot of Minnesota Vikings suffering. If you’re reading this blog, there’s a reasonable chance this is exactly your kind of book. Or maybe your Dad’s kind of book.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
8. Dad, Can You Not? — Chip Leighton
Humor, Memoir • 2023
The title alone should tell you everything you need to know. Chip Leighton is a YouTube famous dad who is fully aware that his kids find him embarrassing. And he has decided to lean into it as hard as humanly possible. This is the book for the dad who tells the same jokes on a rotating schedule and shows up to things in an outfit that was not approved. Every dad who has ever been told “Dad, can you not?” (which is all of us) will feel deeply seen here.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
9. Sh*t My Dad Says — Justin Halpern
Memoir, Humor • 2010
Justin Halpern moved back in with his dad at 29 and started writing down everything his father said. The result is a book full of brutally honest, completely unfiltered observations on life, relationships, and whatever else was on his dad’s mind that day. There is profanity. There is a lot of profanity. But underneath all of it is a genuinely touching portrait of a father who loves his kid in the most awkward, direct, no-nonsense way possible. This one’s for the dad who says exactly what he’s thinking and has stopped apologizing for it.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
10. The Downhill Lie — Carl Hiaasen
Humor, Memoir • 2008
Carl Hiaasen (Hoot, Squirm, Chomp) quit golf for 32 years, decided to pick it back up, and then documented exactly how badly that went. Every dad who has ever 6-putted a hole will cherish this tale. Golf is the sport specifically designed to humble people who thought they had it figured out. Hiaasen captures that particular suffering with the kind of dark humor that only comes from lived experience. This is the golf dad book for dads who hate golf and love golf at the same time.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
I have opinions about golf books. The 9 Best Golf Books (at least that I’ve read)
11. Bananaball — Jesse Cole
Sports, Humor • 2023
The Savannah Bananas are the baseball team every dad secretly wishes had existed when he was a kid. Jesse Cole built something that looks like baseball, plays like baseball, and also involves dancing, trick plays, and constant goofiness. This book is the story of how he did it, and it’s as fun to read as the team is to watch. For the dad who grew up loving baseball, or the one who can’t watch it today because it’s 3 hours of strikeouts and walks. This is the reminder of why the sport was fun in the first place. Not necessarily a hilarious book. But Bananaball in general is genuinely funny, nostalgic, and everything that’s right with the world today.
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
12. ADHD Is Awesome — Penn & Kim Holderness
Humor, Memoir • 2023
Penn Holderness is one half of the Holderness Family, the couple who went viral making holiday videos that made the rest of us feel both entertained and slightly overstimulated. Peak online Dad entertainment. Penn also has ADHD. This book is his and Kim’s funny, honest account of figuring that out as an adult. This is a specific book for a specific dad: the one who has always operated a little differently, lost his keys again, and finally has a framework for understanding why. Funny and genuinely useful.
Full review coming soon
📚 Bookshop.org • 📦 Amazon
The Right Book for Every Kind of Dad
Whether your dad is the guy who quotes comedians at dinner, the one who takes his golf game way too seriously, or the one who has ADHD and just found out, there’s something on this list for him. These aren’t filler picks. They are hand-picked by a real-life Dad. (eh-hem, that’s me.) Books that actually get finished, actually get laughed at, and occasionally get read aloud to family members who were trying to watch television.
If you’re shopping for Father’s Day and still not sure which one to grab, go with Dad Is Fat if he’s a parent, Paddle Your Own Canoe if he’s the outdoorsy-but-also-reads type, and The Downhill Lie if he golfs and has any capacity for self-awareness about his game.
And if he’s a Midwestern dad who explains life through sports references and has a complicated relationship with the Minnesota Vikings… well, I may have written something for that specific person too.
Did I miss a funny book every dad should read? Drop it in the comments. I’m always looking for the next one.
Scott Johnson is a Midwestern humorist, author of Essays Out of Left Field, and the mind behind scottjohnsonauthor.com. He’s also a husband, dad of three, and Data Systems Administrator (whatever that is). Scott is on a mission to find and read all the funny books. He shares his thoughts on those books, author life, and other delightful randomness with his readers on his website.
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