I will snicker or giggle in a way someone sitting very close to me could notice small body movement or maybe hear noise from slightly further away in a quiet room. I actually remember that happening once on probably my fifth or sixth read of Good Omens so, yes, Terry Pratchett (& Neil Gaiman), and the other person then teasing me for not knowing all the jokes already. Loud laughter that would be noticeable in a room with other noise or activity going on in it is much rarer, if it ever occurs.
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Every once in a while something will hit me to the point of laughing, but it is not common while reading. A big smile or an amused snort is far more likely to happen.
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I think that’s generally how laughter works. I’ve watched shows by comedians I like and, when alone, I’ve had not much of a reaction other than thinking “that’s funny”, but when seeing them live, I’ve been reduced to tears.
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Right, now I think I’m weird for laughing at books.
I think I laugh easily in most circumstances - TV, film, YouTube video. I’ve nearly crashed the car laughing at podcasts or the radio.
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A pretty marked example of that was Eddie Izzard’s ‘Sexie’ tour. I was a big fan (well still am I guess) and went to see it live in Nottingham. I laughed a lot.
I then bought the DVD. I barely raised a snigger.
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I suspect this isn’t a very representative sample of the population 
My husband also laughs when he’s reading, but because I share @RogerBW’s view of laughter as a social activity, I annoy him by asking what he’s laughing at…
I do enjoy Christopher Brookmyre’s books (except for Pandaemonium, which I couldn’t even get halfway through). Perhaps I should re-read some as an experiment.
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I reread some of the early Brookmyres recently and still enjoyed them a lot, though I don’t think his recent work stands up anything like as well. I left Dead Girl Walking unfinished, which is a heck of a drop for someone who used to be on my buy-on-sight list.
I know I’ve read that one - is it the one with the school trip? He’s done a couple of weird ones.
I was about to write that the Parlabane ones were my favourite, but he’s one of the authors that I devour their books as soon as they get released.
That’s the one. Much too gruesome for my liking.
I laugh out loud very rarely when reading.
I’ve observed that it’s something that’s gotten more rare as I’ve gotten older.
I understand that kind of laughter comes from a place of surprise and transgression and I suspect I’ve experienced enough media that when I read I’m engaged in analysis against other media as much as I’m engaged in enjoying the thing I’m reading so the moments of surprise and transgression are rarer.
On the laughter as social side I agree but my experience is that social laughter requires a great deal of comfort and trust with the group. I find that social laughter can feel uncomfortable very suddenly. It is easier to find myself laughing at video or audio media than print though. Which is likely some pro-social aspect.
I don’t think of laughing at what I read as a thing I never do. It’s not something I experience often, but then I don’t have the expectation that it should be something I do all the time. But maybe once or twice a year something hits me as laugh out loud funny, and a bit more often than that I laugh briefly.
The only author that I think makes me laugh out loud consistently is PG Wodehouse. Just now I went back to the chapter in 'Right Ho, Jeeves ’ where Gussie Fink-Nottle gives out the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School:
https://www.pagebypagebooks.com/P_G_Wodehouse/Right_Ho_Jeeves/Chapter_17_p1.html
I was chortling by the time I got to G.G. Simmons and guffawing at the end. However he was a master.
At the other end of the spectrum the last time I cried at a book was twice during the Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.
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The author who does that to me most consistently is Kipling. I’ve read “A Church There Was at Antioch,” “As Easy as A.B.C.,” and “The Miracle of Purun Bhagat” aloud to Carol, and in each of them there was a point where I choked up and it was a struggle to go on reading.
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I do follow the trend, and hardly ever laugh out loud while reading. I only remember one occasion on Guards! Guards! when I cackled. All I can remember is that Vimes at last grows a backbone to do the right thing, and tries to use Carrot to intimidate somebody (Lord vetinari palace guards, perhaps?), only to find out he had disappeared. And just when he thinks “What a bad timing for him to get how the Night Guard works and disappear in the face of danger” Carrot appears from round the corner with two axes shouting: Kill! Kill! Kill!! like a maniac and minces the guard up. If anybody has got me close to the laughing out loud stage has been Sir Terry Pratchett, followed closely by Douglas Adams. I actually laugh more remembering scenes from their books with somebody who was also read them than when actually reading them.
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I definitely laughed at early Pratchett, especially books 3-10. Footnotes in Sourcery (like the gardener commenting on gargoyles messing up his lawn) made me have to put the book down while I howled. But never out loud at Fforde or Holt or Wodehouse.
Since Ben Elton got mentioned, along with only laughing at live comedy, I saw him live when I was at university and cried laughing along with everyone else. We couldn’t breathe. I then saw the same material on his tv show a year later and it was absolutely flat and boring and unfunny. Which was weird.
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Antony Jay, who co-wrote Yes, Minister among other things, had a theory that humour developed as a way of passing on information about making mistakes. If you say “watch out for the back end of the cow” a macho hunter-type may have trouble admitting that anyone else knows more than he does. But if you say “there was this guy who stood at the back of a cow and now he has a hoof print for a face”, and everyone laughs, they can all learn the thing without having to admit they didn’t already know it. (Similarly the urban legend about the woman (always a woman!) who accidentally microwaved her dog – as far as I know there’s no evidence that this ever actually happened, but hearing the gruesome story lets you also hear the message that this is a bad thing to do.)
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You’ve reminded me that I have an old 2nd-hand copy of a Yes Minister script book, and that is indeed one of the only other books I’ve laughed out loud at, because it’s pure genius.
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Ploughed through Gideon the Ninth last week. I’m still a bit iffy on the setting, but really liked the characters and ended up loving the plot after it ended up being more mystery-focused.
Just started on This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us by Edgar Cantero. I loved his previous two books, so I’m sure I’ll like this too.
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At the moment I’m reading—not for the first time—Dorothy Sayers’s Gaudy Night, which is not only my favorite mystery, but one of my favorite novels. I’ve come up to the scene with Peter and Harriet punting on the river and talking about the case she’s trying to figure out.
This time through, it has come into the foreground for me that the theme of this particular novel is vocation.
I’m afraid our current copy, which we bought not many years ago, is the worse for wear, with pieces falling off the front cover and the whole thing likely to fall off before much longer. It will need to be replaced. But I don’t think with the same edition; I’ve encountered three places where the type is scrambled and it’s impossible to make out what’s being said, and the back cover blurb describes Lord Peter as Harriet’s paramour, which is hopelessly inaccurate—what he is is her suitor. I may invest in a trade paperback or even a hardback this next time. Harper should really be ashamed of bringing out such a poor edition.
After finishing My Hero, I moved on to the latest Dresden Files novel, Peace Talks. Now I am reading a collection of Conan stories, in the order of publication.
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