Mr Bean

by Mark Haddon

Like Mr. Bean, this novel finds comedy and heart in a protagonist whose perspective creates chaos wherever he goes—but Haddon uses a mathematically-minded teenager as his lens rather than slapstick. The humor comes from the collision between how the character sees the world and how everyone else does, generating situations that are simultaneously hilarious and genuinely touching.

by Jerome K. Jerome

Published in 1889, this Victorian-era comedy proves that physical humor and bumbling incompetence are timeless—Jerome's three hapless boaters create disaster through sheer well-meaning ineptitude, much like Bean does. The narrative voice is warm and self-aware about the absurdity, making you laugh at the characters' predicaments rather than feel mean-spirited about them.

by Agatha Christie

Here's your surprise pick: while it's fundamentally a cozy mystery, Osman writes ensemble comedy with the same warmth as Curtis, where lovable misfits stumble through situations with unintentional hilarity. The humor is gentler than Bean's slapstick, but the affection for characters who create chaos through their own quirks is exactly the same.

by Glenn Yeffeth

Adams shares Curtis's gift for absurdist humor where characters remain completely earnest while surrounded by ridiculous circumstances—except here the chaos is cosmic rather than confined to a gallery or California. The deadpan British sensibility and the way characters bumble through impossible situations will feel familiar, just on a much larger scale.

by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

Wodehouse perfected the art of the well-meaning idiot creating elaborate disasters through innocent actions—Bertie Wooster is essentially what Mr. Bean would be if he were upper-class and spoke in elaborate sentences. The humor lives in the gap between Bertie's confidence and his complete inability to navigate social situations, with his valet Jeeves constantly rescuing him from self-inflicted chaos.