It doesn't usually make much difference, unless the discomfort is coming from my eyes. I do own some books that I wouldn't try to read during a reaction to New Roundup, one of the chemicals in which irritates my eyes. Badly. Enough that I want to read only large print, or better yet do something other than read. And if I had a high fever, or were recovering from major surgery, I'd probably just doze in front of a television set.
The one time I spent some days reclining in bed feeling bad, with salmonella, I read through a stack of paperback books I'd acquired on a bargain sale. I alternated one Louis L'Amour Western with one novel, romance, or religious book of similar size.
If I'd planned that week, since the salmonella episode involved pain and did not involve sutures that had to heal, I might have tried to plan a higher proportion of laugh-out-loud comedy. (Laughing out loud triggers the production of prostaglandins and reduces pain, except from broken ribs or sutures on the trunk of the body.) This web site does, of course, note when a book combines light, cheerful content with a light, comfortable, flexible binding, which is ideal for hospital bed reading.
If I wanted not to laugh out loud too much, as it might be after surgery, I'd look for good genre or light nonfiction. Louis L'Amour is quite tolerable; at least, since most people have watched a few "western" movies and TV shows whether we wanted to or not, one can always try to work out which of his stories was made into a show one watched. Tony Hillerman, early Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ellis Peters, or Jane Langton would be fun to recuperate with without being too funny. Light nonfiction, as it might be popular biographies, is often available in paperback and also entertaining without much risk of ripping open any wounds.
If I wanted to laugh as much as possible, as if might be after major dental surgery or a knee injury or anything that's painful but does not involve stitches right across the midsection, I'd look for the work of shameless comedians. Dave Barry is generally agreed to be the funniest writer in the US, Douglas Adams in the UK. P.J. O'Rourke and Terry Pratchett have been identified as runners-up. To some extent comedy is a matter of taste. I started to type a list, just thinking in alphabetical order of writers at whose work I expect to laugh out loud. Joel Achenbach? Yes, you'd laugh over his writing; you might not have read it yet. Cleveland Amory? I rolled about and pawed and whinnied during the first reading of each of his books but some people think Ranch of Dreams is too serious to be funny. I don't think anyone should read anything by Henry Beard while eating or drinking, but maybe you can do that, I don't know. Erma Bombeck's early books were hilarious, her later ones not so much. Peg Bracken was hilarious, I think, even when she was making serious points, as in her list of 108 sins everyone should at least consider whether they need to repent of, but some people used to manage not to laugh at her books. I think Art Buchwald made contemporary news stories funny whether I'd read the original news stories or not; younger people might not remember enough to agree. And so on.
There are comic writers who remain obscure because the publishers are putting all their efforts into promoting a bigger name, and there are comic writers who remain obscure because some people are capable of reading their work without laughing out loud.
I think new comedy is suffering greatly from writers' freedom to use rude words and topics.
I think G.K. Chesterton would, after venting his initial rage, have laughed at the idea of what his phrase "purpling on the poop" brings to modern readers' minds. (Clean your minds, please. In Chesterton's day everyone knew the poop was one of the decks on a ship.) He might even have written, or laughed at, a parody that made further use of the word "poop." But now we see and hear comedians who go on stage and just shriek "Poop! Poop! Poop!" until one wants to give the command, "No! No deck at all! Throw him overboard!"
Anyway, I like more references to literature, or at least pop culture, and news items, in comedy, and fewer references to body parts and functions. Though I can see where some comedians are getting confused. Many current songs sound like body functions and Ariana Grande claims to be a body part. It must be harder to come up with jokes like "There's a lawn, lawn trail a-winding..." than it used to be.
At some point one may get tired of comedy, old or new. Illness and medication can have effects on a person's ability to absorb new information, but some people do use periods of physical recovery as time to learn new things. This can be done in a low-pressure way by simply reading books on a new subject, or more extensively by taking an actual online course. Mileage varies. I wouldn't try to learn a new language during chemotherapy but I might try to memorize a tourist language course while recovering from a broken leg. If it worked, it'd be cool. If not, I'd remember that leg injuries have a way of being more tiresome, longer, than seems possible, and scale back expectations until the leg had thoroughly healed. (This goes out to The Polka Dot Chicken. Please don't give up knitting forever--only for the duration. I don't know why knitting would seem like work because of a leg injury, but when I had one it was/)
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