I laughed out loud dozens of times': authors choose books to make you fall back in love with reading

A British-Palestinian actor travels to the West Bank to see family and becomes involved in a local production of Hamlet, with rehearsal scenes centered on translation arguments, personal relationships, and whether performance is possible under Israeli occupation. Theatre is presented as an art form capable of holding political and emotional weight that other art forms cannot. A memoir about growing up in Albania portrays life under Enver Hoxha’s Stalinist regime through humor and seriousness, exposing lies and the regime’s reach while remaining humane. The writer’s journey from communist youth to academic life is used to fuel political philosophy and engage present challenges. A separate novel is praised for making readers laugh aloud repeatedly.

"In Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, a British-Palestinian actor travels to the West Bank to see family and finds herself pulled into a local production of Hamlet. I was moved by the rehearsal scenes: arguments over translations, personal relationships, the question of whether a performance is even possible under Israeli occupation. To me, Hammad proved that theatre is capable of carrying weight that other art forms cannot hold."

"Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, a book about growing up in Albania, the last Stalinist country in Europe, doesn't sound like a rollicking good read, but Lea Ypi's book, published in 2021, is at once hilarious and serious, appalling in its description of the lies and tentacles of the regime of Enver Hoxha and touching in its humanity, particular in its focus and universal in its application."

"I often say about refugees and their contribution to adopted homelands that those who have known the price of oppression don't need any lessons in the value of freedom. Ypi's personal story, from Young Pioneer in the Albanian Communist party to student in Italy and professor in the UK, is warming but also full of warnings. She has turned her experience into fuel for her political philosophy, and this makes Free more than a work of memory or history."

"It is also an engagement with the challenges of the present. Katherine Rundell Author I think we're often rightly sceptical of reviews that say a book is laugh-out-loud funny because, when we read them, they're often, at best, smile-out-loud or plausibly caustic or flippant or wry. But Luke Kennard's Black Bag made me laugh aloud dozens and dozens of times."

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