Book description
LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2019
A brilliant collection of fictions in the vein of Roald Dahl, Etgar Keret and Amy Hempel. These are stories of what the world looks like from a child's pure but sometimes vengeful or muddled perspective. These are stories of life in a…
Why read it?
1 author picked Jokes for the Gunmen as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Take the bleakest setting you can imagine–such as a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon –quadruple the population, encircle it, populate it with militias, then turn yourself into an absurdist or a surrealist to describe it. This seems to be the task that Maarouf has set himself with this collection of short stories, which are as funny and surprising as they are somber and sobering.
He is a poet and a comedian. The poet in him stops, dwells, absorbs, and is porous to the unfolding loss around him before the comedian kicks in with his will to survive. A quirky, uncanny…
From Selma's list on The best books on being Palestinian.
If you love Jokes for the Gunmen...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like Jokes for the Gunmen?
Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Jokes for the Gunmen.
Share your top 3 reads of 2026!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
170
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Jokes for the Gunmen, you might also like...
Sexy Selfie Nation
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
In This Together
In This Together explores how we can harness our social networks to make a real impact fighting the climate crisis. Against notions of the lone environmental crusader, Marianne E. Krasny shows us the power of "network climate action"—the idea that our own ordinary acts can influence and inspire those close…
