Usually, I steer clear of books with any kind of “celebrity” associations, but I just couldn’t resist Shappi Khorsandi’s first literary offering. Not only did it seem like the kind of light read I was look for, considering that I think Khorsandi is a fantastic stand-up comedian, but A Beginner’s Guide to Acting English also sounded like a fascinating book in its own right. And, overall, it is. The book tells the story of the Khorsandi family’s move to London, and their eventual exile from Iran, the problems Shappi and her brother face growing up in a foreign country, whilst also interweaving snippets of stories about the childhood’s of other members of the Khorsandi family, still at home in Iran.

Khorsandi’s father was a renowned poet and satirist, and the book begins in Iran, where Shappi’s parents are preparing to leave for London, in the hopes that a stint in a foreign country will help Hadi Khorsandi’s career. Once the family arrive in London, however, Shappi recounts the trouble she had in settling into her new life, unable to speak English and yet forced to go to an English nursery, then on to school, while the revolution begins in Iran. Once the revolution in Iran is over, however, Hadi Khorsandi is exiled from his own country, and the Khorsandi family is forced to face up to the fact that they might never be able to return home.

Having read Persepolis recently, Marjane Satrapi’s memoir about growing up in revolutionary Iran, and a similar, though solitary, exile from her country, I was somewhat familiar with the politics behind Khorsandi’s memoir, but the book is more about family life than politics, and that is the real strength of the book; at heart, A Beginner’s Guide to English is simply the portrait of a close, creative, quite eccentric family, and their attempts to adjust to a new country, and a new way of life. Of course, things inevitably get more complicated than that, but I have no intention of spoiling the book for anyone.

What I actually found very satisfying when reading the book, though, was the fact that Shappi doesn’t try and write a “funny” book. Certainly, there is a lot of humour in the book, but this comes mainly from the actions of the family, such as when Shappi and her brother ‘play firemen’, and accidentally set fire to a brand-new sofa, but there are a lot of sad moments in the book, as well, and it is the balance between the two that is so satisfying. I won’t say that Shappi Khorsandi is breaking new literary ground with A Beginner’s Guide to Acting English, but the book is a moving, funny, and, above all, very satisfying read, the perfect choice for a couple of sunny days in the garden.