Fiction
Ismail Kadare is Albania's most celebrated novelist and a perennial Nobel contender. His work is the essential starting point for anyone interested in Albania. The General of the Dead Army (1963) — a haunting meditation on war and memory — is a good entry point. Chronicle in Stone is a novel set in Gjirokastër during World War II, and Broken April deals with the blood feud tradition in the northern mountains. All are available in English translation.
History and travel
High Albania by Edith Durham (1909) is a classic account of travel among the northern mountain tribes at the end of the Ottoman era. Durham spent years in the region and wrote with genuine insight and sympathy. Still readable and remarkably relevant to understanding the north.
Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity by Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer traces the country's turbulent post-communist transition. Solid background for understanding how Albania arrived at where it is today.
The Accursed Mountains by Robert Carver is a more personal and darker account of travel in northern Albania in the mid-1990s, written when the country was at its most chaotic. Vivid and occasionally unreliable, but gripping.
Guidebooks
Bradt's Albania guide is the most thorough English-language guidebook, updated regularly. For archaeological sites, the Blue Guide to Albania remains the definitive reference.