The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge (1949)

Ok, I confess. I have a macabre penchant for gulag fiction, and this is my favourite of the lot. While Koestler & Solzhenitsyn graphically portray interrogation and exile respectively, Serge takes a panoramic approach showing how a Stalinist purge rippled out from a random incident to ensnare old heroes and young zealots alike. And he ought to know - having spent years in a Russian prison in the 1930s. This is a masterfully constructed tale written in an immensely readable style, but it is the unique window into the remorseless machinery of a totalitarian state and its justifications that make this book essential cautionary reading.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1921)

Orwell’s 1984 & Huxley’s Brave New World owe this work a (not always acknowledged) debt. Written in 1920 and banned by the Soviets before publication, We is set in the 32nd century where society, known as One State, allows its citizens no freedom in order to safeguard them from crime and secure their ‘happiness’. The story follows D-503 (people have numbers, not names), a respected mathematician, who comes to question what One State stands for. Eerily prescient of the Stalinist and Nazi horrors that were just around the corner, Zamyatin’s dystopian sci-fi trailblazer retains a freshness you might not expect from a novel now 90 years old.

Peat Smoke and Spirit by Andrew Jefford (2005)

Jefford is a wine writer and this book purports to survey the famous whisky distilleries on the Hebridean island of Islay. But it does much more than that. Delving into the remarkable history of this Western Isle while bringing the salty, wet and heather strewn landscape to life, Jefford manages to capture the essence of the island, its people and yes, the whisky. He is a gifted writer and this fine work will leave you longing to up and go. So do the next best thing: read it on a winter’s night by the fire, a dram of Ardbeg within easy reach.

Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)

Published as an article in The New Yorker in 1946, Hiroshima was one of the first western accounts of atomic obliteration and awoke the American public to the full horror of these weapons. The story follows six survivors of the bomb and graphically describes the death and destruction wrought. The emotionless, clinical style of writing has the effect of removing Hersey from the story, allowing the words of the survivors extra impact. Hiroshima is often cited as an early example of ‘New Journalism’, a more intensive and literary form of reporting. It remains one of the most remarkable and influential pieces of journalism from the 20th century.

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (1940)

Yes, it has an unsavoury title but don’t let that put you off this outstanding novel. Only really discovered in the 1960s, The Man Who Loved Children might be the greatest novel ever written about a dysfunctional family – or a family full stop. Stead, an ex-pat Australian, set the novel on the US east coast but it is largely autobiographical. The parents, Sam & Henny are two of the best realised characters I have encountered in literature and Tim Winton is telling a big fat fib if he doesn’t admit that Cloudstreet was largely inspired by this all-too-neglected masterpiece.