Read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Solzhenitsyn's literary investigation of the camps from 227 witnesses; the abridged edition is enough.

A poet-doctor and Lara through the revolution and civil war; smuggled out and given the Nobel.

A Roman patrician and a Christian girl under Nero; Sienkiewicz's Nobel.

Sethe, a runaway slave, and the ghost of the daughter she killed; Morrison's masterpiece.

Oskar stops growing at three and drums through Danzig's twentieth century; Grass's Nobel.

A woman's life in 14th-century Norway in three volumes; Undset's Nobel.

A butler drives to Cornwall and considers what he gave up for a lord; Ishiguro's Booker.

A murder among Ottoman miniaturists in 1591 Istanbul, told by everyone including the colour red.