MY SIX BEST BOOKS

ANTONY BEEVOR, 71, is a military historian whose books include the award-winning Stalingrad, Berlin: The Downfall 1945 and The Second World War. His latest, Arnhem: The Battle For The Bridges, 1944 (Viking, £25), is out now. YOUR FACE TOMORROW

by Javier Marías

Penguin, £9.99 each Marías’s novel in three volumes constitutes one of the greatest works in modern European literature. His protagonist works for a secret department whose task is to attempt to predict people’s future actions.

Twisting like the double helix of human DNA, it is an unashamed novel of ideas. ON BEAUTY

by Zadie Smith

Penguin, £8.99 Although inspired by EM Forster’s Howards End and richly comic in its portrayal of the paradox of contemporary mores and political correctness, this is no pastiche.

I think it is her greatest novel as she subverts stereotypes brilliantly and mischievously. THE RED AND THE BLACK

by Stendhal

Penguin, £9.99 A compelling novel of love, ambition, obstinacy and romantic tragedy. It features a fascinating fictional hero, a brilliant meritocrat who is brought down by the reactionary French establishment. I first read it in Paris 45 years ago. FATHERS AND SONS

by Ivan Turgenev

Penguin Classics, £7.99 The simplicity and beauty of the prose, plus Turgenev’s uncanny gift to convey mood and character in a few words, provide an object lesson for every aspiring writer. LIFE AND FATE

by Vasily Grossman

Vintage, £10.99 This is an homage to Leo Tolstoy’s War And Peace but the characters and the terrible dilemmas they face when confronted by the moral distortions of the system are entirely the product of the Stalinist period. When I was researching Stalingrad, I found Grossman’s original notebooks about that battle. His eye for detail was extraordinary. CATCH-22

by Joseph Heller

Vintage, £9.99 Probably the most devastating satire written about the lunacy of war and military bureaucracy. Set in Italy towards the end of the Second World War it is a triumph of construction with its fiendishly unbreakable circle of counter-logic.