Best books… David Grann

Bestselling author David Grann selects his six favourite books. His own latest book, the true-life murder mystery Killers of the Flower Moon, is available from Simon & Schuster at £20

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich, 2008 (Harper Perennial £9.99). In this exquisitely written work of fiction, Erdrich reveals how an act of racial injustice reverberates through a community for decades. Ultimately, how the descendants of the perpetrators and victims intertwine becomes the story of America.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, 1938 (Penguin £7.99). No one has written with more unflinching honesty than Orwell, and, in this age in which journalism is under siege, his chronicle of his time fighting in the Spanish civil war is a reminder of the power of truth-telling.

Libra by Don Delillo, 1988 (Penguin £9.99). Though Underworld is considered Delillo’s masterpiece, I’ve always preferred this taut, mesmerising book about Lee Harvey Oswald, CIA spooks, and the assassination of President Kennedy.

Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell, 1992 (Vintage £11.99). Rather than focus on the elite, Mitchell devoted his reporting, especially during and after the Great Depression, to the underbelly of New York: the con artists, the panhandlers and the freak show artists. His stories about this world are beautifully rendered and compelling.

The Complete Stories by Flannery O’connor, 1971 (Faber & Faber £12.99). Populated with miscreants and bigots and preachers, these visceral short stories have stayed with me since I first read them decades ago. Elliptical and funny, without ever being didactic, they get as close to the human condition, with its savageness and grace, as anything I’ve read.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1866 (Vintage £10.99). This novel about Rodion Raskolnikov, a tormented Russian intellectual who commits murder, remains one of the most penetrating crime stories ever written.