RA Shreyas' top recommendations to get lost in your letters

The first week of February marks National Storytelling Week, and there are few better places to reflect on the power of stories than London. This is a city built on literature, from the coffee houses where Dickens serialized his novels, to Bloomsbury rooms where Woolf and her circle reshaped modern writing, to the theatres where Shakespeare’s words first echoed across the Thames. Stories have always lived here, woven into the streets, institutions, and everyday conversations of the city.

England’s literary history is not just about preserving classics on shelves. It is about the constant evolution of ideas, voices, and challenges to the world as it is. From gothic anxieties about science, to satire aimed at war and bureaucracy, storytelling has long been a way of thinking critically about power, progress, and humanity itself.

As Tyrion Lannister once put it: "A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

So, in the spirit of National Storytelling Week, and of living and studying in a city shaped by centuries of writers, here are five books I think are especially worth your time. Each one, in its own way, keeps that edge sharp.

I have tried to make this list such that you will find most of these books on Project Gutenberg, so you will have an excuse to read them anytime, anywhere. So, cuddle in with a book during this cold month and get lost in your letters!

#1: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Genre: Gothic Fiction / Science Fiction

Content note: themes of death, violence, and abandonment.

So begins Frankenstein, the story of Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant young scientist who becomes obsessed with the idea of creating life itself and succeeds. Horrified by what he has done, he abandons his creation, setting off a chain of consequences neither he nor the creature can escape.

Often described as the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein is fundamentally about what happens after innovation. Mary Shelley is not asking whether something can be created, but what responsibility comes with doing so. Written in 1818 as part of a creative challenge between Shelley, Byron, and their peers, the novel feels astonishingly modern in its concerns.

In today’s climate, where artificial intelligence and automation are advancing faster than our ability to regulate or morally process them, Frankenstein reads less like gothic horror and more like a warning. Victor’s failure is not creation, but refusal of accountability. The creature becomes dangerous only after isolation, neglect, and rejection. If you enjoy stories that blur the line between villain and victim, and force you to reconsider where blame really lies, this book is essential.

Honestly, the only thing cooler than this book is Mary Shelley’s own life, but that is a whole other story.

#2: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Genre: Satirical Fiction / War

Content note: war violence, death, and references to sexual assault.

With Catch-22, it genuinely was, given that this is my favourite book of all time.

The novel follows Yossarian, a US bomber pilot in World War II who wants desperately to stop flying combat missions without being punished for it. Unfortunately, he is trapped by a bureaucratic paradox, a Catch-22, the one catch that you must be insane to keep flying combat missions, but sane if you ask to stop, is funny right up until it isn’t.

What follows is a fast paced, absurd, and increasingly unsettling story that is as funny as it is angry. Catch-22 is often called a war novel, but that undersells it. So am I, calling it the funniest book ever. It is really a book about systems that are illogical, self-preserving, and indifferent to the people inside them.

Heller’s genius lies in how he makes you laugh first, and only later realise how bleak things have become. When asked by a journalist why he never wrote another book as good as Catch-22, Heller replied:

“Who has?”

It is a joke, but also the truth. Few novels capture the insanity of modern life so precisely, or remain so devastatingly accurate decades later.

#3: Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Genre: Philosophical Fiction

Content note: psychological distress and emotionally abusive behaviour.

Do not let that opening scare you off. It is meant to.

Notes from the Underground takes you inside the mind of an unnamed narrator who is deeply bitter, self-aware, and actively arguing against reason, progress, and even his own happiness. There is little conventional plot here. Instead, the book pulls you into a spiral of thought that feels uncomfortably familiar.

Often described as one of the first existentialist novels, it is short but intense, and mentally exhausting in the best way. Dostoevsky shows how pride, insecurity, and the desire to assert free-will can drive people to self-sabotage.

As someone with an empiricist and rationalist mindset, this book was a hard pill to swallow. The ending felt like a personal attack and left me genuinely devastated for about a week, which is exactly why I think it is worth reading.

(Aside: not all Dostoevsky translations are equal, so it is worth keeping that in mind when choosing an edition.)

#4: The Village by the Sea by Anita Desai

Genre: Literary Fiction

The Village by the Sea follows a family living in a small fishing village in India, where poverty, illness, and responsibility weigh heavily on the children. As industrialisation moves closer, the question of whether to stay or leave becomes unavoidable.

This is a quiet, deeply humane novel. Desai does not dramatise suffering, she observes it. Small moments carry emotional weight, and the landscape itself becomes part of the story’s texture.

Being from India myself, and understanding the tension between tradition, survival, and the need for change in order to dream, this book hits particularly close to home. If you enjoy character driven stories that linger gently rather than demand attention, this one is well worth your time.

#5: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Genre: Science Fiction / Anti-War Fiction

Content note: war violence and trauma.

Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time, slipping uncontrollably between moments of his life, including his experiences as a prisoner of war during the bombing of Dresden.

The novel blends war, time travel, and dark comedy, refusing linear storytelling in much the same way trauma refuses neat structure. The repeated phrase “So it goes” becomes a strange emotional shorthand, acknowledging death without lingering on it.

It is funny, heartbreaking, and quietly profound. This book understands that sometimes the only way to tell the truth about horror is indirectly. Fun fact: it’s also the reason I visited Dresden and was later questioned by the German police!

Eager for more book recommendations? Check out our other articles here!