“Swallowing Mercury” is a fictionalised memoir of the author’s childhood and adolescence in a small village in Communist Poland during the 1970s and 1980s.

The Zone of Interest” by Martin Amis tells the story of a German officer’s infatuation with Hannah, the wife of a concentration camp commander in Auschwitz. When the commander discovers the affair, he sends a member of the Sonderkommando (Jewish prisoners forced to work for the Nazis in the extermination of other Jews) to murder his wife.

“Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead” is a mystery novel set in a Polish village near the Czech border, where hunting is a favourite activity among the local men. The novel resolves around a series of murders in the village and the investigation led by Janina, an eccentric woman who believes that the men have been killed by animals as retribution for their cruel treatment of wildlife.

“The Emperor of Lies” is a historical novel about the Jewish people in the ghetto of Łódź, a city in central Poland, during World War II. The novel describes the horrific living conditions within the ghetto and focuses on the role of the Jewish Council (the ‘Judenrat’) and its controversial leader Chaim Rumkowski.

An old man takes care of holiday cottages at a Polish lake resort in the woods. When during the off-season a guest arrives to buy beans, the old man starts telling his life story, from his happy childhood to the brutality brought upon his family during the Second World War, and his adult life as a saxophone player. In the end, he returns to the place where his past and the entire village have vanished.

“Chasing the King of Hearts” recounts the harrowing story of the Polish-Jewish couple Izolda and Shayek during the Second World War. They escape the Warsaw Ghetto and try to survive the war by posing as non-Jewish Poles. When Shayek is captured and sent to Auschwitz, and later to Ebensee (a subcamp of Mauthausen), Izolda does everything in her power to save him. Both survive the war and resume their lives, acutely aware of the loss of their friends and family.

“Castorp” is a novel about the student years of Hans Castorp, the protagonist of Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”, and his romantic feelings for a Polish woman in Gdansk in the years before the outbreak of the First World War.

“Snow White and Russian Red” is a novel about a young man who is dumped by his girlfriend and seeks adventures with other girls. His mind is consumed with conspiracy theories, Polish nationalism and bad feelings about Russia, while his body craves sex and drugs.

In Antoni Libera’s coming-of-age novel “Madame”, a 17-year-old Polish teenager falls in love with his beautiful and sophisticated French teacher and embarks on a quest to get her attention and uncover the secrets of her past. The novel is set in Communist Warsaw during the 1960s.

A group of friends travel to the Beskid Mountains in southern Poland for a winter walking expedition and to seek purpose in their lives. Instead, they end up drinking too much, and after an accidental death, the events spiral out of control, leading them to flee from the police.