Tim Weaver: Five books everyone should read before they die..

 
1. The Bang Bang Club by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva 
Devastating, heartfelt, brilliant: a real-life account of South African photojournalists working the townships in the run-up to the 1994 elections.

2. A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
Two brothers stumble across a downed plane in an Ohio forest – with $4.4m inside. A beautifully written crime novel.

3. Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Even though it’s an intense, uncomfortable, difficult book, for me this is Coetzee’s most accessible work. It asks some big questions in its small story.

4. Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
He portrays LA every bit as definitively as MacDonald and Chandler, and Trunk Music is (probably) his best book: tight, gripping, visceral.

5. Marathon Man by William Goldman
Not seen the film? Read the book. Seen the film? Read the book. Slowburn first half gives way to a stunning twist and a breathtaking second half.

Tim Weaver’s Vanished (Penguin, £7.99) is out in paperback, July 19