With giant cats, the Devil as a stage magician, and a lot of concern about Pontius Pilates' migraines, we've never read a book that fulfilled the brief of this show more than this Russian novel written in the 1930s but not published until the 60s. It's also Daniel Radcliffe' s favorite book!

Recommendations:

* The film The Death of Stalin

* Sabriel and its sequels by Garth Nix

* The current HBO miniseries about Catherine the Great starring Helen Mirren

* The Heart of a Dog also by Mikhail Bulgakov