The Danzig Trilogy: The best place to begin? The trilogy which includes three of his finest works: The Tin Drum (1959), Cat and Mouse (1961) and Dog Years (1963).
Crabwalk (2002): Based on the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise ship turned refugee carrier, by a Soviet submarine in January, 1945. About 9,000 people, mainly women and children were lost. W.G.Sebald had initiated the telling of German wartime civilian grief and Grass and others followed.
Peeling the Onion (2007): One of the finest literary memoirs, not merely because in it Grass uses history as a flawed backdrop as effectively as he does in his fiction, but because the very act of telling is done with humour, candour and a beguiling sense of remorse.
Too Far Afield (1995): Absolutely brilliant. Grass's most laconic work. It follows two old men wandering through Berlin, swopping memories and reflecting on the many changes, as well as the uneasy tensions created by German unification.
My Century (1999): This is a wonderful collection of 100 stories, one for every year of the 20th century, events big and small, each told through the eyes of a different, highly individual narrator.
