Ten of the best books set in Amsterdam

Malcolm Burgess is the publisher of Oxygen Books' City-Lit series, featuring writing on cities including Berlin, Paris, London, Venice and Dublin.

For the Guardian, in 2011 he named ten of the best books set in Amsterdam, including:

Dubravka Ugresic, The Ministry of Pain, 2005

Amsterdam has always been a haven for refugees and Dubravka Ugresic shows us with great insight the lives of eastern European immigrants in a poorer district of the city.

"I would take the Zeedijk, in the direction of the Nieuwmarkt … Sipping my morning coffee, I would observe the people stopping at stalls displaying herring, vegetables, wheels of Dutch cheese and mounds of freshly baked pastries. It was the part of town with the greatest concentration of eccentrics … "
• The Oudezijds Kolk/Zeedijk area

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue