Travel and history
The Gates of Damascus by Lieve Joris (1996) — A Belgian journalist's portrait of Damascus in the early 1990s, told through her friendship with a woman whose husband is a political prisoner. One of the best accounts of ordinary Syrian life, beautifully written.
From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple (1997) — Dalrymple traces the journey of a 6th-century Byzantine monk through the Middle East and finds a world of Christian communities in decline. The Syria chapters, covering Damascus and Aleppo, are among the finest travel writing on the country.
Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad by David Lesch (2012) — An American academic with unusual access to Bashar al-Assad charts the collapse of a regime. Essential modern history.
The Ancient Road: From Aleppo to Baghdad in the Days of the Ottoman Empire by John S. Guest — An account of the old overland route through the heart of Syria and Iraq, with vivid historical detail.
Literature
The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali (1998) — A novel about Saladin, told through the eyes of his Jewish secretary. Rich historical fiction set partly in Damascus.
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel (1933) — A novel about the Armenian resistance during the 1915 genocide, set along the Syrian coast. Harrowing and important.
No Knives in the Kitchens of This City by Khaled Khalifa (2013, English translation 2016) — A Syrian novelist's account of a Damascus family across several decades of Ba'athist rule. One of the most important Syrian novels available in English.
On the civil war
The Morning They Came For Us by Janine di Giovanni (2016) — A war correspondent's account of Syria during the worst years of the conflict. Unflinching reportage.
Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War by Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Shami (2016) — The most thorough English-language account of the Syrian uprising, drawing on interviews with dozens of Syrians. Required reading for anyone who wants to understand what happened.