Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West -- The definitive book on Yugoslavia, written after West's travels through the region in 1937. It is long, opinionated, and brilliant -- part travelogue, part history, part meditation on the Balkans. Essential reading for understanding Serbia's place in the region.
The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia by Tim Judah -- A clear-eyed account of Serbian history and the wars of the 1990s, by a journalist who covered the conflicts extensively. It explains how mythology and history intertwine in the Serbian national consciousness.
The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia by Brian Hall -- Hall traveled through Yugoslavia in 1991, just before the wars began. His encounters with ordinary people -- Serbs, Croats, Bosnians -- are vivid and poignant, and the book captures a world on the edge of collapse.
Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allan Little -- The most accessible account of the Yugoslav wars, originally a BBC documentary series. Essential for understanding modern Serbia's context.
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric -- A Nobel Prize-winning novel spanning four centuries of life around a stone bridge in Visegrad (now in Bosnia). Andric was a Serbian writer from Bosnia, and the novel captures the layered history of the region better than any history book.