The Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau — Rousseau spent several important years in Neuchâtel canton, at Môtiers in the Val de Travers, and this late work was written partly in that period. It captures his sense of the landscape and his philosophical isolation better than any other writing about the region.
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley — a novel set partly in the watchmaking world of the late nineteenth century, drawing on the Swiss precision engineering tradition that Neuchâtel was central to. Readable and inventive.
Switzerland: An Unfinished Portrait by Rolf Kälin — a thoughtful essay-driven account of modern Switzerland that covers the tensions and paradoxes of Swiss identity: the neutrality, the banking secrecy, the linguistic divisions. Neuchâtel, as a French-speaking enclave in a German-majority country, is relevant to these tensions.
The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester — a history of precision engineering that gives substantial attention to the Swiss watchmaking industry and the role of places like Neuchâtel in developing the standards of accuracy that the modern world depends on.