The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov — Bulgakov's first novel, set in the Kyiv of his own childhood during the chaos of 1918-19, when the city changed hands several times between the Whites, Reds, Ukrainian nationalists, and Germans. The Turbin family's apartment is now the Bulgakov museum on Andriyivskyy Descent.
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov — a deadpan, surreal novel by Ukraine's best-known contemporary writer, set in post-Soviet Kyiv. Kurkov writes in Russian about Ukrainian life; his catalogue is a useful entry point to the country's contradictions.
Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov — Kurkov's 2018 novel about a beekeeper living in the abandoned no-man's-land of the Donbas war is the best fiction yet written about the prelude to the 2022 invasion. Not set in Kyiv itself but indispensable for understanding what came after.
Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder — Yale historian's account of the lands between Berlin and Moscow, 1933 to 1945. Both the Holodomor and the Holocaust in Ukraine, including Babyn Yar, are central to the narrative. Essential context for anyone visiting the city's twentieth-century memorials.
The Gates of Europe by Serhii Plokhy — a fast, readable single-volume history of Ukraine from prehistory to the present, written by a Harvard historian born in Ukraine. The best survey for a traveller wanting one book.