Russia

• One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn*
• Among the Russians - Colin Thubron*
• The Spirit-wrestlers - Philip Marsden*
• A Hero's Daughter - Andrei Makine*

China

• Wild Swans - Jung Chang
• The Long March - Jocelyn & McEwen
• Red Dust - Ma jian
• Empress Orchid - Anchee Min*
• Mao: The Unknown Story - Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

Tibet

• Seven Years in Tibet - Heinrich Harrer*
• Sky Burial - Xinran
• Fire under the Snow - Palden Gyatso
• For Tibet with Love - Isabel Losada
• Freedom in Exile - Daila Lama

India

• The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy*
• Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie*
• Shalimar the Clown - Salman Rushdie 
• The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh
• India: A Million Mutinies Now - V.S. Naipaul
• The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (also covers Nepalese issues)

Burma/Myanmar

• The Glass Palace - Amitav Gosh
• Burmese Days - George Orwell

Sri Lanka

• Cinnamon Gardens - Shyam Selvadurai

South-East Asia

• The Gate - Francois Bizot (Cambodia)
• Mad about the Mekong - John Keay (Loas/Cambodia/Vietnam)
• The Quiet American - Graham Greene

And to keep the brain active: Collapse - How societies choose to fail or survive by Jared Diamond*