Olga Tokarczuk

Which would you read if it was your first?

Depends what you're after: of the three I've read Drive Your Plow is the most conventional - not a criticism, there's more than enough in it to elevate it above a typical thriller; if you're a fan of Sebald then Flights might be more appealing.

I wasn't hugely looking forward to The Books of Jacob - a 1000 page doorstop about a real life heretical messianic Jewish sect in 18th century Poland didn't really sound like my idea of a good time. And it's a little bit daunting at first: it starts in media res without any context or explanation; characters pile in without introduction; 18th century placenames, Polish names and Hebrew and Turkish words are scattered throughout (I was confused when they talked about crossing the river from Poland to Turkey until I realised the latter is what we call the Ottoman Empire). But slowly things come together and start to make sense - I did consult wikipedia once or twice but only for background detail, and though it's vast and sprawling, and many of the secondary characters remained obscure to me (if I ever reread it I will do so with the aid of a 'murder wall', names stuck up and linked with red thread), nevertheless it's not a particularly tough read, and an extraordinary tale of desperate people believing extraordinary things in the face of all the evidence.