Tears of Blood -- a cry for Tibet, by Mary Craig, is a riveting and distressing account of the Tibetan experience since the Chinese takeover.
John Avedon's In Exile from the Land of Snows is largely an account of the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, but is an excellent and informative read.
Freedom in Exile by the Dalai Lama - his autobiography, and a good insight into the mind of the man. With great humility the Dalai Lama outlines his personal philosophy, his hope to be reunited with his homeland and the story of his life. For those with an academic bent, look out for Civilised Shamans -- Buddhism in Tibetan Societies by Geoffrey Samuel, a fascinating anthropological investigation into the nature of Tibetan Buddhism and its relationship with the indigenous Bön faith. Keith Dowman's new The Sacred Life of Tibet builds on his earlier The Power Places of Central Tibet and provides an excellent insight into how Tibetans see the spiritual landscape of their land.
The enduring myth of Shangri-la owes much to James Hilton's 1937 classic novel Lost Horizon, which tells the story of a group of westerners who crash land into an earthly paradise somewhere in remotest Tibet.
One unusual book that might be worth checking out is Invading Tibet, a novel by Mark Frutkin based on the story of Edmund Chandler, the journalist who accompanied Younghusband's British invasion of Tibet in 1904.
In Seven Years in Tibet, Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer tells the story of his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp via the Himalayas, and his subsequent friendship with the Dalai Lama in Tibet before the Chinese invasion.
Peter Hopkirk's Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Secret Exploration of Tibet, details the pre- and post-invasion history of Tibet
The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk - another great history book that reads almost like a novel (without implying it's dumbed down); the tale of the stealthy, covert war waged across Central Asia and the NW Frontier between the British and Russian Empires in the nineteenth century. Gripping stuff.
Danziger's Travels by Nick Danziger - an epic journey through Pakistan, China and Tibet in the early 1980s when the area was just opening up.
A Mountain in Tibet by Charles Allen - the story of the hunt for Mt Kailas in Western Tibet, the source of four of Asia's sacred rivers and once believed to be a myth. A somewhat contrived premise for gathering together stories of Victorian derring-do, but still an enjoyable read if you're interested in the history of the period
