This week marked 70 years since the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bomb and the subsequent nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union provided the single greatest influence on cultural production in the second half of the 20th century.As eccentric jazz legend Sun Ra said in 1982: "Nuclear War. It's a muthafucka. Don't you know? If they push that button. Your ass gotta go."Here is a selection of books that still stand as great works of reportage, biography and imagination in the terrible age of the mushroom cloud.Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946)Hersey's account of the bombing of Hiroshima, told through the voices of six survivors of the blast on August 6 1945, was published as an entire issue of The New Yorker in August 1946. It remains not only Hersey's signature work but one of the most influential pieces of reportage written, still in print 70 years later. The New Yorker made the original piece available to readers on its website last week: www.newyorker.comThe Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai (1949)A physician, Roman Catholic and survivor of the Nagasaki bomb, Nagai wrote this memoir while dying of leukaemia. It describes the events of August 9, reflected through the author's Christianity, and views the Japanese as martyrs who suffered the atrocities so they will never be repeated.Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa (1975)Nakazawa's comic based on his experiences as a survivor of Hiroshima is one of the most acclaimed mangas of all time. In his recent introduction to a reissue of the book, Pulitzer prize-winning comic artist Art Spiegelman says of Nakazawa: "His draftsmanship is somewhat graceless, even homely ... but it gets the job done. It is clear and efficient, and it performs the essential magic trick of all good narrative art: the characters come to living, breathing life."When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs (1982)British illustrator Briggs is probably best known for The Snowman, but this bleak account of an ordinary British couple dealing with the announcement of a nuclear attack is a sad and poignant tale which imagines the impact of an apocalyptic event on the lives of everyday people. It was made into a film of the same name in 1986.The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (1986)Rhodes's exhaustively researched account of the developments in physics that led to the creation of the bomb won him numerous awards, including the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. The book is still remarkable for its scope and the way in which it makes difficult scientific principles accessible.Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997)Not completely concerned with the bomb but often referring to it, DeLillo's magnum opus is the great American novel of the late 20th century. It describes the American consciousness in the nuclear age through a narrative that combines invented and historical characters.American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin (2005)Twenty-five years in the making, this is the definitive look at the head of the Manhattan Project. From his rise through the ranks of physics to his hounding by anti-communist politicians, Bird and Sherwin paint a complex portrait of a misunderstood figure...