This is a very era-specific question, and indeed one that varies depending on the region and person as well, as life in the Soviet Union was quite different for a villager in 1920s Ukraine compared to someone in 1950s Moscow, or 1980s Tashkent.

However there are some books that can be read. For the earlier years, Sheila Fitzpatrick has written some of the best books on the topic. Her 1994 Stalin's Peasants (1994) looks at the Soviet peasants during the era of collectivization. It is one of, if not the, leading books on the topic, and Fitzpatrick is an acknowledged authority on Soviet life in this era. Thus her Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (1999), which looks at life in urban Soviet Russia (she clearly makes the distinction) is a good companion here, and it is a very comprehensive look at things. A different view of the early Soviet era is found in Cultivating the Masses: Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914-1939 by David L. Hoffman (2011), and Stephen Kotkin's Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (1995) is a study of one city during this era, and a major one at that in that it was one of the first to look at the Soviet Union from the bottom up.

There are some others that look at the later Soviet era (Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation by Alexei Yurchak (2005) is a good look at the 1960-1980 era) I am not as familiar with the era so would hesitate to make recommendations at the moment, though I know there are some other flaired users here who may be able to expand on it (hopefully they see this).

As to the issue of "political spin", that could is something that is honestly best served as a separate question. The historiography of Soviet studies is a topic unto its own, and quite a fascinating one. Aside from the political aspect of the topic, which presents its own issues, there was also the fact that throughout the Cold War most Western scholars were not able to access the archives in the Soviet Union, or were very heavily restricted in doing so. As such a lot of publications from that era were based on sources that were easily accessible in the West, which is to say not nearly enough to make a proper study. This has changed in the past 30 years, and while there is still quite a bit of material not open (in both Russia and other former Soviet Republics; Central Asia in particular is quite difficult to get into), the archival material read now has seen a fundamental shift in a lot of studies. This will (hopefully) continue in the coming years as people continue to mine the archives for new and exciting information, which will also mean that any perceived biases can be smoothed out with continued access to the primary documents of the era. For a good overview of the historiography of the Soviet Union I'd highly recommend Ronald Grigor Suny's Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians, and the Russian Revolution (2017), which looks at how the Soviet Union was studied, noting nearly every major book that came out in the 70 years the USSR existed. He also has written The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents (2003) which is a series of essays on topics ranging the entire Soviet era by appropriate scholars, and includes primary sources for reference.