 | Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £0.01 Serial killer Hannibal Lecter is called in to aid a detective chasing another murderer. The book really gets into the mind of the investigator and shows you how he pieces things together.
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 | The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £0.01 More of an action book that its predecessor, and features Lecter more prominantly. He comes across as such a likeable character that his psychotic behaviour is doubly shocking.
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 | Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Buy used from: £0.01 Lecter is finally the star of the show, but the believability of the storyline is stretched by the pantomime villain, an old victim of Lecter's who is out for revenge.
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 | A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) by Anthony Burgess
Buy new: £3.47 / Used from: £1.34 A real rarity, a classic that is actually good. Violent teenager Alex is subjected to an experimental cure for his evil ways. Like Hannibal, he seems so likeable his actions are all the more shocking
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 | All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Buy new: £3.07 / Used from: £3.12 Vivid, gripping, but above all moving, this is probably the most affecting book I have ever read. Dispells the glamour of war within a chapter.
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 | My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl
Buy new: £2.90 / Used from: £0.01 Hilariously inventive, Dahl is criminally overlooked as an adult's author. A bizarre, globe-trotting scheme to steal and then sell the sperm of the world's greatest thinkers, artists and musicians.
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 | Metamorphosis (Read Red) by Franz Kafka
Buy used from: £3.50 The surreal tale of a man who wakes up transformed into a giant beetle is a very effective metaphor for rejection from society.
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 | Neuromancer by William Gibson
Buy new: £4.99 / Used from: £1.36 After a promising opening this quickly descends into a confusing and barely explained mess. I think the story was about an AI which hires a hacker to set it free, but I might be wrong. Disappointing.
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 | Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow
Buy new: £1.31 / Used from: £0.01 A lawyer is sent to track down an AWOL officer in France during World War Two. Good in its own right, but there is too much flagwaving and only a shade of the power of All Quiet on the Western Front
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 | Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £1.24 Beautifully written and populated with lively characters, the story is a standard family saga, but this really only a stage for an eye opening account of the troubles in Kashmir
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 | Wilt by Tom Sharpe
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £0.01 A real waste of a great idea; a man is seen burying an inflatable doll the night his wife disappears and is accused of her murder. Barely any laughs, but plenty of annoying characters.
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 | Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01 I can only take my hat off to the concept, but the writing is functional at best, and the characters are all flat stereotypes. About the only book which is inferior to its film adaption.
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 | Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton
Buy new: £3.99 / Used from: £0.01 A standard cold war story of a plot to smuggle a Soviet scientist to Britain.
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