 | Crime and Punishment (Oxford World's Classics) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Buy used from: £0.92 The classic novel of soul-searching. Dostoevsky's psychological insight is outstanding. Read.
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 | 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Buy used from: £0.96 Such a well-known modern classic it hardly seems necessary to include it here. Immensly thought-provoking. You'll never look at the world the same way again.
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 | Zorba the Greek by N. Kazantzakis
Buy new: £10.80 / Used from: £1.68 Immensly under-rated Greek novel, I only found out about it by randomly choosing something to read from The Guardian's -Top 100 Books- Guaranteed to improve your life.
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 | Invisible Man (Essential Penguin) by Ralph Ellison
Buy used from: £2.37 An American classic, sadly largely unknown to Brits. (No, it's nothing to do with H.G. Wells.) More existentialism in a reader-friendly novel.
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 | The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Buy new: £4.89 / Used from: £1.44 A better-known American classic. Great characterisation and exploration of youth.
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 | Of Human Bondage (Vintage classics) by William Somerset Maugham
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £4.98 The first piece of *real literature* I read when 15. Another penetrating story about youth and growing up, provides an interest contrast to Salinger.
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 | Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela Conde
Buy used from: £5.67 Grotesque yet contains a lot of profound insight. Not for the faint-hearted. Unfortunately difficult to find a translation.
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 | No Longer at Ease (African Writers Series) by Chinua Achebe
Buy used from: £2.15 This is by no means Achebe's most famous work, bu t it is a personal favourite of mine. Great depiction of the problems of Nigerian urban life.
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 | The Plague (Penguin Modern Classics) by Albert Camus
Buy new: £6.24 / Used from: £3.00 A fine novel, touching any reader's emotions. Easier to get to grips with than L'Etranger for those starting out with Camus. I can recommend this translation
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 | Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Buy new: £4.97 / Used from: £0.82 Challenging, and I didn't find it as *difficult to put down* as everyone told me it would be. Nevertheless, worth the struggle, and I consider it a better advocate of *magical realism* than Marquez.
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 | Wuthering Heights (Wordsworth Classics) by Emily Bronte
Buy new: £1.99 / Used from: £0.01 Was my No. 1 recommendation for a long time. Prose can be rambling, confused, and winding at times, but characterisation is outstanding.
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 | In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Buy new: £11.73 / Used from: £4.68 Lost even more sleep over this one than '1984'. If there is one writer I wish I could emulate, it is Capote.
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 | The Queen of Spades (Dover Thrift) by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
Buy new: £1.25 / Used from: £0.01 Queen of Spades is an amusing and ironic little novella. Worth setting aside a couple of hours to read. At this price, just include it whenever you're making another purchase.
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 | Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
Buy new: £6.29 / Used from: £0.01 One of the easier to read of the Russian classics. Turgenev writes more beautifully and coherently, if not as subtly and comprehensively as Dostoevsky.
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 | Don Quixote de la Mancha (Oxford World's Classics) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Buy new: £8.99 / Used from: £0.34 No self-respecting Spanish student couldn't include it. A laugh a minute if you're in to this kind of thing. And you may well be surprised to find that you are.
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