 | A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Buy new: £6.71 / Used from: £3.24 Irving's finest book. Slightly better than 'The world according to Garp'. Truly a masterpiece.
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 | The Fermata by Nicholson Baker
Buy new: £5.98 / Used from: £0.01 A man discovers a way to freeze time and uses it primarily for voyeuristic purposes. Baker treads a fine moral line with great balance. Not for everyone as some passages are very sexually explicit.
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 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Buy new: £4.80 / Used from: £0.01 Life-changing. A must for anyone who has ever had a connection to the disabled and even even more so for those who haven't.
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 | The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Buy used from: £3.86 A love story complicated by the time travel of one partner only. A very difficult premise handled beautifully.
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 | City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Buy new: £5.48 / Used from: £0.01 The perfect book for adults to share with their children (12-15). Kids read a great adventure story and inthe process get to deal with issues like death, morality, conservation, and lots more.
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 | The Houdini Girl by Martyn Bedford
Buy used from: £0.01 Great combination of mystery and love story. Obsession and magic with a dark side.
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 | Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen
Buy used from: £0.01 Hiaasen's books all tread similar ground but this is still one of the best. Funny crime writing with a blunt, in-your face ecological message.
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 | Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser
Buy used from: £1.29 What became of Flashman, the bully from 'Tom Brown's School Days'? Cowardice, treachery, and unrepentant mysoginy as the greatest cad of them all changes the course of history. Hilarious.
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 | Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World by Tim Ecott
Buy new: £6.96 / Used from: £0.01 As close to a great scuba diving book as has ever been written. This is not a novel, it's part autobiography, part history lesson, but it does go some way to expressing the magic of diving.
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 | Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Buy new: £5.47 / Used from: £2.33 Gibson is one of the great modern science/cyber-fiction authors. This one is more of a mainstream/cyberfiction crossover and works brilliantly. Easily enjoyed by anyone.
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 | Automated Alice by Jeff Noon
Buy used from: £0.01 Noon is the other great modern science/cyber-fiction author. This book is utterly awesome in its originality and creativity. A knowledge of Alice in Wonderland and Noon's other books is usefull here.
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 | Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
Buy used from: £0.62 A great book about rebellion, freedom, responsability and consequences. Bone is a great lead character.
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 | The Witching Hour: Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice
Buy new: £6.47 / Used from: £2.40 Anne Rice used to be a great author before she started cashing in with hasty, badly written sequels. This is a great book about family, tradition, and the supernatural.
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 | Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks
Buy new: £5.23 / Used from: £0.01 What happens when a comedian makes a drunken bet to walk around the whole of Ireland with a fridge in tow? Just plain hilarious.
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 | Airframe by Michael Crichton
Buy new: £5.47 / Used from: £0.01 A great and scary thriller. Brilliantly researched as is usual for Crichton. Just do not read it before or during a flight or if you're already afraid of flying.
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 | The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar
Buy used from: £0.01 A classic. Fairies are real and they behave just as badly as humans. They drink to excess, they take drugs, and they have political, race and gang issues. Read it, it's brilliant.
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 | Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
Buy new: £5.38 / Used from: £0.01 You can't help but fall in love with Morvern Callar. A great book about strength and weakness and odd people in the scottish highlands.
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 | The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Buy new: £4.92 / Used from: £0.01 The book that established Ian Banks. Dark, very very dark and twisted. Also brilliant.
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 | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) by Hunter S. Thompson
Buy new: £4.49 / Used from: £2.33 One of the great books of this century. Do not read if drug use offends. Do read if chaos, humour, and true zeitgeist appeal.
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 | Transmission by Hari Kunzru
Buy new: £4.96 / Used from: £0.01 Kunzru is a real star for the future. This is his second book and brilliantly deals with issues of race, immigration, integration and technology.
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 | The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Buy new: £4.47 / Used from: £1.26 Another very dark but brilliant book. A stifling and compelling story of loss and incest. Shocking but utterly believable.
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 | The Art of Breaking Glass by Matthew Hall
Buy used from: £0.01 Great crime thriller. At times very violent but no more than your average serial killer novel. This one is just so well written.
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 | The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
Buy new: £5.17 / Used from: £0.01 A true cult classic. The story of a man who makes all his decisions based on the roll of the dice. With extreme consequences.
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