A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange

Foremost in the genre, this novel uses difficult and disorientating language - Burgess's own invented teenage argot of Nadsat - to relate a story of extreme violence and moral anarchy. Four thugs run riot until their leader, Alex, is caught, jailed and an attempt made to reform him by methods as depraved as his own. A brilliant and terrifying examination of the nature of good and evil.