A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)

Blake Morrison considers Burgess's brief novel to be "a work of the highest integrity"; personally I have always found it facile and meretricious and slightly nasty. The post Joycean tricks with language seem very stagey now (they seemed dated even thirty years ago) and while there is a tongue in cheek quality about the book which disarms heavyweight or moralistic strictures, it also exemplifies the more cynical, throwaway, exploitative aspect of Sixties culture.