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Probably the most well-thumbed text in the Beat writers’ canon, Kerouac’s On The Road has been credited with much influence in creating the counter-culture that would blossom in the 60s and 70s. Written in spontaneous prose, it is the ultimate literary road trip, a patchwork of Americana, jazz, booze and drugs. I feel that the best age group for this book would be the upper Key Stage 2 and lower Key Stage 3 due to the sensitive areas touched upon in the book. The book should be used for individual reading as some children may find it hard to engage with, especially if they have similar situations at home, for example, their parents splitting up. This is a novel of such stunning prose that it demands to be read by all. Set in Scotland, it's about people's lives that mirror the erratic nature of the sea. It's the type of novel that sweeps you away with its words and themes and makes you think about why we all exist, all crafted in the most beautiful of ways. Bizarre, brilliant, and for Pynchon, brief, The Crying of Lot 49 concerns his heroine Oedipa Maas and her quest to uncover a conspiracy surrounding a shadowy alternative postal service working on the US underground. Though only short, Pynchon weaves multi-threaded plot in what might be a parody of post-modernism, despite being a notable example of the genre. I learnt that the things or people you really love can save your life,also that dogs are really important to some people.

A young American Jew travels to the Ukraine to try and find the woman who saved his grandfather’s life during the Nazi occupation. Bizarre, funny and touching, it marked its author Jonathan Safran Foer out as a smouldering talent.If there’s a cooler writer than Hemingway, we’ll eat our hats. And coats. His first novel finds American journalist Jake Barnes and a group of hard-drinking cohorts travelling from Paris to Pamplona to immerse themselves in bullfighting. Less a love triangle than a love pentagon emerges with the sexually unrepressed Lady Brett Ashley, causing smouldering tension in the Basque country. With A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers scored himself a place as a finalist for a Pulitzer, as well as topping many a ‘book of the year’ list. A fictionalised memoir about having to raise his eight-year-old brother as a 20-year-old following the deaths of both their parents, it was much as its title suggested.

Morpurgo is able to touch on issues such as separated parents, blame and grief in a very delicate way. This book is similar to David Almond's book 'Skellig' in the fact that it is hard to put down!

When Movern Callar wakes up to find her boyfriend dead in the kitchen, having taken his own life, she decides to steal and sell his unpublished novel, passing it off as her own work. Warner won the prestigious Somerset Maugham prize for his debut novel, and it was also made into a film by Lynne Ramsay. The story is a narrative from Robbie: Of his experiences, his inner feelings, his imaginations about people who meet him every day, his hopes and sometimes feeling of hopelessness as he lies on the hospital bed, on life support, unable to express himself, yearning to get better someday. Vastly disturbing, Banks’ first novel caused a storm of controversy for the blank violence emitting from its troubled protagonist Frank Cauldhame, who describes a childhood growing up on the rugged north east coast of Scotland. The impending arrival of Frank’s brother Eric, who has escaped from an asylum, coupled with Franks bursts of mindless anger, create an unsettling gothic horror. Perfume is a book that is unique in its inception and intoxicating in execution. It follows the life of the wretched Grenouille in 18th century France, an abandoned child with an astonishing acute sense of smell. In search of the perfect scent, he becomes a prolific and talented murderer, while studying the ancient art of making perfume. A book unlike any other.