Books about dystopia

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party.

Into the neatly programmed world of test-tube babies and drug-controlled happiness, misfit Bernard Marx bring the innocent Savage. Aldous Huxley's famous version of the future is also a chilling and witty comment on the present.

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen.

In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder - for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him - but how and at what cost?

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless elite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control.

* An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize

It is a world without conflict, poverty and inequality. Conformity and happiness are a way of life. But for Jonas, things are different. While his friends are selected to be doctors or teachers, Jonas is sent to the Giver where he discovers the secrets that lie beneath the surface of his world.

In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. This is the dystopian novel.

Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and more primitive.

Imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. This is the story of love, friendship and memory, with a sense of the fragility of life.

This graphic novel is a complete 10-issue story, available for the first time in a Watchman-style edition. It has been illustrated in full colour by the artist, David Lloyd.

Philip K. Dick is the bestselling author of MINORITY REPORT and BLADE RUNNER

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases your flaws, transforming you from an 'Ugly' into a 'Pretty'. She is on the eve of this event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time.

The year is 2021. No child has been born for 25 years. The human race faces extinction. Under the despotic rule of the Warden of England, the old are despairing and the young cruel. Theo Faren, a cousin of the Warden encounters a young woman that leads him into contact with dissenters. And he faces agonising choices.

Described by Naomi Klein as 'Brilliant and hilarious', Jennifer Government is a thriller for the No Logo generation.