We've all probably read this one, but it is well worth revisiting. Everybody is happy in the Year of Ford 632 – the Alphas, the Betas, Gammas and Deltas – even the Epsilon semi-morons (someone has to take out the garbage). So many of life's troubles have been eliminated. Of course, if you are a slightly deformed Alpha who thinks too much, or a young man wrenched from the Savage Reservation of New Mexico (where life is nasty, brutish and real), you may have problems.

Huxley was a unforgiving critic of popular culture and in our sex-drenched, drug fueled world, where college youth casually "hook up" (everyone belongs to everyone else) and demand "trigger warnings" to shield them from the traumas that works of literature might hold in store, Brave New World is surprisingly up-to-date.