Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)

A man is found brutally and horribly murdered near his remote home in the fogs of Dartmoor. The Baskerville Curse has laid its icy fingers in each member of the family one by one. And there is the Hound, savage, appalling, hellish and deadly. Sherlock Holmes’ powers are stretched to the full in the most thrilling and suspenseful of all his investigations.

Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

This novel is considered the best and most successful of the early mysteries. It met with no small outrage when it appeared, as it uses a plot device many readers thought "unfair." There are all the characters in the cozy English village of King's Abbot: Major Blunt, Colonel Carter, Miss Gannett, the butler, the housekeeper, the narrator, Dr. Sheppard, and his know-it-all sister, and, of course, the redoubtable Hercule Poirot and his little grey cells. There are clues to mislead us, and the reader gets so involved with these red herrings that he doesn’t see the very simple truth. A classic of the genre that belongs in any collection.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1950)

Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten year, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs, nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames. Until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think, and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.

Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana (1958)

Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman, was short of money. His daughter had reached an expensive age -  so he accepted Hawthorne’s offer of $300 or more a month, and became agent 59200/5, MI5’s man in Havana. To keep the job, Wormold pretends to recruit sub-agents and sends fake stories. Then the stories start coming disturbingly true.

Charles Webb, The Graduate (1963)

Benjamin Braddock wants to be bad. So the college boy with a perfect future revolts against his life in the suburb. And when his parents’ friend Mrs. Robinson strips naked in front of him and offers to teach him the things he never learned at school, it seems an affair with an ‘Older Woman’ could give him the adult education he’s been looking for. But there is Elaine, too, Mrs Robinson's daughter, who he falls in love with. 

N. H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Socoety (1989)

Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor John Keating has challenged them to "make your lives extraordinary“. Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society, a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild. They discover the beauty of language, but also the importance of making each moment count. But they soon realize that their newfound freedom can have tragic consequences.

Nick Hornby, About a Boy (1998)

Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success. If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant gorgeous women might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers – bright, attractive, available women – thousands of them, were all over London. It was a brilliant plan. And it seemed to go quite well at first, until he met a twelve-year-old named Marcus, who was more than Will bargained for.