This list obviously flawed and contentious but put it down to boyish ambition if you will.

1920s All Quiet on the Western Front: Erich Maria Remarque (1929)

The carnage of WW1 left a bitter legacy for which Germany was blamed. This German novel showed German soldiers to be human beings suffering in the same way as the British. It helped create inter-war pacifism.

1930s Heavy Weather: P G Wodehouse (1933)

This is a Blandings novel featuring the Empress of Blanding: a pig. Don’t worry about the storyline just focus on the magnificence of the surreal humour.

1940s 1984: George Orwell (1949)

British people worship the Surveillance Society. Orwell’s nightmare is here. Big Brother is all pervasive just as predicted. The building blocks of a 2023 police state is in place.

1950s Stranger on a train: Patricia Highsmith (1950)

Stranger meet on a train and agree to kill the other persons target. They believe that as there is no connexion between them and the victim they’ll escape justice.

1960s The Godfather: Mario Puzo (1969)

Puzo got under the skin of the Mafia and changed crime writing for ever. His characters were human as well as being psychopathic murderers.

1970s The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe: Douglas Adams (1979)

An utterly brilliant scifi/fantasy/black humour/social commentary novel. No known genre. The earth is about to be destroyed by a building programme for an inter-galactic highway! Arthur Dent escapes and here are his adventures.

1980s The Bonfire of the Vanities: Tom Wolfe (1987)

All social rules are abandoned to make money. And the money- makers are worshipped as Masters of the Universe. When reality hits their world stops – except it didn’t did it?

1990s The Girl with the Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier (1999)

She gently delves into the relationship between a ‘sitter’ and the artist: Vermeer. Beautifully written

2000s The Devotion of Suspect X: Keigo Higashino (2005)

Immensely cunning plot brilliantly written and a classic police procedural. If you can get past the locale and names you’ll be rewarded

2010s Gone Girl: Gillian Flynn (2012)

Hyper-clever this was so successful that it spawned an entire genre of books with ‘Girl’ in their titles. Brilliant writing and a great finale.

End note: All the books have been filmed but the only one recommended is Godfather 2