Lord of the Flies

After a plane crash leaves a group of British boys alone on a Pacific island, they try to organize themselves with a conch shell, elected leaders and a signal fire. Gradually, fear and the pull of the hunt erode the rules.

Golding's fable is brutal and brilliantly constructed. Ralph's reasonableness and Jack's appetite for power are not so much characters as competing impulses, and Piggy's glasses become one of the most poignant objects in fiction.

It may feel schematic on a second read, but the final pages are devastating, and the central question, how thin the layer of civilization really is, has not aged a day.