Vurt

Author: Jeff Noon

First line: A young boy puts a feather into his mouth...

Why you should read this book: It's a hard, sad, angry head trip of a novel in which strange technological advances and a new class of virtual reality drugs have created a nightmarish future England. Scribble is determined to rescue his beloved sister, Desdemona, from the dream world of the vurt, and he embarks on a quest full of drugs, sex, and violence to reach her.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't want to do any work to figure out what the heck the writer's talking about. Incest, bestiality, and xenophilia figure prominently into the story, so it's not for everyone.