Daragh Breen is a second-year student at St David's Secondary School in Greystones, Co WicklowBrave New World (Flamingo, £5.99 in UK), part of the Aldous Huxley centenary reissue, is arguably the greatest work by a writer who has had a continuing influence on the culture and counter-culture of this century. The novel describes a supposed Utopia (Nightmare?) where everyone needs only what he or she wants and wants only what he or she needs. First published in 1932, it still has relevance for our time in that the complex world that Huxley relates has never been closer or, paradoxically, further away. Huxley describes his philosophical ideals but then demolishes them, realising that they could never work and, in the process, creates a harrowing picture of the future.