They might be the last man and last woman on earth. He turns out to be a psychopathic rapist, she starts out naive, but ends up being a badass 16-year old warrior who outsmarts him and leaves him weeping by the roadside, getting exactly what he deserves. More than 50 years on, it seems like a fair representation of humanity and they way we treat each other.

I love the biblical allusions, the way the nuclear apocalypse provides the setting, but the story is all inside the mind of the protagonist Ann. Through her, O'Brien tells a gripping tale. I think this is the third time I've read it since discovering it in the 1980s, and it always keeps me awake at night, heart racing, until I turn the last page.