Opinions is divided, but this week Can Themba and Charles Dickens join Suzanne Collins on the ever-growing to-read pile

OpinionsLtdis in two minds aboutPenguin's collected Can Themba, Requiem for Sophiatownwith "roughly half" of the stories falling flat. "But when I imagined apartheid government demolition crews wrecking Themba's Sophiatown while he wrote," OL continues, the book took on a "sense of panic".

"Themba's occasional descriptions of Sophiatown's destruction seem distant until you notice the urgency in his style. Did he write with the sounds of bulldozers tearing down his favourite shebeen in the background? I don't know. But he eventually made me hear them."

It was the story "Marta", with its observation "S'funny how a drunk woman's child never falls", which grabbed OL, who confesses "after that line, the story had me to the end".

"I was reeling during the drunken development of African identity in 'The Bottom of the Bottle'. 'Ten to Ten' enters the enormous shoes of a giant, black police officer. In the all-dialogue story, 'The Fugitives', the characters shout, whisper, yell and laugh out of the page without the help of a narrator. The most well-known story in the collection, 'The Suit', is a masterful story about infidelity that refuses to take sides. Each time I read it, I have a new opinion."

That's enough for me to make up my mind about Can Themba. One for the to-read pile.

Stpauli, meanwhile, has taken on an entire box-set. Yes,of course, it'sthe Hunger Games. "Everyone probably knows the basic set-up by now," she sighs, but the "gladiatorial plot", "constant peril" and the "sadistic ruses of the Gamemakers devised to make the contest more exciting" certainly make The Hunger Games a "gripping read". But it's the wider issues which really catch stpauli's interest:

"… The Hunger Games trilogy is also a clever and revealing satire on media manipulation and the nature of celebrity. Not only are the tributes assigned stylists and media coaches, they're also fully aware that their survival depends at least in part on the way the public perceives them. The contrast between life in the districts, where malnutrition and starvation are common and technology barely exists for most of the people, and the privileged life of decadent excess in the Capitol, is also cleverly portrayed."

By the time stpauli has reached book three, Katniss's ordeals and her role as a pawn have become "rather wearing". But despite doubts over the quality of Suzanne Collins's prose, the ingenious plotting and thought-provoking subject matter are enough to see stpauli saluting their "well-deserved" popularity.

One more for the to-read … or is that three?

No further guilt this week, for me at least:bilberryhas been enjoying one which I have mentally stashed away for the to-read pile when I am old and grey. Only so many Dickens left, you see, and I want a nice, big pile to work through along with all that Thackeray I never seem to have time for … but back toOur Mutual Friend. Bilberry has read it before, of course, "but this won't be the last time", as on each rereading "Different characters come to the fore".

"Whereas as a young reader I probably skipped through the passages describing the Veneerings et al, and their political doings, this time I was horribly gripped by the toadying and the slipping and sliding downwards. I might have felt before that they were too unreal, but now I know better."

The central romance was at once less romantic but "the more fascinating as a result" – perhaps review is turning towards memoir here – the "unsympathetic" male lead is "only redeemed by disfigurement and injury" and, of course, there's the river, "giving life just as it takes it, bringing people together, separating them forever, both good and evil, but mostly the latter". It's far too late for me to come to this as any kind of "young reader", alas, but I'm looking forward to my pipe and slippers already.

That's it for this week: if I've mentioned your review, please write to me at richard.lea@guardian.co.uk and I'll send you something excellent from our cupboards.

Anthony Burgess's diabolical tale of juvenile ultraviolence is 50. Five decades on, the novel holds a lofty position as one of pop culture's most influential and enduring pieces of literature

Fifty years ago today,Anthony Burgess published his ninth novel, A Clockwork Orange. Reviewing it in the Observer, Kingsley Amis called the book"the curiosity of the day". Five decades later and there is still nothing quite like it.

When discussingA Clockwork Orange, many mistakenly confuse the book withStanley Kubrick's 1971 filmand immediately focus on the violence of the story, when really it's the language of the book – a vernacular so lively and colourful it renders those much-discussed descriptions of beatings and rape almost –almost– comical – that is its most remarkable and revolutionary aspect. Kubrick's dazzling adaptation contributed greatly to the book's ascension to the lofty position it holds today as one of pop culture's most influential and enduring pieces of literature, but it's theslang that 15-year-old protagonist Alex usesin his narration – a post-Joycean mash-up of Slavic, Cockney rhyming, Gypsy andPolari– that allows Burgess to present Alex's diabolical deeds as digestible, if not remotely justifiable.

Certainly there is a lyricism to the language that makes the Beethoven-loving Alex's animalistic behaviour all the more disturbing. It triggers the same reaction in the reader as when we first saw those school portraits of James Bulger's killers, or other such adolescent-as-killer criminal cases. Cherubic might and murderer – the two almost don't compute. But let's not forget that Alex is the victim of violence too: through his brainwashing – violence used to quash violence – Burgess pre-empted many ofBaudrillard's ideas on the violence of the visual image.

Because A Clockwork Orange is also an allegorical tale of state control – of the establishment versus the individual, of puppet-masters and puppets – which could only have been concocted during the paranoid postwar/cold war years, but whose themes have never really diminished since publication. Alex represents anti-authoritarianism. He is the iconoclastic anarchist, the insubordinate lacking obedience to social order, who himself became an icon – and it's this, coupled with his powerful aesthetic, that has allowed his influence to extend beyond literature into wider culture.

Actually, Kubrick was beaten to the onscreen adaptation byAndy Warhol, whose filmVinylexplored similar themes of free will, albeit it in a rather flawed, freeform way. It wasKubrick's take on Alex's "height of fashion" clothesrather than Burgess's (black tights over a jelly mould at the crotch, "waisty jacket without lapels … off-white cravats which looked like whipped-up kartoffel") that has been aped by everyone from football hooligans to bands fromthe AdictstoBlur. (Unsurprisingly, in fact, the book's influence upon music is far-reaching. Many have identified aspects of Alex in Bowie's flamboyant Ziggy Stardust andJohn Lydon's disdainful Johnny Rotten; then there are the bands who took their name from the book: Heaven 17, Moloko and Campag Velocet among others.)

The book's dystopian setting and aestheticisation of violence meanwhile seemed to signify a re-examining of man's cruellest impulses. On this subject, it's possibly the key post-war text, and its force can be felt in the work of JG Ballard, Philip K Dick, William Gibson, Jeff Noon,Chuck Palahniuk; in American Psycho, Battle Royale and The Hunger Games; and beyond literature into visual art and the glut of ultraviolent films that emerged in the 1990s

Next month, theInternational Anthony Burgess Foundationare hosting a multi-disciplinary conference to celebrate the book's anniversary. It seems like a must for oomny devotchkas and malchiks who like hanging around the old biblio. Real horrorshow.

My home town has just joined the ranks of Edinburgh, Iowa City, Reykjavik, Dublin and Melbourne as a Unesco city of literature. So why Norwich?

Thursday's announcement thatNorwichhas been named aUnesco city of literatureprovoked jubilation around the city. Or to put it more truthfully, around the Twitter streams of people who live here. I didn't actually leave the house, but the atmosphere was clear enough from all the local writers, journalists, book shop owners and event organisers expressing their happiness in less than 140 characters. There was no doubt that this was a good thing.

Rather less certain was what the new status involves. The name is an honorarium as much as anything. There is no pot of gold at the end of the several-year-long bidding process, just an impressive sounding label. The title is granted in perpetuity. Norwich will be plugged in to a network of existing cities of literature (the other five so far are Edinburgh, Iowa City, Reykjavik, Dublin and Melbourne ) and will also be expected to reach out to others hoping to put their own bids together. The hope is that this will involve Norwich in useful projects in the developing world and allow the city to forge potentially lucrative links with growing Asian economies.

Yet while the concrete benefits are perhaps amorphous, Chris Gribble, chief executive of theWriters' Centre Norwich, the organisation that put together the bid, is keen to stress his delight and the other benefits the award will bring. "It allows us to identify in a way no other city in England can. It's a great branding tool, it puts us in an elite club and we're going to be able to put together all kinds of interesting and exciting things that can wear the Unesco badge."

As you might expect, those interesting things include literary events and readings, but there are also more unique projects. There is, for instance, a plan to build a large international centre for writing in Norwich – which will provide space for more readings and events, but also contain a small flat for a writer in residence, and a large cafe and writing space where people like me will be able to go and type all day without the usual need to buy a coffee every 30 minutes to justify being there ...

Just as interesting is the ongoing translation ofMeir Ben Elijah. Meir was a resident of Norwich and part of its thriving medieval Jewish community in the 13th century – untila blood libeland subsequent pogrom destroyed his life. He wrote his community's suffering in moving detail, although few knew about his work until it was rediscovered in (curiously) a Vatican library 700 years later and the fact that is being translated now is a direct result of the research that went into putting together the Unesco bid.

It's the existence of characters like Meir Ben Elijah, meanwhile, that helps answer the second question everyone has about the city's Unesco status, which is: why Norwich? Why should a place that most people know only as the erstwhile home ofBernard MatthewsandAlan Partridgedeserve such a distinction? Chris Gribble is aware of this. "It's really easy to take the piss out of Norwich," he says, truthfully enough. "Our strengths too often go under the radar. But at the same time as being more representative of most places in the UK than bigger metropolitan cities like Manchester or London, we're a very beautiful city and a European city and we're doing things our own way and it's great to have third-party validation on that."

The bid team also point to Norwich'sdistinguished ongoing literary history: "Norwich has a literary tradition going back more than 900 years that includes being home to the first book published in English by a woman (Julian of Norwich), the first recognisable novel, the first blank verse, the first provincial library and newspaper, the first British MA in Creative Writing (whose first student was Ian McEwan), the first UK City of Refuge for persecuted writers and the busiest and most used public library for each of the past five years."

If you're wondering, that first novel claim relates to the work of oneThomas Deloney, a 16th-century balladeer whose prose narratives are said to be the first recognisable examples of the novel form. Said by some people, anyway. There's a long conversation to be had about why – say –Petronius' Satyriconshouldn't be called the first novel, but that's a different subject. The fact remains that Norwich has – and has had – more going on than most people give it credit for.

On a more personal note, I can vouch for the fact that Norwich is a good place for writers. That's the very reason I moved here in fact. Some of this is simple economics and aesthetics. Norwich is cheaper than most comparably sized cities within two hours of London and also much prettier. But there's also a thriving community of writers and journalists living here. When I made the move, I thought I was a pioneer, but it turns out I was just enacting a cliche. Half my neighbours seem to have a novel in the pipeline, a newspaper column, a job in publishing, an eccentric authorial uncle ...

Since moving here I've also met countless writers who just happen to be passing through, giving talks or working with the Writers' Centre or UEA creative writing programme. I've picked up various and interesting scraps of work related to publishing and creative writing programmes around the city. I've attended countless book shop talks and sold-out theatre events with big-name writers like Ian McEwan and Martin Amis. I've even been persuaded to help set up a small publishing company. Literature is in the air in Norwich. It may not be such an obvious choice as a literary city as somewhere like Paris or New York, but it certainly deserves a chance to get in the ring and prove itself.