One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

This is an amazing book that I have wanted to read for ages, and have not seen the movie of despite the fact that I love Jack Nicholson. It details life inside a psychiatric ward under the tyrannical rule of Nurse Wratched who rules over the patients with a seemingly iron fist until a certain patient comes along.
The book is narrated by a half Indian patient, Chief Bromden, who clearly has hallucinations and delusions and this can be seen from the first pages. The Chief repeatedly speaks of what he knows as "The Combine", a huge overseer of all human interaction that demands conformity in society.
From the beginning, the patients in the hospital are divided by the Chief into "acutes" and "chronics". Acutes being the ones who have a chance of being cured, and the chronics who are viewed as being sick for life. The Nurse Ratched rules over them in such a way that she has them bringing out the worst of each other in what she deems group therapy meetings, if someone rebels they are sent for electroshock treatments or even lobotomies, even though the book was set in a time where both treatments had surpassed their heyday.
Randall Mcmurphy arrives and changes the place forever, signaling that he will not give into the Nurse's authority, and even persuading the doctor to rebel against her continuous demands. In a way McMurphy serves as a saviour in what seems like a whirlpool of human life and interaction that will never end. The book follows a series of events which show how power shifts between people and is an amazing display of perceived power versus actual power.
I won't give too much away in this book, because you truly have to read it to really understand the enormity of underlying themes and the powerful writing which is featured. I was amazed by what I experienced in this book and am now definitely going to see the movie, although my guess is it won't be as good as the book (I have yet to see a movie that is as good as a book).