A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this edition. “Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where … city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece, “1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.
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Changed my life, I first read it in middle school.
An antidote for young idealism
just what Big brothers in office would have… and some days I don’t think we’re far away from it
It should be required reading for everyone and a warning to what can happen to us all if this erosion of personal privacy is allowed to continue.
1984 could have been the News of 2024 (in many instances 2020).
One of the best books ever written.
1984 is as topical today as it was when Orwell wrote it. Big Brother might not be in today’s headlines, but Big Government and the Progressive Ruling Class is. The parallels between Orwell’s dystopian future and our present day politics and slanted media is frightening. Orwell was truly prophetic about the Surveillance State and attendant Nanny …
living in 2020 and having read and remembered 1984, I feel as though this book was a prediction, a highly realistic view of a very possible future.
Maybe because this book is one of my first novels I read so I like it more , but I really loved the feelings that I felt after last page ️ . So thanks for all the writers around the world , because they makes us feels like we are in a another worlds .️
They were very careful in their environment of dark control, but alas, Big Brother is everywhere.
Winston Smith was just an insgnifigant pawn in the environment’s process of thought control and oppressin. He worked at an office where he augmented history and was party to creating the ‘New Speak’ dictionary.
One day, a woman he somewhat fancied …
H. G. Wells must have had a time machine and saw our future, he only got the date wrong by 40 years. Look around at all the Big Brother stuff in play now. Help!
A classic, but depressing.
We are living much of this novel today.
George Orwell’s 1984 is a book I highly recommend to anyone who likes dystopian style literature. It follows the life of a man named Winston who works at the mysterious Ministry of Information. He is never quite alone, as his daily movements are monitored by the great and powerful Big Brother. To act in any way, shape, or form against Big …
This book is the quintessential dystopian fiction. I read it every few years and the messages are still so relevant. It’s a bleak look at life in a totalitarian regime should serve as a tremendous warning for everyone living today. The year 1984 has since come and gone, but Orwell’s vision could still strike in any year.
1984 warns of a society that is not far from being similar to the one we currently live in. When I read it many decades ago I thought it could never happen but I under estimated my countrymen & women. Seeing the current upheavals I have hope that we will escape “Big Brother.”
deep and hard to read but I think anyone 16 and older would benefit from giving 1984 a read. it gives perspective and it really makes you question certain aspects of society 🙂
This is a terrifying depiction of how life could look in the hands of a totalitarian state. Cleverly written with brilliant world-building. It’s too easy to draw parallels with certain events of today. Thank goodness most of us have more freedom than this, but there’s a horrific number of people who live in a world of surveillance, torture and …
I read this book many years ago, when the life described with “Big Brother is Watching You” was too scary. Just like Dick Tracy and others that went before, 1984 gave us a glimpse of things to come. Today we have big-screen tv’s, interactive screens, surveillance cameras. Winston doing aerobics in his home with the instructor telling him to shape …
Eerily parallels what it feels like we’re going through today….in many ways.