The below 5 novels are seeing a resurgence, in particular George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, which tells of a dystopian future in which independent thought and individualism are grounds for persecution by the government. It also tells of a society in which facts are eliminated.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. When President Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway recently had an interview on Meet the Press, she maintained that the current administration’s claims about inauguration attendees were not falsehoods, but in fact, ‘alternative facts’.
The result? Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four surged, as did the sales of the below books.
5 Books Making A Comeback in 2017
Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell
Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in what remains of a Britain ravaged by revolution. His every move is monitored by the Thought Police, who are responsible for detecting dissent against the Party and its leader, Big Brother and eliminating it. When he meets Julia, Winston thinks he might have found love, and a fellow loather of the Party. But when the pair are arrested and sent to the sinister Room 101 for re-education, their bond and commitment to their shared cause will be tested to its limits.
George Orwell’s dystopian vision of a world enslaved by doublethink and thoughtcrime is as terrifying now as it was on its initial publication in 1949. One of the great classics of the twentieth century, 1984 is a startlingly original and arresting novel about tyranny and the universal struggle of the individual against the malevolent tendencies of the modern state. Learn more about Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
A towering classic of dystopian satire, Brave New World is a brilliant and terrifying vision of a soulless society–and of one man who discovers the human costs of mindless conformity.
Hundreds of years in the future, the World Controllers have created an ideal civilization. Its members, shaped by genetic engineering and behavioral conditioning, are productive and content in roles they have been assigned at conception. Government-sanctioned drugs and recreational sex ensure that everyone is a happy, unquestioning consumer; messy emotions have been anesthetized and private attachments are considered obscene. Only Bernard Marx is discontented, developing an unnatural desire for solitude and a distaste for compulsory promiscuity. When he brings back a young man from one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old unenlightened. Learn more about Brave New World
The Dispossessed
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe.
To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change. Learn more about The Dispossessed.
The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood
In the world of the near future, who will control women’s bodies?
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.
Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now…
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.. Learn more about The Handmaid’s Tale.
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness.
Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.
The classic novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilisation’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Learn more about Fahrenheit 451.
Browse more Dystopian Fiction here
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About the Contributor
Anastasia Hadjidemetri
Anastasia Hadjidemetri is the former editor of The Booktopian and star of Booktopia's weekly YouTube show, Booked with Anastasia. A big reader and lover of books, Anastasia relishes the opportunity to bring you all the latest news from the world of books.
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