Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: Published in 1985

Updated 7/6/2020.

The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood

First Publication: 1985 Category: dystopian novel Sales: ?

Accolades:

About the Book: “The Handmaid's Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men in its population.” AZ “The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate Handmaids under the new social order.” AZ She works “in the home of the Commander and his wife. She is allowed out once a day to the food market, she is not permitted to read, and she is hoping the Commander makes her pregnant, because she is only valued if her ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she was an independent woman, had a job of her own, a husband and child. But all of that is gone now...everything has changed.” BN “In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment’s calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions. The Handmaid’s Tale is funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing. It is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and a tour de force. It is Margaret Atwood at her best.” AZ Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon BN Barnes & Noble The Handmaid’s Tale: Season 1 (television series) (2017) SparkNotes (study guide) WK Wikipedia

In July 2018, I became the organizer of the Classic Novels Book Club. Check out the Book Club tab here or Meetup for more information. This is our September 2019 book.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World published 50 years ago this year

First posted 6/24/2020; updated 7/6/2020.

Brae New World Aldous Huxley

First Publication: 1932 Category: dystopian novel Sales: ?

Accolades (click on badges to see full lists):

About the Book: The Chicago Tribune called Aldous Huxley “the greatest 20th century writer in English.” AZ The New Yorker called him “a genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine.” AZ He “was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization.” AZ “Brave New World, his masterpiece…retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature.” AZ The Wall Street Journal called it “one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century.” AZ “Ignorance is far from bliss in Huxley’s terrible vision of a future of rampant consumerism, worthless free love, routine drug use and cultural passivity.” TG Set in a future version of London and “written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s,” AZ Brave New World “follows the fortunes of the illegitimate son of a senior governor, who has grown up in America, outside the new empire, and who experiences a dramatic culture-clash when he has to live under its rules.” WK The story “speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.” AZ “It propounds that economic chaos and unemployment will cause a radical reaction in the form of an international scientific empire that manufactures its citizens in the laboratory on a eugenic basis, without the need for human intercourse.” WK This is all done “at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls.” AZ Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon TG Telegraph: The Perfect Library WK Wikipedia

1984 by George Orwell: Published 25 Years Ago Today

Updated 7/5/2020.

1984 George Orwell

First Publication: June 8, 1949 Category: dystopian novel Sales: 30 million

Accolades:

About the Book: “1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future.” AZ “It is probable that no other work of this generation has made us desire freedom more earnestly or loathe tyranny with such fullness. 1984, the most contemporary novel of the year and who knows of how many past and to come, is a great examination into and dramatization of Lord Acton’s famous apothegm, ‘power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’” – New York Times 1949 review by Mark Schorer BN “The novel is set in…1984 when most of the world population have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation…Great Britain…A superstate named Oceania…is ruled by the ‘Party,’ who employ the ‘Thought Police’ to persecute individualism and independent thinking.” WK “Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party…But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching.” AZ “While 1984 has come and gone, [Orwell’s] dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever.” AZ “A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984…is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the influence of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions – a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.” AZ “So persuasive and chilling was the world summoned up here that ‘Orwellian’ has entered the language as shorthand for government control. Chilling, wry and romantic, it is above all a passionate cry for freedom.” TG Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon BN Barnes & Noble TG Telegraph: The Perfect Library WK Wikipedia

In July 2018, I became the organizer of the Classic Novels Book Club. Check out the Book Club tab here or Meetup for more information. This is our July 2019 book.

 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: Published 20 Years Ago Today

Updated 7/6/2020.

Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury

First Publication: October 19, 1953 Category: dystopian novel Sales: ?

Accolades: American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal Hugo Award – one of only five “Retro” awards ever given Prometheus ‘Hall of Fame’ Award

About the Book: Fahrenheit 451 “presents a future American society where books are outlawed and ‘firemen’ burn any that are found.” WK Bradbury has said he wrote the book because of concerns of book burning as a means of censorship, but that it was also meant as a commentary on “how television reduces knowledge to factoids and destroys interest in reading.” LC “The book’s tagline explains the title: ‘Fahrenheit 451 – the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns.’” WK Guy Montag is a fireman in a world where his job is to start fires instead of putting them out. His job is to destroy books. He never questions his work until he “meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.” AZ Montag “becomes disillusioned with the role of censoring works and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and joining a resistance group who memorize and share the world's greatest literary and cultural works.” WK “He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.” AZ The story has been adapted into film (1966), stage play (1979), a BBC Radio dramatization (1982), video game (1984), and HBO television film (2018). WK Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon LC Library of Congress (2012). “Books That Shaped America” ReadingGroupGuides.com “Discussion Questions” SparkNotes.com “Plot Overview” WK Wikipedia

In July 2018, I became the organizer of the Classic Novels Book Club. Check out the Book Club tab here or Meetup for more information. This is our April 2019 book.