Book Review: 1984

1984- George Orwell

This is the first book that I have chosen to review for this blog. Its currently required reading for a class of mine, but I feel qualified to review it, since I have read it twice before.

George Orwell is the pen name of British author Eric Blair, who lived in the first half of the twentieth century. Mr. Orwell wrote the book 1984, in the year 1949, after waking from a nightmare in which he saw the world as it would be in the future. Thankfully, the year 1984 turned out nothing like the events in the novel. But that doesn't make the novel any less important.

The book 1984 represents a nightmarish version of the future in which the government controls everything and life as we know it is irrevocably changed. There are no freedoms, no bill of rights, and almost every basic pleasure is outlawed. People are not allowed to form friendships or relationships, they are not allowed to speak out against anything. There are no forms of entertainment, no privacy whatsoever and even their thoughts can be monitored. People are routinely murdered by the government for hardly anything, and then literally erased from history.

This is an exceptionally well-written novel, but even more then that, it is an important novel. A warning about what can happen if one group of people becomes too powerful. If you have never really thought about how important freedom is, then I suggest you read this, and even if you do value your freedom, you should still read it. The year 1984 came and went 22 years ago, but this novel is still important today, because it shows the dangers that can come of power and corruption, something that can happen any time, any year.


Some interesting facts about what actually happened in the year 1984:

1. Ronald Regan was re-elected in the largest landslide in Presidential history, winning
49 out of 50 states.

2. The L.A. Rams (now the St. Louis Rams) won the super bowl.

3. Perhaps the most important event, I was born. (That was a joke, I'm not really that egotistical).


Similar Reading :

Animal Farm - George Orwell.

Much like 1984, this story represents what can happen when people (or in this case, pigs) become too powerful. The story literally takes place on a farm where the animals can think and talk and decide to overthrow the farmer and take over. What follows is another cautionary tale that uses a lot of symbolism to show the different types of government and the dangers of totalitarianism. This is a small book and an easy read, so if these ideas sound interesting to you, but you don't really like to read, you may want to pick Animal Farm over 1984. The ideal choice, in my opinion, is to read them both.

Entry 1: Preview

Its taken me a while to figure out what I'm going to talk about on here, since I don't normally do this, but after reading other people's blogs and seeing how people are basically just writing about their interests, I guess I will do the same.

Which leads me to the topic that this blog will be about, which will be books. I read a lot, its my main hobby. Appropriately enough, I work at Barnes and Noble, specifically the one in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. It is a job that I really do enjoy, even though it doesn't really pay that much and dealing with customers is often less then pleasant, but I love working in a job where I have access to all sorts of books. I like organizing and alphabetizing the books and everything else. That probably sounds really nerdy, but its the truth.

I really enjoy reading for relaxation. I also read a wide variety of books. Regular fiction, science-fiction, mystery, and horror. I also read a lot of non-fiction as well, mostly nature and environment books, but also a lot of history. I also like a lot of the classics, and drama, as well as books about sociology, current affairs, and cultural studies. So as you can see I read a lot from a wide variety of areas.

So what I will be doing for this blog, is essentially providing a book review of the books that I am currently reading or just finished. I will talk about them and do the following: give a summary, description of the writing style, and what I thought about them. Then I will talk about the author and give my opinion as to their writing and some recommendations of other authors who are similar.

Hopefully some of you like to read as well and perhaps will be interested in reading this, and maybe you'll even decide to check out some of the books that I'll be talking about.

Test Post

I just made this for class, so this first post is just for my own purposes to make sure that I did it right and it shows up and everything.