1984. It's really good.

[Oricolt]

I'd never read it and picked it up at a charity store. Started it because I thought it was one of those books I 'ought' to read - if only to be able to nod meaningfully when people make current geopolitical comparisons. But - actually - it's really good. Not a hard read at all. Am enjoying it.

It’s been a long time since I read either but I think the easiest spoiler free way to explain it is that The Testaments expands on stories from Gilead, it is literally a collection of other testaments about Gilead, so it doesn’t contradict (as far as I can remember) and is consistent with the ending of the first book. It’s only set 15 years after the handmaid’s tale so still before the last bit of the handmaid’s tale. I hope that’s an okay way to explain it!

I've read it twice and also listened on Audible. Audible version is really good too.

I haven't read 1984 since the date was several years in the future. Perhaps I will red it again, it will be so different from a current viewpoint.

Yes! I bought this last year and loved the opening chapters. Scarily relevant now.

However I didn’t finish it because I saw the film and that traumatised me. The book was so well written I knew I couldn’t hack the end.

Yes I really liked that too.

Have all those enjoying 1984 also read the Handmaid’s Tale? I did them both together at school and they will be forever paired in my mind. I love them both, but Handmaid best.

‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness’.

I have this on my wall, one of my favourite lines from the book.

Yes, I love them both equally although as a woman Handmaid's Tale resonated most strongly with me.

I think it's interesting that with time they both seem increasingly plausible. When I first read Handmaid I was thinking of how society could regress so quickly, but having seen how technocrats like Musk can work with right wingers like Trump and given our digital payments system, yes very plausible for a woman to go into a shop and suddenly not be able to buy her own goods any more and for her independence to suddenly be stripped away from her.

I also read Brave New World at uni and often think about how the concept of soma could be applied to our current world

I read it 1984...I was 14 scared me ...sadly it is incredibly relevant - I'm glad I read it

I wouldn't say I enjoyed 1984, but I found it very thought provoking and memorable.

When I first read it, I loved it for the plot.
When I most recently re-read it, I was really struck by the great prose.

Oh yes, Brave New World too!

It saddens me that all these books seem more relevant now than they did thirty years ago, not less. Almost like we’ve learned nothing.

@Alltheyellowbirds Well we haven’t have we?
We all know what the right way to live is until we meet other people whose “right way” is different.
The Handmaiden Tale was down to women suddenly not being able to have babies. A problem on a Meta scale but then an opportunity on a smaller one.
Easy to see climate change being the same eventually.

It will be interesting to watch the TV adaptation of Lord of the Flies. Us oldies are always telling the youth to put down their screens and do some healthy outdoors stuff instead ...

When is this going to be shown? My mum was horrified that we were doing this book at school when I was 13.

Haha. We did it around the same age, it had a huge impact on me. I think it’s a great age to read it because you can really identify with the characters - I remember looking around the class and wondering how we’d all behave in that situation.

I must be the odd one out! I read it about a year ago for the first time. I don't know why I'd never got around to reading it before tbh - I'm reasonably well-read-ish. Like you've all said, it seemed apposite for current times. I just found it a bit... obvious and kind of underwhelming. Maybe it's because lots of its concepts and tropes are so well-known, or maybe it's that it's almost a bit too similar to currently reality and is therefore less shocking somehow. I dunno. I wanted to like it!

I think the reason the concepts and tropes are so well known is because of the longstanding popularity of the book. You may not have felt that way if you’d read it in 1948.

It's filling the Night Manger slot, Sundays at 9pm. After the watershed.

I just found it a bit... obvious and kind of underwhelming.
It's a testament to his foresight that he was predicting all this 80 years ago. Do you fancy trying to guess where we will be 80 years from now?

I must admit that I had a similar reaction when I saw a full-length Buster Keaton, until I realised that the 'obvious' stuff he was doing was only 'obvious' because every slapstick comedian since then had copied him. He was the original, the blueprint; it was the people after him that were the 'obvious' ones.

It is quite possible they'd already read it and disliked having to read it again. I would feel the same about Jane Eyre.

Besides, for a lot of people it wouldn't be the sort of thing they want to read for enjoyment and subsequent chit-chat. If you like romantic comedy or cosy crime it's going to be a bit of a trial having to read something totally outside your comfort zone, and people want to spend their free time doing things for fun.

people want to spend their free time doing things for fun.
Like they do in Brave New World?

I read it about 5 years ago and it’s stayed in my mind a long time!

It’s a brilliant book, albeit a hard read.

Thanks , just got it was on my TBR

We did Lord of the Flies at school but I haven’t re-read it for years.

I’ve seen the 2 films made of it - one in 1963 and another in 1990. Thought the earlier version was better (terrifying though!).

My favourite ‘grown up’ book.