October Book Club Selection: 1984

October - one of my favorite months of the year! I love Halloween and spooky things, so I thought that this month I would go with a dystopian piece to get into the spirit of the season. I've always loved reading dystopian fiction but for whatever reason I've constantly passed over dystopian titles in favor of memoirs and other genres. I was never assigned 1984 in any of my English classes growing up (I feel like I missed out on a lot of awesome titles in school), so the last time I was in Barnes & Noble I picked it up for a chance to read it as an adult. What better time to read George Orwell's haunting classic than Halloween time?

"In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. 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.

Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance."

I remember my senior year we were able to take English electives and there was a dystopian literature class option that I didn't take advantage of. I always wish I had taken that class because I remember how excited the students would get about the books they were reading, 1984 included. I'm very excited to start reading this book and finally get to see for myself why this book is considered to be a classic.

I know that many of you might have already read this book in school, so please let me know what you thought about it (without spoiling anything) in the comments! If you haven't, then I'm super pumped that I'm not the only one that's nearly 70 years late to the party. :P I'm excited to read along with you and hear what you think at the end of the month!

Happy reading!