50 books to read before you die discussion

With a whopping 40.5% of the votes on the poll, 1984 is one of our group reads for Q1 of 2022 (January, February and March). I'm sure for many of you, like me, 1984 is one of those "must-read" classics you just haven't gotten around to reading yet. And I'm equally sure many of you have read 1984, perhaps many years ago. Either way I hope you'll join the discussion!

Some questions to get us started...
- Is this the only Orwell novel you've read? If not, how does it compare to his other books?
- What aspect of this dystopian novel feel relevant to present-day society?
- If this is not your first time reading 1984, why did you want to revisit it?
- Are there any particular lines or quotes from this book that stood out to you? If so, please share them here...

Recently read The Road to Wigan Pier. Have also read Down and Out in Paris and London & the Road to Wigan Pier (a long time ago) Animal Farm recently as well.

I read that 1984 was the number one read book in 2020 (or was it 2016). Anyway it has a collective consciousness going on right now and I thought I should read it.

I think I will finish another book that I started in December but didn't finish it, (pairing it with 1984) The Master and Margarita.

Some Yin and Yang.

To me 1984 is really dark and one of the levels of Hell that Dante's Inferno would have. In numberology 19 is the number of chaos and 84 Hmmm well if you are interested you should look at another book called.Number Games: 9/11 to Coronavirus You can also find him on youtube under Gematria Effects News (three different channels (22) (23) and (24) without parenthesis.

I read animal farm, by Orwell, for school.
Wasn't impressed by his prejudices against the masses / common people. He seemed to imply people were stupid and easily led, and completely ignored social/legal/financial constraints that are created to make people helpless.
Would be interesting to see how 1984 compares

I read this book in 2020. It was a really dark book . I had hoped there was hope for the two love birds. It was sad how big brother was actually controlling them and keeping a serious eye on them. How they broke their spirits was the worst. But I loved the book

Indeneri wrote: "I read animal farm, by Orwell, for school.
Wasn't impressed by his prejudices against the masses / common people. He seemed to imply people were stupid and easily led, and completely ignored social..."

Interesting comment. Evidently, people ARE stupid and easily led, unfortunately ... it seems that typically once people attain freedom, they become very complacent and/or entitled and yes, busy with our own duties, and the government gets away from us and eventually we serve those in power rather than vice versa.
I agree that in some case social/legal/financial constraints are "designed" to make people helpless, but I also think there's a fair amount of society just sliding into powerlessness due to inertia. And naturally there are going to be people who just happen to be in positions to take advantage of their relative power and instinctively use it to suppress any threats to that power.

I have started this book. I am amazed at how I am so drawn into this book and how real it feels. I am about 40% into it. It will probably take more than this month for me to finish it though.

This one wasn't for me. It does present some interesting discussions, proven by above - the question of how easily led are people, do we need freedom or are we satisfied with comfort, how helpless are we compared to "big brother".

In regards to your comment Indeneri, I could not believe how 1984 portrayed people just immediately changing their memories, not acknowledging that history (like who they're fighting in the war) is changing right in front of them.

This is a system where information is controlled - in a more extreme sense to the society I live in, but with definite spooky ties to reality - and individuals are tracked, now that sounds familiar. The foresight Orwell had (this book was published in 1949) in terms of technology is pretty crazy, and something I find hard to appreciate as I take it all for granted.