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[Unregistered]

It's probably sad but I've read all the books you recommended.

[Wes]

I also recommend Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess

[timothy]

A different angle on this insane society is Animal Farm. Simple, obvious, but a good relation to 1984.

[Hannah]

i've read all the books you guys recommended, but i would like to read more about disutopian society because the more i read about this more i realized our socirty is becoming like this. so if you guys have any books similar to 1984.

[Don]

Hannah -<br><br>May I recommend Man's Search For Meaning by Victor E. Frankl, the renouned psychotherapist. Frankl was a prisoner in WWII Germany. This is his story and reveals some of the development of his theories on psychotherapy. It is relavent to this reading of 1984 since it gives a historical account of one who endured tremendous oppression and overcame in his mind, enabling his body to find the rare ability also to endure. Others also won, but many did not - their stories are also inherent to his.<br><br>All those books mentioned are depressing because of their intent to portray a totalitarian society. As I read many of the postings it occurs to me that some are a little overstated, perhaps paranoid in their perspective. Winston recognized that the written expressions of the first chapter were not the basis of his eventual imprisonment and "rehabilitation." Rather, it was the thoughtcrime itself that MUST eventually lead to the state's intervention. Here we sit at our computers and write out our thoughts with little care about who might read them - knowing that with the proper effort they coulf be tracked.<br><br>Why pretend to be oppressed? Why not rather live all that we are able; think all that we may; and be as free as we can be? When or if we find unnacceptable limits to those, then let us take up a cause.<br><br>God bless us and lead us to enlightenment.

[August West]

props for mentioning Rand. I'd love for her philosophy to work, sadly, as she points out, morals are a choice, and they have never been recognized to the full extent to have a totally free society. As 1984 points the absolute government is negative. Capitalism as a moral system gave way to Capitalism as a not so moral, greedy system. Who is John Galt anyway?.. Are you?.. if you are stop hiding!

[Olivia]

Ayn Rand is an AMAZING author...I read Anthem last year, and am in the middle of The Fountainhead now...so far, I am completely enthralled. If anyone else has read it and would like to discuss it, email me: [email protected]. Make sure to put The Fountainhead as the sub. or I won't read it...and please, no porn or viruses :)

[Eric Blair]

Oh, dear God. Ayn Rand's novel should not be listed with these- Rand's bizzare philosophy and adoration of the basest of human motives (selfishness, self-love, and Narcissism, among other things) lead her to see a society based in any way on compassion or empathy as being horribly evil. If one looks closely, NONE of her characters are fully developed- they simply run the spectrum from Roark, the utterly self-satisfied, selfish bastard (anyone can be made sympathetic if you control the rest of the universe,) to basically everyone else, all of whom cannot stand talent (right, because if you are capable of being influenced, you can't possibly be talented.) Thus, Anthem is more or less based on schitzophrenia (Rand was incapable of seeing the world as it actually exists, and had therefore broken with reality,) and the evils in society it's meant to highlight are only bad once translated in to Objectivish.

[Christine]

<br> Those reading this book might also like to check out <a href = "http://www.online-literature.com/aldous_huxley/brave_new_world/" class = "list">Brave New World by Aldous Huxley</a>, Anthem by Ayn Rand, and Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Each of these books present societies that no sane person would willingly choose to live in, but could happen without our being aware of it. The protection of our individual freedom should never be taken for granted.