1984 by George Orwell

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." When Orwell wrote those words little did he know how prophetic his novel would be. Looking back over the 75 years since publication we can see how the United Kingdon has been turned into a mass surveillance state and where ‘hate crime’, ‘hate speech’ and even ‘hate thought’ are now rigorously policed and enforced. Think, say or do the wrong thing and one’s freedom, livelihood and even life are at risk from a new and tyrannical ideology that has infected society, crossed former political divides and reaches from the wealthy elite to the poor and marginalised. Orwell’s vision of a society whose thinking is controlled, past re-written and where even the most intimate social and familial relationships are subjugated to ideological scrutiny has come to pass.

A dystopian masterpiece, this is the powerful and prophetic novel that defined the twentieth century.

‘I read it again and again' Margaret Atwood, author, The Handmaid’s Tale

336pp, paperback