Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

1984 by George Orwell

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I don’t often reread books, the old adage of so little time, so many books ticking like a clock behind me. This is the book I have reread the most, at least 10 times at this point, and the book that I say is my favorite book of all time, depending on the audience. (My favorite book is really Lamb by Christopher Moore, but that is a fictional “what if” about the life of Jesus, that entire chunk that is missing in the Bible, and […]

Still relevant 75 years later

1984 by George Orwell

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Despite being 75 years old, this novel holds up remarkably well. I think people can relate 1984 to a variety of things in their lives – an abusive family life, an impossible workplace, or even the society in which they live. But the book is actually about a dystopian future society (which was 1984 according to Orwell, who wrote this novel in 1949). After an atomic war in the 50’s, the world condensed itself into three nation states: Eurasia, Oceania, and East Asia. Airstrip One, […]

1984/Julia

1984 by George Orwell

Julia by Sandra Newman

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Over the years I have read 1984 maybe half a dozen times, always for class-related assignments when I was a student or when I was a teacher. It has probably been over 20 years since my last re-read, and I’m glad I picked it up again before reading Sandra Newman’s Julia, a take on 1984 from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover. I have always found 1984 to be a challenging read; dystopian fiction is unsettling and the end of 1984 is tragic. […]

Re-reading a classic: 1984 in 2020

1984 by George Orwell

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Y’all know the broad strokes of 1984: Big Brother, newspeak, telescreens, doublethink, “We have always been at war with EastAsia.” It’s entered the popular consciousness in a profound way; and for some reason thinkpieces about it have proliferated since 2016.  (I wonder why!  Truly it is a mystery.) So our small book club decided to re-read this one as adults, to see how our reactions to it might have changed, or if it was really all that.  The consensus: it’s a classic for a reason. […]

What are you worth?

84K by Claire North

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Theo is an average citizen in a fairly average dystopia. You know the kind: human rights violations are normal, everyone is scared, and the government wields unilateral power with virtually no opposition; or, to be more accurate, The Company (a mega corp) runs the government, which wields power with virtually no opposition. Everyday, Theo gets up, goes to work, calculates the financial costs of crimes to society, slaps a bill on the perpetrator, bothers absolutely no one, stands up not even for himself (to the […]

Don’t let this happen. Go out and vote!

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Holy crap this is depressing.  And terrifying. We have our main character, Winston, who’s 39.  He starts off by doing a forbidden thing: writing in a diary. He is terrified that the Thought Police will find him and kill him, or if not that then send him to 25 years of hard labor.  The Thought Police can find you anywhere. There are screens that are constantly on playing propaganda news and military music and whatever else they want the people to see, and the Thought […]



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