While the totalitarianism that provoked George Orwell into writing 'Nineteen Eighty- Four' seems to be passing into oblivion, his harrowing, cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate, and its relevance and power to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade. This book was challenged in 1981 in the state of Florida in large part because it was viewed as "pro-Communist."
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
I loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula,Dark Shadows on TV when I was a kid, Anne’s Rice’s rock’n’roll vampires, and I even discussed what team I would join in the ‘tween Twilight Saga. I also devour vampire novels with “punny” titles such as Undead and Unappreciatedby Mary-Janice Davidson, but I put The Passage on request at the library because of an article I read in Time Magazine that stated that vampires are scary again, and I do love a character that bites.
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
If you're a fan of the Chaos Walking series, you'll be excited to hear that the third book in the trilogy, Monsters of Men, will hit U.S. bookstores on September 28, 2010. In the meantime, you can enjoy this trailer and maybe re-read The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and The Answer.
If you haven't heard of this series yet (and you love intense, action-packed, dystopian novels), check out this blog post.
"Nowadays firemen start fires. Fireman Guy Montag loves to rush to a fire and watch books burn up. Then he met a seventeen-year old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid, and a professor who told him of a future where people could think. And Guy Montag knew what he had to do...." (Book Description)
Experience a minute in the Forest of Hands and Teeth:
Heart pounding yet? The Forest of Hands and Teeth, a novel by Carrie Ryan, is about a young woman named Mary and her life in her village. Sounds bucolic, doesn't it? Until you learn that the village is guarded by a high fence, which is surrounded by hordes of mindless, flesh-eating zombies called the Unconsecrated. Mary can hear their moaning all day and night, and she doesn't dare get too close to the fence, for the infection that turns you into an Unconsecrated is passed by a single bite.
1989. 2000. 2012. It’s not just lately that certain years and dates have struck fear into the heart of humankind. Pretty much every year in recorded history has been predicted by someone to be the date of the end of the world. The Apocalypse. Armageddon. Our fascination with our own end can be humorous or depressing, but either way, we can’t stop dreaming, writing, and talking about it. And teens, like many of us, love reading about it.
"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. - Amazon.
A classic since it's 1949 publication, Nineteen Eighty-Four continues to chill readers today, perhaps because the possibilities that Orwell wrote about could still happen, or perhaps some already have. Winston Smith is an ordinary worker in a future state where the government controls everything, watches everyone, and has erased all traces of rights and individuality. His job is to rewrite historical records so that The Party is always correct. In a time of constant war, Winston becomes disillusioned with his state of poverty and unhappiness. He begins to ask questions and even fight back. But The Party and Big Brother are always watching.
There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
