Totalitarianism

"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.

First published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is a classic novel set in the future when books forbidden by a totalitarian regime are burned. The hero, a book burner, suddenly discovers that books are flesh and blood ideas that cry out silently when put to the torch.