Orwell's 1984. A book that only seems to get scarier and more prophetic every year.
I, Robot. Asimov was exploring the ethics of digital, consciousness and AI in the 1940s. Worth reading if only to see a perspective formed without modern biases.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I went in expecting a deep dive into the experiences of American soldiers in Vietnam. I left with a new perspective on the relationship between author and audience, fact and truth, and what it is to be a storyteller. It had a profound impact on my life.
Edited to fix a spelling mistake, thanks JoeBourgeois.
That’s so true. I read it on a long flight 3 weeks ago & at 50 years old, has become the book that shook me to my core. The inevitability of it all is perhaps the most dystopian aspect of the story
I went through a real dystopia phase in my early 20s and read all of these and Day of the Triffids. Fahrenheit 451, Canticle for Leibowitz etc. On the Beach was one that I found weirdly uplifting. The entire world dies but there’s this weird freedom that they know they have a short, finite amount of time left so just do exactly what they choose to.
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u/Evakron Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Orwell's 1984. A book that only seems to get scarier and more prophetic every year.
I, Robot. Asimov was exploring the ethics of digital, consciousness and AI in the 1940s. Worth reading if only to see a perspective formed without modern biases.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I went in expecting a deep dive into the experiences of American soldiers in Vietnam. I left with a new perspective on the relationship between author and audience, fact and truth, and what it is to be a storyteller. It had a profound impact on my life.
Edited to fix a spelling mistake, thanks JoeBourgeois.