Support Us
 
Search
MENUMENU
  • Nonfiction
        • Art
          • Architecture
          • Art History
          • Design & Illustration
          • Fashion & Style
          • Modern and Contemporary Art
          • Photography
        • Business
          • How to Invest
          • Leadership
          • Marketing
        • Economics
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • Globalisation & Inequality
          • World Economies
        • Environment
          • Climate Change
          • Environmental Ethics
        • Food & Cooking
          • The Best Cookbooks
          • Food & History of Food
          • Wine & Drinks
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
          • Family & Relationships
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
        • History Books
          • American History
          • Ancient History (up to 500)
          • Modern History (1800-1945)
          • History of Science
          • Historical Figures
          • Military History
        • Language
          • Grammar & Punctuation
          • Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Law
        • Literary Nonfiction
          • Biography
          • Essays
          • Memoir
          • Artists' Biographies
          • Travel
          • True Crime
        • Music & Drama
          • Classical Music & Opera
          • Film & Cinema
          • Music
          • Theatre
        • Nature
          • Dinosaurs & the Prehistoric World
          • The Earth
          • Plants, Trees & Flowers
        • Philosophy
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Politics & Society
          • War
          • Feminism
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • Human Rights
          • Terrorism
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Psychoanalysis
          • Psychology Research
          • Self Help
        • Religion
          • Best Atheist Books
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History
        • Science
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Geoscience
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Moon Landing
          • Popular Science
          • Physics
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
          • Football (Soccer)
          • Gardening
          • Hobbies
          • Sport & Sporting Culture
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence
          • Computing
          • Digital Age
          • History of Technology
          • Internet
  • Fiction & Literature
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classical Studies
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • NEW Fiction
        • Poetry
        • Memoir
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Burma
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Spain
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
        • Russia & FSU
          • Azerbaijan
          • Georgia
          • Russia
          • Ukraine
  • Kids
        • Best New Kids' Books
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • High School Teachers Recommend Books by Subject
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • Novels & Novelists
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • Ages 9-12
        • Ages 6-8
        • Ages 3-5
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Family
        • Mental Health
        • Science
  • Best Books of 2020
        • Politics
        • Biography
        • Memoirs and Autobiography
        • Cookbooks
        • Business
        • Philosophy
        • Fiction
          • Crime Fiction
          • Science Fiction
          • Historical Fiction
          • Romance
          • Mysteries
          • Thrillers
        • Nonfiction
        • Art
        • Economics
        • History
        • Science
        • Self Help
        • Audiobooks
        • Poetry
        • Kids' Books
        • Kids' Science
  • New Books
  • Audiobooks
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Booker Prize
    • Baillie Gifford Prize
    • Royal Society
    • Wolfson Prize
    • Walter Scott Prize
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize
    • Audie Awards
    • Nobel Prize
  • Experts

Fiction

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Buy now Listen now Get the ebook

Nineteen Eighty-Four

by George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel written in 1948. Often a standard text in school for teenagers, 1984 is many people’s first introduction to totalitarianism. Ominously prescient in some ways, (such as the scope for surveillance to reach into our lives through the ubiquity of screens) and wide off the mark in others (Big Brother’s omnipresent, unitary police state is not a reality we live with in the West), it makes fascinating reading.

Some of Orwell’s inventions from 1984 entered the English language, like ‘Thought Police,’ ‘Big Brother’ ‘Newspeak’ and of course,  the general concept of an ‘Orwellian’ society or future.

 

Recommendations from our site

“In terms of how technology is working in our modern surveillance powers, it’s a terrifyingly prophetic book in some of its implications for 21st-century human life. Orwell would deny that it was prophecy; he said it was a warning. But in fact, distinguished Orwell scholar Professor Peter Davis once made a list of all the things that Orwell got right, and it was a couple of fairly long paragraphs, and it was really rather terrifying.” Read more...

The Best George Orwell Books

D J Taylor,

“Nineteen Eighty-Four is seriously read in China by intellectuals, who see similarities between the world of George Orwell and present-day China.” Read more...

The best books on Dystopia and Utopia

Chan Koonchung, Novelist

“It’s eerily predictive of the sort of video camera surveillance world that we now live in. It would be interesting to update 1984 and make all of the things that Orwell foresaw more annoying than dangerous.” Read more...

The best books on Political Satire

P J O’Rourke, Political Commentator

“None of us love Big Brother, but we all know he is part of the family. Big Brother is like the uncle we don’t like who has to be invited for Christmas. The question is: How do we live with Big Brother without him ruining our lives?” Read more...

The best books on The US Intelligence Services

Tim Weiner, Journalist

“It alerts us to the danger of unfettered state power, which under any circumstance always ends up committing violations against individuals.” Read more...

The best books on Torture

Juan Mendez, Lawyer

“Orwellian has come to mean the kind of surveillance state we live in today, with all the CCTV. It’s not a prophetic book but it’s a warning.” Read more...

The best books on Global Security

Chris Abbott, Nonprofit Leaders & Activist

“It was originally titled 1948, but the publisher said to him that was too close. They had to push it back, so he just changed it around to 1984.” Read more...

The best books on Human Imperfection

Henry Normal, Poet

“This is the ultimate dystopia written by someone who wasn’t just one of the greatest of all journalists, but one of the most prescient.” Read more...

Books that Changed the World

Amanda Craig, Journalist

“The book looks at how order and disorder co-habit. Orwell, without ever having gone to the USSR, understood it from the outside brilliantly.” Read more...

The best books on Totalitarian Russia

Robert Service, Historian

Other books by George Orwell

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

The Road to Wigan Pier
by George Orwell

A Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell

A Clergyman’s Daughter
by George Orwell

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

Keep the Aspidistra Flying
by George Orwell

Coming Up for Air by George Orwell

Coming Up for Air
by George Orwell

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Homage to Catalonia
by George Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London
by George Orwell

Our most recommended books

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

    Jane Eyre
    by Charlotte Brontë

  • Great Expectations
    by Charles Dickens

  • Middlemarch
    by George Eliot

  • Dracula by Bram Stoker

    Dracula
    by Bram Stoker

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four
    by George Orwell

  • Ulysses
    by James Joyce

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount.

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand interviews, or five thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service

© Five Books 2021