As a new year’s resolution, I am posting twice a week for 2023: my Saturday update and a Wednesday book review. The reviews are of books I’ve read over the past year or perhaps a bit longer, as well as memorable books I’ve read before.  The reviews are short: a one-sentence summary, and why I gave it the score I did. Hope you enjoy them!

1984 by George Orwell

Classic SF 5/5

Winston, a clerk in an authoritarian regime whose job it is to erase the past in favor of the Party’s truth, recognizes there could be a different way of living. This novel is a must-read, if only to understand assumptions that underpin cultural references. Beyond this, Winston is a character the reader desperately wants to triumph in the face of a beautifully drawn, ubiquitous dystopia that resonates with too many elements of modern history. Only the info-dump of world history in the middle keeps this from being a 5+ in my eyes.