Just finished Empire of the Summer Moon. Just started The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. Preeeetty interesting so far. And good timing with Rips recent Privacy podcast.
Current reads...
Historical fiction: The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell. Series upon which The Last Kingdom Netflix series is based on. Christians vs Pagans. Very enjoyable.
Sci-Fi: The Expanse series. Best Sci-fi I have read or watched. (Amazon series not as good as the books, but good.)
Mystery: Longmire series. Wyoming sheriff mysteries. Quick, easy, and enjoyable.
Per PrincipeBrutto: "I think 1984 is not a book for teenagers. They might grasp the superficial features, like the convoluted rules of double-speak, but it will be difficult to penetrate the deeper meaning. I think you need to have had a few years of living on your own and making your own decisions before you can appreciate what Orwell wrote."
What he said.
I read 1984 as assigned reading in high school and got a lot out of it. Yes it was a deeper, more revealing book when I read it years later as an adult. However, I think that most of my classmates and I got a pretty good general view of what Orwell was trying to accomplish.
By the way, the "convoluted rules of double-speak" were anything but superficial. Most modern-day cited examples of doublespeak are trivial and not representative of the true complexity of the language. Doublespeak was much more than a series of amusing euphemisms (eg. "Ministry of Peace" for "Ministry of War"). It really an attempt by the state to enforce the use of language in a way that manipulated the mind so as to eliminate the plebes' very ability to conceive of subversive ideas.
I wonder if that has any modern corollaries? Perhaps here?
This is definitely a component, but I think there is also a realization as they get older that a book is important. My wife has remarked on this, as she was a pretty precocious reader (she read Brave New World at the age of 10). There were books that were available and she because she liked to read, she read them. Now as an adult, she realizes that she missed a whole lot because she was too young and has gone back to reread them even if they were books that she didn't love at the time.
This conversation -- the importance of being able to reread works -- actually reminds me of Fahrenheit 451.
I am reminded to post about the classic Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels by the great British writer Patrick O'Brien. They are remarkable for several reasons, including his command of history, his command of a sailing technology that was incredibly complex and is now largely forgotten, and his unparalleled character development in these stories. He quite literally designed several incredibly complex characters that the reader comes to know quite intimately. He also assumes the competence of the reader in understanding his prose -- nothing is spoon-fed, and you are responsible for learning quite a bit as you progress through the series. The only movie made from the stories was pretty good, but the material asks a lot of modern audiences who are incapable of understanding much of anything outside their preferred pronouns, and I doubt there will ever be a sequel. If you commit to reading several of the books in order -- it's actually not much of a commitment because they pull you along quite effectively -- you will not regret the time spent.