5 Books that Will Change the Way you Think
Words: Guy Aubrey Devito
Emancipating oneself from what T. S. Eliot referred to as ‘the provincialism of the present’ – the idea that the political and social fashions of the present age have a permanent validity – is no mean feat. After careful deliberation I have compiled a list of five books that present new perspectives on life and change the way you think.
1984 by George Orwell
It is impossible not to see the comparisons between Orwell’s 1948 magnum opus and present day Britain. Today CCTV cameras are found on every street, children are fingerprinted when they go to school and our country’s so called ‘hate crime’ laws directly contradict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This great novel illustrates why freedom of expression and civil liberties are essential to any country.
Solaris by Stanis?aw Lem
Is there a god? Is he benevolent? Is there life outside our planet? These are questions humans long to have answered. In Lem’s beautiful and transcendental novel, he poignantly illustrates why these are questions that do not have a yes-or-no answer. Humans, we realise, will always have a limit to their understanding.
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
In many ways a companion piece to 1984, Dick’s alternate history novel has an electrifying plot. It’s 1962, the Axis powers have won the Second World War and the world is divvied up between them – oh and Hitler is in the nuthouse. A great book about how ours is just one of infinite possible presents.
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
The most recently written book on the list, de Waal’s book is superficially a family memoir but in many ways is a meditation on the ephemerality of money. A brilliantly engaging read and pertinent in our money obsessed age.
The Inheritors by William Golding
Set at the dawn of mankind, The Inheritors is story about a group of Neanderthals who encounter a tribe of Homo sapiens. The Neanderthals are terrified by the greed and malevolence of their rival humanoids and begin to realise that they are, inevitably, doomed.
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