* 1984 by George Orwell

What makes a book age well? I just re-read 1984 and it failed the test. The first part, which describes Big Brother’s totalitarian regime which routinely rewrites the past, aged the best. Sure, the future is devoid of any technology we would recognize today and seems to be mostly a recreation of post-WWII England, but the slogans and the very reinvention of history are as fresh as ever. The second part, where our hero reads a tedious anti-regime book, is mind-numbing. And the third part, where he’s tortured and “re-educated” is so gratuitously gory as to be almost unbearable. So if you’d like to re-read, stop early!