Top Ten Tuesday | Back to School

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is a freebie! I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about at first, and then I thought I'd talk about some of the books I really enjoyed that I had to read for school and university.

Books I Read for School

Skellig by David Almond: I don't know how well Skellig is known overseas, but it's become a bit of a children's classic here in Britain. Skellig was the very first book I had to read when I started secondary school and I loved it so much. It's enchanting and spooky and hopeful, and one that I recommend you read however old you are.

Holes by Louis Sachar: Pretty much everyone knows this book, right? It's another modern children's classic in my book, and another one I was given to read during my early years of secondary school. I don't actually own copies of Holes or Skellig, so I think I may have to treat myself soon...

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: I was introduced to Jane Eyre when I was 14, and I've loved it ever since; in fact it's probably Jane Eyre I have to thank for my love of Victorian Literature today. It's a brilliant story, and personally I think Jane is one of the most fantastic heroines ever.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck: Sadly British schools now only look at British Literature when it comes to the GCSEs, which is a real shame and just plain wrong. There's a lot of fantastic British Literature out there, but there's also a great wealth of international work that I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't encountered them during my GCSEs. Anyway. Rant over. When I was in school we were always given a piece of American Lit to read, and we ended up with Of Mice and Men. I didn't have very high hopes for this when I was first given it, but despite its short length it's probably one of the few classics I find myself thinking about quite a lot, even now. It's not a particularly happy story, but it's a great place to start if you're a bit wary of classics!

Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare: Okay, okay, so I know Shakespeare's plays are really meant to be seen and heard rather than read, but I had so much fun reading this one during my A Levels. It certainly helped that I had an amazing English teacher.

Books I Read for University

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie: And now we move onto the university books. I read this in my first year of university when we were studying postmodernism, and any fans of retellings really need to pick it up. It's such a fun story and there are so many references to old stories from 1001 Nights to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I did a course on Romanticism during my second year of university where I ended up studying Frankenstein. I now consider it one of my favourite classics, and I think Mary Shelley was a genius.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla is a pre-Dracula vampiric Victorian novella. Try saying that five times fast. I had to read it for my Victorian Gothic module and it's probably my favourite book from that module, and is now another of my favourite classics. It's so good, and great for anyone who's intimidated by classics!

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins: I had to read The Moonstone for my Victorian Popular Fiction module and I fell in love with it. I'm fascinated by imperialism in Victorian Literature, the representation of India and its people, and I ended up writing an essay about imperialism for this module which I got a first for! This is thought to be the very first detective novel, and it's brilliant.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: This is the other classic I talked about in that essay. I loved the 1993 adaptation of this book growing up, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't actually read it until I studied it at university. I loved the book; it's become another favourite, and it's another book that's a great starting point for anyone intimidated by classics.

What did you talk about this week?

Sci-Fi Month | Is Alien Gothic?

Sci-Fi Month is hosted by Rinn @ Rinn Reads, and this year I'm participating!

Alien is probably one of the most iconic sci-fi films of all time, but is it also a Gothic story? Well, I would argue it is!

(If you've never seen Alien and you want to, I recommend you watch it before you read this because I will be talking about things that will spoil the ending for you!)

The rise of Gothic literature began in the latter half of the 18th century, with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, being regarded as the very first Gothic novel. Gothic has stayed around ever since, becoming hugely popular during the Victorian period; proven by the popularity of Penny Dreadfuls, and the publication of staples of Gothic literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Even before the Victorian period there was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, and earlier still was the work of Ann Radcliffe, author of books such as The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797).

Even Jane Austen had a go at the Gothic novel in her somewhat tongue-in-cheek friendly parody, Northanger Abbey. Though it was one of the last novels of hers to be published, it was the first one she wrote, and something of a homage to much of the Gothic literature Austen was probably reading at the time.

Later, in the 20th century, Southern Gothic emerged as a new strand of American literature; stories which took place in the American South, and include authors such as William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy and Anne Rice.

Today we have contemporary Gothic, and tributes to the older work of a genre that we simply haven't let go of. Shows like Penny Dreadful are proof of how much we still love Gothic, and Guillermo del Toro's latest film, Crimson Peak, is a homage to all of those Gothic stories that have inspired him since childhood.

That's all well and good, Jess, but where the hell does Alien come into all of this?

Well reader, let me explain!

Something can only really exist as a genre if there are tropes and similarities between the various stories. Jane Eyre is Gothic, but Agnes Grey is not, and yet both of them are Victorian novels about the life of a governess. So what makes one Gothic while the other is not?

Gothic saw the rise of the monster in literature - from Frankenstein to Carmilla to The Were-Wolf - but the setting is also incredibly important to a Gothic novel. You're not about to open a Gothic novel that's set in a quaint little country bakery, or in a busy, bustling city centre; isolation is vital to a Gothic novel, as is a character who must be isolated and, perhaps most importantly, threatened.

Naturally, that isolated, threatened character, more often than not, is a vulnerable and (probably) virginal young lady. She's Jane Eyre in Thornfield Hall; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey; Emily St. Aubert in Udolpho; Mrs de Winter in Manderley; Ellen Ripley in Nostromo.

There's a lot of cross-over between Gothic and horror, though the two aren't the same. In Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's brilliant 2012 film The Cabin in the Woods, they talk about the archetypes in horror - The Whore, The Athlete, The Scholar, The Fool, The Virgin - and how it is always The Virgin who either survives or dies last. This idea translates to Alien, too, and it must be one that's been influenced by the pool of Gothic heroines from the 18th century and beyond. By the end of the movie Ripley is the only survivor from the Nostromo, starting a franchise that has given us one of the best action heroines in film history, but only after she's fought her way free from the Nostromo and the monster lurking inside it.

The Nostromo might not be a manor house, but it's certainly an isolated, claustrophobic setting. After all, where is more isolated than outer space? The Alien might not be as sophisticated as Dracula or as tragic as Frankenstein's Monster, but she's still become one of the most famous monsters around. Ellen Ripley might not be defenceless and innocent in the same way someone like Catherine Morland is, but she's certainly a descendent of those earlier Gothic heroines; a mixture of vulnerability and capability, and downright determination, that have made her one of the most genuine heroines to come out of '70s movies.

So, is Alien Gothic? Yes - and it's brilliant!

S is for Shelley | Blogging from A to Z

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

There are three books which I consider to be my favourite classics; Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I read all of these classics while I was at university, and while Romanticism is not a literary movement I find all that interesting (I'm much more of a Victorian girl) I am glad my Romanticism module gave me the opportunity to read Frankenstein, which has to be one of the most brilliant books I've ever read.

That Mary Shelley began writing this when she was 18 astounds me; the ideas she tackles in this story are so thought-provoking, from the conflicts between science and morality to the consequences of creating a life and what it really means to play God. There's a reason this classic is so many people's favourite, it really is a masterpiece.

Banned Books Week!

This week it's Banned Books Week, so, just like last year, let's celebrate our freadom!

Why not read one of these famous classics which are, or have been, banned:

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

When George Orwell completed Animal Farm in 1943 no publisher would print it because of its criticism of the USSR, Britain's ally during the war. When it was finally published it was banned there and in other communist countries. In 1991 a play adapted from the book was banned in Kenya because it criticised leaders, and in 2002 the book was banned in schools in the United Arab Emirates because it involved a talking, anthropomorphic pig which goes against Islamic values. Today Animal Farm is still banned in Cuba and North Korea, and is censored in China.

"Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear."

During the American Civil War, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was banned in the Confederate States because of its views on slavery. In 1852, it was banned in Russia during the reign of Tsar Nicholas I because of its ideas regarding equality and because it "undermined religious ideals."

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted."

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was banned in Ireland in 1932 and in Australia from 1932-1937 because of its references to sexual promiscuity.

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

In 1955, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was banned in South Africa because it was believed to contain "obscene" and "indecent" material.

What have you been reading this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | Favourite Classics

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find out everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Top Ten Favourite Classic Books'. So, without further ado, here are my favourite classics!

The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

‘When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else’

The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel’s household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as ‘the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels’, The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear.

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Agnes Grey

by Anne Brontë

'The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery … my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt’

When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes’s enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë’s first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society.

Carmilla

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

A young woman living at her father's castle is the narrator of this novella. When a mysterious and beautiful stranger is stranded at the castle in odd circumstances and becomes a guest, the heroine quickly forms a close bond with her --but she subsequently discovers that her "friend" has a dark and lethal secret.

The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The mansion has nearly one hundred rooms, and her uncle keeps himself locked up. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors.

The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary's only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. One day, with the help of two unexpected companions, she discovers a way in. Is everything in the garden dead, or can Mary bring it back to life?

Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

Perhaps no other Shakespearean drama so engulfs its readers in the ruinous journey of surrender to evil as does Macbeth. A timeless tragedy about the nature of ambition, conscience, and the human heart, the play holds a profound grip on the Western imagination.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson's famous exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil,The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has become synonymous with the idea of a split personality. More than a morality tale, this dark psychological fantasy is also a product of its time, drawing on contemporary theories of class, evolution, criminality, and secret lives. 

Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë

Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed. 

Little Women

by Louisa May Alcott

Little Women is one of the best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War. 

Through their dreams, plays, pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all ages have become a part of this remarkable family and have felt the deep sadness when Meg leaves the circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part I. Part II, chronicles Meg's joys and mishaps as a young wife and mother, Jo's struggle to become a writer, Beth's tragedy, and Amy's artistic pursuits and unexpected romance. 

Based on Louise May Alcott's childhood, this lively portrait of nineteenth- century family life possesses a lasting vitality that has endeared it to generations of readers.

Silas Marner

by George Eliot

Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot's favourite of her novels, combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life.

What are some of your favourite classics?

J.

Frankenstein's New Heroine!

Pemberley Digital, the company behind web series "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries", "Emma Approved" and "Welcome to Sandition", is teaming up with PBS Digital Studios to step away from the fluffier side of Romantic Literature, and delve into the Gothic by creating web series "Frankenstein M.D.": an adaptation of Mary Shelley's famous novel.

That's already cool, right? Frankenstein is one of my favourite classics - in fact it's one of my favourite novels period - so I'm already pleased, but Pemberley and PBS are making this particular adaptation even better.

How? Well, the main character of this particular adaptation is Victoria Frankenstein. Victoria is described as: "an obsessive, eccentric prodigy determined to prove herself in the male-dominated fields of science and medicine." That's right. This adaptation is blessing us with a female lead!

Am I excited? Hell yeah I am!

Some people might think there's no need to genderbend the main character of such a classic (and you can guarantee most of those people will be men) but actually this is an adaptation which really, truly suits a female lead.

Upon writing Frankenstein, 18 year old Mary Shelley basically created the genre that is modern day Science Fiction, and yet today it's a predominantly male orientated genre. My hope is that this series breathes life back into the roots of Sci-Fi, and encourages women everywhere to feel welcome in the genre.

All hail Mary Shelley: the mother of Sci-Fi and all-round bad-ass!

Meet the Blogger + Ten Books That Changed Me!

Hi!

I was hoping to have a review up for you today (where have you heard that before?) but on Saturday I spent my night at a Disney all-nighter from 8 o'clock in the evening until 9 o'clock the following morning. While it was totally worth it, it did leave me completely whacked. I'd planned on finishing off the review I'd started yesterday, but I was just too tired.

So instead I have something pointless and fun that I found over on tumblr that'll help you to learn a little more about me.

Before I get onto that, however, I have to talk to you about the 10 books that changed me. Now that there are 10 months left in the year, I've decided that for each month that's left I'm going to pick a book, from a list I'm about to show you, and talk to you about it! 

These aren't necessarily going to be my favourite books of all time, but the ones that changed me in some way or changed the way I think about the world.

I'm a big fan of watching booktubers over on YouTube, and I got the idea for this when I came across the Ten Influential Books Tag. But in that tag you just list your 10 books without going into any detail, and personally I'd much rather talk about how or why the 10 books I've chosen influenced me.

Here are my 10:

1. The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl
2. The Angry Aztecs by Terry Deary
3. Witch Child by Celia Rees
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
5. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
6. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
7. Sabriel by Garth Nix
8. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
9. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
10. The Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

So if finding out a little more about these books and how they influenced me interests you, be sure to keep checking back throughout the year!

Meet the Blogger:

• Name: Jess
• Nickname: Uh... Jess
• Height: 5'2" (and three quarters!)
• Relationship status: Single
• Birthday: 10th of October
• Favourite colour: Yellow; Lilac; Turquoise 
• Favourite singer/band: Imagine Dragons; Within Temptation; Adele; The Civil Wars; Lady Gaga; Florence + the Machine; Fun.; Celtic Woman; Enya; P!nk; Nightwish
• Last song listened: When You Were Young - The Killers
• Last movie watched: Toy Story
• Favourite book: The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson; The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman; Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble; The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins; Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins; Sabriel by Garth Nix
• Last book read: The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín 
• Currently reading: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness; Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks; The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion; Green Rider by Kristen Britain; Witches by Tracy Borman
• # of siblings: Two 
• # of pets: None
• Best school subject: English; Drama; History
• Mac or PC?: PC
• Current shirt colour: White. How boring.
• Gamer?: No, I'm absolutely rubbish. I once tried to play Grand Theft Auto and I just ended up making the little man walk in circles for about 20 minutes.
• Day or night?: Both?
• Summer or winter?: Winter. I don't like being hot.
• Most-visited website?: It must be either tumblr or YouTube
• Celebrity crushes: Johnny Depp and Mads Mikkelsen. I love them both.

So have we bonded yet? I think we just shared something special. I might answer the other questions on the list a little later in the year - perhaps on another Monday or Friday when I don't finish the post I want to finish on time!

Check back on Friday for that review!

Jess Suggests | Classics

Last week I gave you the classics I'd still like to read, so today I thought I'd recommend some of my favourite classics instead!

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

I didn't get around to reading Mary Shelley's infamous novel until I was in my second year of university, and I so wish I had read it sooner because it's now one of my favourite novels of all time!

What surprised me most when reading Frankenstein was just how easy it was to read. Unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of the Romantic movement in literature - I've always found the context of the period, like the French Revolution, more interesting than the literature it inspired - so I often find it difficult to read purely because I rarely enjoy it. Frankenstein, however, blew me away.

It's a fantastic, atmospheric, thought provoking piece of literature, and I can honestly say that if you haven't read this classic yet you're missing out!

The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

‘When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else’

The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel’s household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as ‘the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels’, The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear.

Before there was Arthur Conan Doyle there was Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone is believed to be the very first detective novel, and it's a gorgeous one at that.

Collins expertly weaves characters and events to create a story that is rich with intrigue, suspicion and Indian culture. It's rather dense, as a lot of Victorian novels tend to be, but it's well worth your patience if you decide to give it a try!

There's an array of characters, some you'll love and some you'll despise, but all of them make up one of the best Victorian novels - and indeed one of the best novels period - that I have ever read.

The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years."

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of mysterious secrets. There are nearly one hundred rooms, most of which are locked, and the house is filled with creepy old portraits and suits of armor. Mary rarely sees her uncle, and perhaps most unsettling of all is that at night she hears the sound of someone crying down one of the long corridors.

The gardens surrounding the odd property are Mary's escape and she explores every inch of them - all except for the mysterious walled-in, locked garden. Then one day, Mary discovers a key. Could it open the door to the garden?

Classics don't always have to be long, introspective pieces of fiction - The Secret Garden is proof of this!

Even though it's a children's story The Secret Garden deals with quite a few dark themes - as children's stories often do! - including child neglect and what initially appears to be terminal illness.

Unlike Sara Crewe, the heroine of Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, Mary Lennox is a spoiled, selfish little girl, and yet we as readers still fall in love with her because, also unlike Sara, Mary develops a lot more as a character. We watch her learn how to interact with other children, and learn how to care for both them and the garden that she discovers.

I love this book, and I highly recommend it!

Agnes Grey

by Anne Brontë

'The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery … my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt’

When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes’s enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë’s first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society.

Anne Brontë has to be one of the most underrated English authors; she's often overshadowed by her sisters Charlotte and Emily, who are famous for novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Anne deserves a lot more recognition, as it is believed she is one of England's earliest feminist writers - this certainly isn't surprising when we look at Helen, the heroine of Anne's most famous work The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Agnes Grey, Anne's other novel, is much more autobiographical, and deals with the troubles many governesses in Victorian England faced. What I love most about this story is that it's just nice. While Wuthering Heights's Heathcliff murders puppies, Agnes Grey's Mr Weston rescues cats. 

Agnes is an endearing heroine, and I would so love it if more people read Anne's work!

Animal Farm

by George Orwell

Tired of their servitude to man, a group of farm animals revolt and establish their own society, only to be betrayed into worse servitude by their leaders, the pigs, whose slogan becomes: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

This novella is brilliant because it's creepy. This shouldn't come as any surprise given that Orwell is also the author of the terrifying Nineteen Eighty-Four; the mother of the modern dystopian novel.

One of the main reasons I love this novella is because it's a political satire - it's based on real events in Russian history, and if that's not frightening I don't know what is!

It should also be praised for having one of the best last lines of any story ever, when I first read it it gave me chills!

Again, if you haven't read this already I highly recommend it. I only read it last year, and I really wish I'd read it sooner - it's a lot shorter than I initially thought!

With any luck you've seen something here that you might check out in future! If you could recommend a classic, which one would it be?