2017 has been a bumpy ride, to say the least. After Donald Trump’s inauguration the 45th POTUS has revealed his plans to go ahead with building a wall along the Mexican border, Obamacare is already in the process of being repealed and women’s rights have come under threat after reinstating former President Reagan’s 1984 Mexico City policy (known as the ‘the global gag rule’). Many people around the world are feeling sad, angry, confused and looking for answers.
But in an unexpected twist, there is one iconic book that has seen sales soar this week: George Orwell’s '1984'. The literary classic, which depicts a dystopian future is currently sitting at No.1 on Amazon’s best-seller list in the US. And the publicity director at Penguin USA also revealed the publisher has already ordered 75,000 new copies of the book this week.
While '1984' was first published in 1949, sales started lifting on Sunday evening after senior advisor Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase ‘alternative facts’ when defending the size of Trump’s inauguration (which sounds eerily similar to Orwell’s cautionary tale of a society where facts are distorted using a fictional language called "newspeak").
We doubt Trump would be pleased about the comparisons. Although according to US sources, Donald Trump may not have the novel lying around in the Oval Office as the New York Times report President Trump ‘does not read books’.
Tony Schwartz, who acted as a ghostwriter on Trump’s 1987 book ‘The Art of the Deal’ – spending 18 months with the entrepreneur – told The New Yorker he ‘never saw a book on Trump’s desk, or elsewhere in his office, or in his apartment. I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through his adult life.’
Spoiler alert, it makes for one very enlightening read.
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