Big Brother is always watching...

1984 - George Orwell

How could I talk about contemporary classics without including 1984 (see my previous post).

What makes it especially relevant to the audience I'll be talking to is the popularity of dystopian fiction (especially YA dystopian fiction) of late, i.e The Hunger Games, The Bridge, Days Like These and oh so many more. 1984 is arguably the greatest dystopian novel of all time, and has eerie relevance to our contemporary society. After re-reading this book I found it hard to shake the feeling of being watched - especially in the wake of documentaries such as Erasing David which goes to show just how much of our personal data is available.

George Orwell's understanding of the class system, and it's irrefutable place in all societies is amazing, and the transferable nature of the war in the book to the war in our own time (and likely for many to come) is eerie.

The book is a snatch of an ongoing and hopeless battle and is devastating in its timing and bleakness. The battle is for power, but the fight is fear and hatred against hope and the endurance of the human spirit. Given that it is almost commonplace now to carry a level of suspicion in most human interactions (and certainly our interactions with characters, where we almost expect to be fooled or betrayed), it is sort of wonderful that the betrayals in a book can still be surprising and heartbreaking.

From my first reading to my current reading, nothing has been lost in the relevance of this book and the amount of contemporary relevance makes 1984 not recommended, but compulsory reading.

Contemporary Classics

I've been asked to run a schools session in October entitled "Literary Landscape". Basically I'll be talking to a group of year tens about a group of contemporary classics that I feel have the power to shape the way you think and that are interesting and worthwhile reading.

Not everyone gets into 'classics'. At a recent panel launching Meanjin's Tournament of Books  (a literary smackdown pitting Australian canonical novels by women against each other until a bloody winner is revealed) there was a great deal of debate as to what makes a 'classic'. There are certain texts that are considered seminal, but often these are associated with heavy, old, boring books who smack you in the face with their teachings and are read only by people who want to look 'clever'. Whether this stereotype is true is really irrelevant, especially when the aim is to get a younger audience to read older texts. Readers will only discover the quality of a book once they actually read it, so if there's an idea that stops them from doing that, for many, these texts will remain unread and underrated.

So I'm excited to be doing this panel. It's a chance to talk about books (awesome) and especially a list of modern and/or edgy classics that have particular relevance to me. And it's a great chance to sit at home and revisit these books.

So this is my list (in no particular order)

1984 - George Orwell

The Malese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

I'm going to try to post about each as I re-read them, but with A Thousand Words Festival coming up this weekend (!) some may be brief, so be warned :)

In the meantime, I would love to hear some of your favourite underrated novels that you think all young adults should read - or books that you feel should be a 'classic' but aren't.