A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

THE BOOK I’D NEVER READ

You know those books that *everyone* read in school but you didn’t? Brave New World was one of those for me. Not on any syllabus I studied, my developing love of speculative fiction over the years meant that this one has been firmly on my TBR for a good while and over the half term I finally got round to it. 

It is, unsurprisingly, a book that will not just make you think; it will *force* you to think — about who we are, the world we live in and where the hell we are going. This is a pain free world where people are engineered via artificial wombs and born in a hatchery. Castes are predetermined and citizens are constantly taking soma — a pill that takes the edge off by producing a kind of happiness. A world where ‘people are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get.’

Whilst much of it is unfamiliar, what will shake you is how, indeed, familiar much of it is. You don’t need me to tell you that Huxley is a literary genius with a mind that is simply mind-boggling. I could pore over the pages again and again and it probably won’t surprise you that I’ve folded most corners!

A modern classic written at time when there was huge optimism surrounding the potential of technology, this is undoubtedly one of those books that will continue to teach us for generations to come.

Oh, and of course, the 3D glasses for the special edition cover looked kinda cute too.

Have you read this??? What did you think?? ~ S