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Comment by xacaxulu | Hacker News Reader

I always have copies of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" to give out. As I get older, I love seeing younger people flip out when they read it and see how applicable it is in modern life.

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Great book, one of the few I enjoyed the first time around reading it. I had to read it for school and I strongly believe that required reading for school has a way of ruining a book for children. There have been a handful of required books that I re-read when I got older and enjoyed immensely more (and found more applicable).

Can confirm that as a younger generation representative. Read it like five times already. I liked it more than 1984 and I have two copies of it in my book shelf (English version, and translated to my local language).

Having read at least one history book about the Soviet Union, I'd recommend you not waste your time with Animal Farm and read an actual history book instead. The plot is basically ripped from Russian history, as it was intended to be a critique of Stalinism.

My taste for Orwell's two most read, Animal Farm and 1984 was especially dulled after I read his non-fiction masterpiece Homage To Catalonia which is a harrowing lesson in realpolitik and the socialist infighting of the 1930's.

http://www.george-orwell.org/Homage_to_Catalonia/

1984 and Animal Farm aren't important for their historical allegories but their statements about the nature of society, and are just as poignant when applied to today's society as they were about the Soviet Union.

Homage To Catalonia is a wonderful book. I would also highly recommend checking out Down and Out in Paris and London and Burmese Days (two works of fiction loosely based on events from his real life experiences).

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