Luke Frost Frost itibaren Texas
Im not sure if this book counts as a book, but ill put it up here anyway... lol. I found this on my shelf, its pretty hardcore, it has colored photos and everything.
You cannot beat George Orwell's animal fable, his own aesop fable, concerning Soviet Russia. This is a re-read, and still holds probably one of the best allegorical tales of Stalinist Russia we have, made all the more powerful due to his skill of making it have a wide appeal across all ages (sic). It can be seen, loosing its allegory, as just a children's tale (there is a cartoon version of it) of animals rebelling against a brutal farmer, or read alone just as a moralistic tale, or, and how Orwell wanted it seen as, an indictment against Stalin and what had happened to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Which ever way you read Animal Farm, either for children or older folk, there is a message of corruption and how susceptible we are to it. I am not going to go into the historical figures that the book alludes to with the various animals, as I think either any English student or History Student of the 20thC is clever enough to work out who is who (Napoleon=Stalin, Snowball=Trotsky, Old Major=Marx (?), Boxer= The Working Class et al), but it is interesting to note that when Orwell presented this book for publication in 1945, again he was met with censorship just as he had been with Homage to Catalonia, only this time it came from the Ministry of Information, i.e the Government. In Appendix I of my version, he writes an explanation against censorship, both biting the Communist Press in their rigid support for Soviet Russia and also the Centralised British Press. I guess Animal Farm should be seen as the dangers of what happens when a popular uprising creates new leaders leading to their eventual corruption caused through gaining power. Power Corrupts, so the saying goes;absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this is, in a nutshell what Animal Farm portrays, as well as, for the more politically aware, the dangers and possible hypocrisy associated with Communism and any revolution that implies it will liberate people from slavery and oppression. Combined with Orwells later 1984 (again written as an indictment against Totalitarianism but for an older audience), both probably express his disillusionment with Soviet Russia which he picked up whilst fighting in Spain during the Civil War.
** spoiler alert ** I'm rereading this for what must be the fourth or fifth time. I know other people love Grass and Beauty, but this is my favorite of Tepper's books. It has everything: an interesting world (well, universe), well-written and amusingly named characters, humor, illuminating social commentary, AND the god that makes enables society to run peaceably and happily is a fungus! A fungus! Why didn't anyone think of that ages ago? I've read almost everything by Tepper and sometimes, unfortunately, her social commentary veers into the land of polemic. Too bad, because she is a more intelligent and subtle writer than that.