War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Dystopian tales are evergreen, and an author who can write entertainingly of a restrictive divisive future is often assured of an audience.
From literal greats such as The Handmaid's Tale and The Shape Of Things To Come to the populist teen fiction of The Hunger Games and the Divergent series they pique the interests of a wide and varied demographic, but there is one novel in the genre that stands towering above all others, only one has become synonymous with the term dystopian in itself, and that is 1984 by George Orwell.
It might not be an individual personal favourite, but it is difficult not to acknowledge its position as the most well known and loved of them all.

And today is the anniversary of its release.
It was sixty eight years ago today that the first copies appeared and seized the worlds attention.

The amount of people who have read it are now incalculable as sales figures have no relationship to the number of individuals who have lost themselves in its pages.
Its influence on the world around us is similarly something we cannot underestimate too.
From CCTV to the manipulative msm we see Orwell's future existing in our present and it strikes a chord.
The novel time and time again reveals itself as eerily precognitive, or as some would claim, it was the misguided template for authoritarianism that successive governments globally have embraced, but stepping away from those discussions it is safe to say that while it is without a doubt a literary great, that it is also a populist one too.

Few books can match its popularity, and maybe today to celebrate the anniversary - with all that is going on in the world - we should proactively look to maintaining this popularity by passing it on to someone that has not read it.
You could dig out your copy and give it to a son or daughter, your niece or nephew, maybe just leave it on a bus seat and allow it to be carried into the world randomly where it will end up in a strangers hands, and then in their head.
Or you could just mention it on social media.
Quote a line, share a meme, add a link, or start a conversation.

It's good to read, it's good to think, and this is the opportunity for us all to use the anniversary of 1984's release to encourage that.

Instead of asking ourselves why should I, maybe we should ask why shouldn't I.

Room 101 is waiting. Let's warn people.