Animal Farm

I first read George Orwell’s Animal Farm when I was in junior high. I read it at least once again many years later. Then I read it again yesterday and today. It is a short book. There is no excuse for not reading it, especially these days when most of us suddenly have a lot of free time on our hands.

The book was written during World War II, and can be read as a diatribe against Stalin’s Russia, Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, or any other authoritarian regime. Orwell’s point in writing Animal Farm was not to be subtle. The message is delivered with sledgehammer force. And comparisons to what is happening today in the United States are too obvious to escape notice.

If you’ve never read Animal Farm, or have not re-read it recently, NOW is the time. Read it. Listen to it. Absorb it. Don’t let the pigs win. Even more importantly: Don’t become one of them.