5 Books Worth Rereading This Year

With travel still indefinitely postponed, allow these classical great novels transport you to a different dimension!

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

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It wouldn’t be the twenties without some classic flapper chic, bootlegging extravagance of the roaring epoch! As our twenties began on a rather sour note, the desire for nostalgic romance of the Great Gatsby surely transports you to a different dimension. F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s amazing writing voice is effortless and precisely nuanced creating a world that, despite its sad unrequited love story, is full of hope.

Brave New World - Auldous Huxley

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Set in dystopian future, this novel showcases the hell world induced by allowing state control over technological advancement. Members of a secular society in inhabit an artificially engineered class hierarchy and are denied a sense of self. Monogamous relationships are criminal and the wonder of natural birth an unimaginable horror for the perverted, mindless consumers of the World State. Only one man harbours an unexplainable longing for freedom, a concept existing solely on the shunned savage reservations.

A novel written in 1931 in response to its time, still poignant and enduring in this age of rapid technological advancment.

1984 - George Orwell

This novel needs no introduction as Orwell’s masterful narrative style has permeated into popular culture already, inspiring tv shows ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Room 101’ to name a few, but the string of human emotionality that ties the narrative together is one worth re-immersing in. Constant mass surveillance and oppression of individual thought, this book is a perfectly complimenting dystopia to Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’. Overall a prophetic and century-defining novel.

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Satirical novel centring on American bombardier Captain John Yossarian in the midst of World War II. Yossarian views the war very personally and is convinced the military deliberately want him dead and thus are sending him on more missions. The novel’s bewildering chronology narrative structure and absurdist plot points are both hilarious and touching, Heller’s authorial choices painting a definitive portrait of soldiers experience in the horror of war.

Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger

Told from the point of view of16 year old Holden as he navigates the complicated psychological crisis of young adult life, Salinger (almost double that age at the time of writing) perfectly captures the essence of teenage angst. Expelled from prep school, forlorn and perplexed, Holden rebels against the “phoniness” of the adult world in his search for meaning. Though a humorous read, Salinger’s classic tale remains a defining voice for a large portion of young people throughout the ages.