This afternoon, the Book Club met live with Laura Beers, author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, to talk about George Orwell’s 1984 and the lessons of that novel — and the author’s politics — for our lives. Beers talked to us about Orwell’s prescient criticism of technocracy and the surveillance state, the experience of Orwell as a writer (and her own intellectual journey through his work), the way Orwell has been taught to Americans as a Cold War anticommunist, his personal contradictions and blindness on gender and their lasting challenges for the left, and how to recapture his faith in democratic change and social revolution through some of the worst years of the 20th century as a model for today.
Whether you’ve been joining us as we reread 1984 or you haven’t looked into it since high school, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Just click on the video player above to watch now.
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How to participate in the Book Club
Each week, we’ll post questions — our discussion guide — on Sunday, and on alternate Wednesdays we’ll meet for a discussion with the Club or a visit from an author or other special guest (occasionally we’ll schedule on alternate days or times, but we will let you know). Look out for posts with further details.
In between meetings, we invite you to chat or comment on our posts with your insights and questions. The Book Club will meet next on Wednesday, March 25, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, with former Washington Post book critic Ron Charles. And on Friday, March 27, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll have our second conversation with Scott Anderson, author of King of Kings.
To participate in our meetings and author talks on Substack Live, join from your phone or tablet with the Substack app. You can also watch from your computer at The Ink, and comment and ask questions in our chat, but you won’t be able to join the live video discussion. Make sure you enable notifications, and when our meetings begin, you should receive an email alert; if you can’t find the message, just check the notifications tab (the small bell-shaped icon to the upper right of the website or lower right of the app at the time of the event to find a link.
Book Club meetings are open to paid subscribers to The Ink, so if you haven’t become part of our community, join us today!
