Yvette Huddleston: Why Orwell's 1984 has never been more relevant

A number of other books with similiarly pessimistic views of the future are enjoying enhanced sales as readers attempt to make sense of the situation in which humanity currently finds itself. These include Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale set in an America where feminism has been destroyed, abortion is illegal and women are second-class citizens whose behaviour is closely controlled by the state.

Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 satirical novel It Can’t Happen Here tells the tale of a charismatic outsider who makes a successful bid for the presidency promising to restore American greatness. Any of this sounding familiar? Lewis’s book was out of print in the UK until Penguin, cannily, launched a new edition last month – it is now already into its third print run.

The book is critical not only of its fascist protagonist but also of the lazy response of liberal intellectuals to his rise to power – hence the title. Meanwhile on our TV screens Amazon’s version of Philip K Dick’s 1962 book The Man in the High Castle, which imagines a scenario where the Nazis won the Second World War, is filming a third season and the BBC’s adaptation of Len Deighton’s 1978 novel SS-GB, with a similar storyline, is due to screen next week. A representation closer to the present day is the tremendous Netflix original series House of Cards, which I’m currently making my way through, with Kevin Spacey as ruthlessly ambitious US Congressman Francis Underwood. It’s chilling to note that reality is almost matching some of the more outrageous things that Underwood and his cronies get up to. It can be a dangerous pastime engaging with such stories – they confirm our worst fears – so it’s good to see that poetry, always the best way of distilling emotion, has also been on people’s minds, with a quote from Philip Larkin’s poem The Mower circulating on Twitter – ‘we should be careful/of each other/we should be kind/while there is still time’. Although the last line contains a dark undertone of warning, without wishing to sound hopelessly naïve, a careful and kind future is the one I am hoping for. Let’s at least try and make it happen.