1984

     When I began AP summer reading and had to read How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I was shocked when the author claimed that there is only one story.  He described how many works follow a common pattern.  As I read 1984, I truly understood that.  Since I've already read Anthem, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World, I began to feel like I'd overdosed on dystopian novels because I noticed all the similarities.  Anthem is my favorite, but in terms of which is the best literary work, I'm not really sure.  I just know it's not Fahrenheit 451.
     There is one quote in 1984 that stuck out to me, especially the last sentence.  "The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him.  In a sense it told him nothing new, but that was part of the attraction.  It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order.  It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden.  The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already."