I just finished “The Lathe of Heaven” by Ursula Leguin, and it was absolutely uncanny how it described the world today. What books have you read from more than 25 years ago that, when read today, seem to describe our world with unusual precision?
“The Lathe” was written in 1971 and nominally set in 1989. In the initial scene, she describes climate change:
>The Greenhouse Effect had been quite gradual, and Haber, born in 1962, could clearly remember the blue skies of his childhood. Nowadays the eternal snows were gone from all the world’s mountains, even Everest, even Erebus, fiery-throated on the waste Antarctic shore.
And then she proceeds to discuss various permutations of war among Israel, the Middle East, China, and Afghanistan. I know these were all hotspots before, but I felt as though I was reading a novel with a contemporary setting!
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by archbid
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At 24 years, Infinite Jest seems quite prescient.
Utopia (Thomas More?) was surprisingly readable. I think it’s like 400 years old. And then you read something more recent like Dostoevsky and every dipshit can only speak in long paragraphs.
Crime and Punishment is the story of a poor, young man becoming insane under the pressure to be exceptional and opposing ideologies.
I wonder if that is relevant today.
“It Can’t Happen Here”
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson
As a criticism on how the wealthy might handle a possible apocalypse it felt wildly relevant to read during Covid shutdowns.