Books like Believe in People — picked by fans

Commonly interpreted as the finest account of the ‘gigantic criminality’ of the Nazi and Stalinist totalitarian regimes, Arendt’s book has for me a more immediately visceral significance. It has profound things to say about what she called a "terribly cruel" contradiction lurking within the modern democratic commitment to equality.

She pointed out that although democracy demands that we recognize others as our equals, certain groups, especially for reasons of their past sufferings, are prone to misuse and abuse their democratic freedoms. They do so by violently asserting their rights to live as a "sovereign people" at the expense of others whom they treat as "superfluous."

Would Arendt have been surprised by the way a "democratic" state born of the ashes of genocide is nowadays behaving? Would she have condoned its military efforts to destroy "in whole or in part" (Genocide Convention Article 2c) a "superfluous" people known as Palestinians? Almost… show more.

The identity of “Murray Constantine” wasn’t uncovered until the 1980s, long after Burdekin’s death, but only a woman could have created such a persuasive patriarchal dystopia, half a century before The Handmaid’s Tale. Burdekin’s futuristic Nazi empire, a brutally misogynist quasi-religion, is dying slowly from within and an English airman named Alfred has been given explosive proof that Hitler was not in fact a Thor-like deity. Though the plot fizzles out, the ideas are extraordinarily ahead of their time.

As The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Muggeridge exposed Stalin’s man-made famine in 1933; in the 1940s, he became one of Orwell’s closest friends. In between the two, he conducted this caustic post mortem on a catastrophic decade. Some of it still feels timely, like his observation that a cultural obsession with information perversely incentivises the manipulation and fabrication of data. All of it is deliciously quotable: he compares the human rights activists who whitewashed Stalinism to “vegetarians undertaking a pious pilgrimage to a slaughterhouse because it displayed a notice recommending nut-cutlets.”

I have always been fascinated with Russia, and love reading any book about Russia and Russians, whether the classic fiction of Dostoyevsky, or the absurdist work of Gary Shteyngart. But for insightful political analysis of Putin’s destruction of Russia’s democracy and society, written with a love for the people and country, and a keen eye toward their humanity, nothing beats this dead-eyed read from the great Masha Gessen. Her analysis of modern Russia under Putin’s grip came out a few years before the invasion of Ukraine, which is sort of a culmination of the ideas and stories here. This book is a portrait of individual tragedies woven together as a collective, where the historical resentments of one man (Putin) doom the future of an entire people. If you want to understand how Russia got here. Or what it might feel like to be a young Russian, caught up in this… show more.

This masterpiece from one of the giants of mind-blowing SF is best known as a canonical example of alternate history: set in a world where the Axis powers won World War II, and the former U.S.A. is divided between occupying forces of Imperial Japan on the West Coast and Nazi Germany. As such, the conflict in the book is really about the underground resistance forces’ efforts against the occupiers.

Lots of writers have played with similar premises, but I love Dick’s the most because of its narrative daring, from using the I Ching as a device to generate plot to the Borgesian engine of the imaginary novel within the novel on which the story’s ultimate revelations turn.

This book tells a strong story about censorship and has perhaps a "light" dystopian feel.

I liked this book because Bradbury’s characters are well drawn and, like Orwell, he creates a strong story. It reminded me of past events in the 30’s. A fireman, following orders to confiscate and destroy books because the authority does not want people to develop constructive thinking. Gradually turning against his boss, the fireman kills his boss and joins a group of people who memorise books and store content for the future.

I found this a thought-provoking story and hope that, considering the censorship laws we have today at home and in countries like Russia and Iran, this is one story that does not come true.

Not everything that seems harmful does us harm, and not everything that seems good does us good.

I love books that make me reconsider the world I live in, and although Brave New World was published in 1932, its use of empty entertainment, sex, drugs, and medicated happiness as instruments of social control feels startlingly contemporary.

In dystopias built around punishment, power forces people to obey; here, pleasure makes them willing. The Romans already understood this through panem et circenses, and I see the same mechanism around us today. We fail to notice the cage because we are too busy seeking it out and locking ourselves inside.

This book broadened my perspective and taught me to look at apparent comforts with more suspicious eyes.

Stein puts her finger on one of the most important things I learned about the power of charismatic, narcissistic abusers: with love-bombing and seduction, they create dependence in their victim. Then, the belittling and humiliating begins, and the victim is now both dependent on the abuser and constantly intimidated by the abuser.

This is the essence of disorganized attachment, which creates a sense of powerlessness and fright without solution. Victims feel unable to leave, exhaust themselves trying to assuage the narcissist, and dissociation becomes the automatic survival response. Knowing this helps victims and their therapists understand why recovering the ability to think clearly is so difficult and so crucial for victims recovering from traumatic abuse.

This is a play script, but I have to recommend it as the most adult and provocative exploration of fairytales I’ve ever read. A storyteller in a totalitarian state is interrogated about his tales after they have been linked to a series of child murders. It’s about the risks storytellers take and the dangers of stories being misinterpreted or misused. Martin McDonagh is best known as a screenwriter of films such as In Bruges or The Banshees of Inisherin, but this play is burned into my soul.

As a huge fan of George Orwell’s 1984, I approached this book with trepidation. I was concerned that a retelling from Julia’s perspective may not work. I had nothing to worry about. The author does a great job of filling in gaps and expanding the story. There is much from a woman’s perspective that Orwell might never have considered. 

I loved this book at first because there are so many familiar threads to 1984, yet the feminist perspective brings the story even more to life. Julia, no longer a side character, breathes new, colorful life into a story I knew so well. Part of me wanted to re-read 1984 immediately to compare details. Then I realized, there was no need, it stands alone perfectly well.