Good Day World!
Surprise! Surprise! Who would have guessed?
George Orwell's dystopian fiction Nineteen Eighty-Four is enjoying a renaissance.
According to the lastest sales rankings published by Amazon.com, sales of the classic novel's 2003 reprint have spiked 3,100% over a 24 hour period(from 6/11 to 6/12) as coverage widened with fresh reports (and new confusion) about the National Security Agency's data gathering programs and the 29-year-old Booz Allen Hamilton ex-employee, Edward Snowden, who leaked details about them last week.
The coincidence is striking for reasons beyond the sudden conversation about state-sponsored surveillance, which the society depicted in Orwell's novel takes to its extreme end. National Journal noted last week, the NSA revelations surfaced a few days before the anniversary of 1984's original publication date on June 8, 1949.
And Amazon itself encountered its own Orwellian controversy nearly four years ago, in July 2009, when the company remotely deleted thousands of digital copies of the novel from customers' Kindles.
The sales spike could be even more pronounced than current data indicate. Earlier Wednesday morning (6/12) Geekosystem reported that sales for the same 2003 edition has spiked nearly 7,000%, a moment captured by a screenshot at Gawker.
Time for me to walk on down the road…
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