ANNOTATED READING LIST

Postman, Neil. Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death delivers an amusing critique on our society's addiction to television. In the book Postman says that America is heading towards a society like BNW. He says that Americans were more intelligent before the influence of television. He also points out that our society has become too focused on "show business", which I totally agree because we [Americans] put people in show business on such high pedestals. Religion is one of the things that is negatively affected by television because of all the television church services. Basically, Postman is saying that television has changed the way we think, talk ,and act and that is not a good thing because we don't want to end up like the people in Huxley's BNW. (163)

Huxley, Aldous. Brave new world. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006.

Huxley's Brave New World predicts a future that is very scary. This Book Is set in a time in the future, where everyone is exactly the same. From Birth the people are manipulated to be exactly how society wants them to be. They use different tactics to make the people how they want them to be. For example they genetically modify children and they use hypnopaedia so they end how society wants them to be. In every bunch there are always a few bad apples. For example, Bernard Marx is a strange young fellow compared to the other alphas. He doesn't think or act like them. One day Bernard and his lady friend, Lenina, go to a savage reservation and find a savage who's mother is from the BNW society. Bernard takes him back and life is never the same again. The savage comes to the BNW society and does not know how to react to all the immoral acts done by the BNW society. He realizes that in the BNW society there are no morals or individualism and that is something he doesn't handle well. Huxley used a very interesting writing style, he told different stories at one time, it was confusing, but made me a stronger reader. This book also opened my eyes to how morals and individualism is very important. I also asked the question is stability worth giving up individualism?? (268)


Bray, Libba. The Sweet Far Thing. New York: Delacorte, 2007. Print.

The Sweet Far Thing is set during Victorian times at Spence Girl's Academy. I felt like the characters in this book were too modern for the time the book was set in. Gemma Doyle is the main character and she is the protector of the magic. Her friends Felicity and Ann also use the magic because Gemma has the power to give them some. She also has a beautiful romance with a boy named Kartik that has an unfortunate ending. The girls are about to be debuted into society, and so they are getting ready for that in the day, but at night they are getting ready to fight a war that is brewing in the realms. This book was a long read, but it wasn't very challenging so I recommend it for anyone looking for a pleasure read. I also recommend the first two in the trilogy.(816)


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