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#EmptyShelf17 #12-13 Dystopian Futures with The Handmaid’s Tale and Brave New World

Brave New WorldBrave New World by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t know quite what I expected from this book – but have quoted Huxley (not from this book) in that persuasion/propaganda can ‘only canalise a pre-existing stream’. I can see why the book has new resonance in a world in which we chase experience, happiness, and consumerism … and the final question of whether we’re entitled to be unhappy – aka, have ‘free will’.

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The Handmaid's TaleThe Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well I got drawn into that … intriguing bit of dystopian futurism (not the first I’ve read this year in which women/babies = scarce resource). In some ways frustrating there’s no clear cut end, but as a historian a recognisable format!

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By admin

Dr Bex Lewis is passionate about helping people engage with the digital world in a positive way, where she has more than 20 years’ experience. She is Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University and Visiting Research Fellow at St John’s College, Durham University, with a particular interest in digital culture, persuasion and attitudinal change, especially how this affects the third sector, including faith organisations, and, after her breast cancer diagnosis in 2017, has started to research social media and cancer. Trained as a mass communications historian, she has written the original history of the poster Keep Calm and Carry On: The Truth Behind the Poster (Imperial War Museum, 2017), drawing upon her PhD research. She is Director of social media consultancy Digital Fingerprint, and author of Raising Children in a Digital Age: Enjoying the Best, Avoiding the Worst  (Lion Hudson, 2014; second edition in process) as well as a number of book chapters, and regularly judges digital awards. She has a strong media presence, with her expertise featured in a wide range of publications and programmes, including national, international and specialist TV, radio and press, and can be found all over social media, typically as @drbexl.

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