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books that complement each other so well that they should be read together
George Orwell's1984 and Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy
For those who are a fan of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, how does a nonfiction version sound? Nothing to Envy documents what life looks like for the average citizen living in North Korea. I happened to be reading both books at the same time, and it was shocking to find how much of 1984's Oceania is prevalent in North Korea. Barbara Demick presents a beautiful and heartbreaking narrative of several average citizens and how multiple aspects of their life—food, education, dating, marriage, career, art, entertainment, beauty, etc.—are impacted by the totalitarian regime they are subjected to. There are multiple parallels with Oceania and North Korea such as excessive government surveillance, a ban on all forms of personal expression, repressed sexuality, and rewriting history, just to name a few. Reading these two books at once, and seeing how many aspects of Orwell's fictional society are apparent in a real-life totalitarian regime showed how well Orwell understood the nature of a dystopian government and the effect of it on an average human life which made me appreciate 1984 even more than I already was.
Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power and Mary L. Trump's Too Much and Never Enough
Robert Greene's famous 48 Laws of Power lists all the ways one can have power over another. From strategically making enemies to never sharing too much about yourself to keep an air of mystery to garnering respect from those who are more powerful than you in order to one day overthrow them, he discusses psychology and human nature while providing examples of historical events to back up his claim. Of course, these tactics are not to be used for the average person in everyday life, but more for a monarch to acquire power and respect from their people or to gain trust from the enemy while spying on them. Although not applicable to most people, this book is essentially an examination of human nature and power dynamics. I read this around the same time I read Too Much and Never Enough in which Mary L. Trump reveals insider information about her family and how her great uncle Fred Trump coincidentally happened to use many of the same power tactics described in 48 Laws of Power. Learning about the psychology of power and manipulation, in one book and seeing the effects of it in the other, highlighted how an abuse of power can affect a whole family line for generations to come and how it can affect one's development. Seeing many of Greene's laws play out in Too Much and Never Enough legitimized many of his claims that may seem far-fetched at first glance.
Lucretius's On the Nature of the Universe and Aristotle's Physics
For some more heavy philosophy reads, Lucretius's On the Nature of the Universe focuses on the order and pattern in which the universe functions. Everything is nothing more than atoms getting cycled and recycled all throughout history, and for this reason our life doesn't really have meaning and therefore, death should not be feared. This book is in the form of flowery poetry with lush descriptions of the natural world and astronomical metaphors. Aristotle's Physics takes on a more down to earth approach and speaks on the nature of the universe as well, but more in hard concrete facts and laws. Think of the difference between Lucretius's book and Aristotle's book as the difference between the Type-B, spontaneous, aspirational friend who romanticizes everything and may not think much before acting and the Type-A planner realist friend who is more grounded in reality. Neither are right or wrong in their own thinking, but it's important to have a balance of both and Lucretius's On the Nature of the Universe and Aristotle's Physics go great together because they are two sides of the same coin.