Anthem by Ayn Rand is one of the best dystopian science fiction books I’ve read, and despite being written in the early half of the 20th century with the author passing nearly half a century ago, the word choice and plot seems quite modern. Anthem not only has a plot that keeps me actively engaged, but also it’s packed with deeper political or social ideas, very similarly in books such as 1984 or Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Anthem takes place in a far but obscure amount of time in the future, in a society built on pure collectivism, where “we” is the only personal pronoun allowed. In this world, nobody is allowed to be or do anything alone, everyone is split into Houses, everyone has been taught that they themselves are nothing, living only to serve their “brothers”, and where everything is decided by a committee. In this society, it’s not a surprise that nearly everything from the past was erased, and with that technology was medieval, the most recent invention being the candle. Our main character, Equality 7-2521, lives in such a world, but fails to fit in due to his overly curious self, ending up assigned to the Street Sweeper House with other outcasts like him. Still, his curiosity gets the better of him, and he starts reading old manuscripts by himself and re-discovered electricity, but it was regarded as trash and a felony since he worked on it alone. He now has two choices: run away from the city into the unknown wilderness or face being lashed, potentially to death. 

Even though the book is only 100 pages long, the message about individualism is strong; individual activity needs to be balanced with social activity, and the state should not control what someone is interested in. I would recommend this book to people who love political fiction or science fiction in general to people whose ages are in the double digits.