Story time: My mother read 1984 as a teenager, in the German Democratic Republic. It was, of course, forbidden there, so it was passed around illegally, in hand-typed copies. You usually only had one chapter at a time, and not necessarily i

Oof. A Hanging (available online) is a very short essay by George Orwell, describing in very matter-of-fact detail the morning of a prison hanging. It's as terrible and at the same time as common as it sounds.

Other than 1984, this one goes a bit more into the rise of dictatorships and how coercion and decisionmaking works. Same as 1984, it's flat and punches you in the face repeatedly, lest you miss the point. The point is also written in large