Requested by the nominator to be glued back to back, these two books sit together in the library.

News from Nowhere is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the Commonweal journal in 1890. In the novel, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and therefore they find pleasure in their work.

A Connecticut Yankee by Mark Twain follows the fate of mechanic Hank Morgan. Knocked unconscious, it is only when he comes to, that he finds himself in 6th-century England rather than nineteenth-century America. Surrounded by the traditions and customs of Camelot and King Arthur’s court, Morgan dislikes the hereditary social class structure and state church and attempts to instil his American idealism and love for technology and progress in King Arthur’s people. Hugely comedic and satirical in its take on the British monarchy and society, the book remains one of Twain’s most original and best-loved works.

These titles are available as ebooks from Barking & Dagenham Libraries