George Orwell’s “1984” sales soar after NSA leak

PanARMENIAN.Net - Sales of 1984 have soared on Amazon.com after reports emerged last week about the NSA collecting millions of phone records, The Hollywood Reporter said.

The classic George Orwell novel has rocketed up the online retailer's sales chart, occupying the No. 3 post on the site's "Movers & Shakers" list of the "bigger gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours," as of late Tuesday afternoon.

The same edition of 1984 is also the 123rd best-selling book overall, a 9,538 percent increase, up from No. 11,855.

Meanwhile, another edition of the novel was at No. 91 on Amazon's list of the top 100 best-sellers early Tuesday June 11 afternoon.

The book and its "Big Brother" have been frequently mentioned in coverage of the NSA scandal. "In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance," President Obama said while addressing the controversy Friday.

Orwell biographer Michael Shelden told NPR that the NSA's collection of phone records was in line with the author's concerns.

"Throwing out such a broad net of surveillance is exactly the kind of threat Orwell feared," Shelden said.