Today in History: The Lord of the Flies

On this day (September 17) in 1954, Lord of the Flies was published by William Golding. If you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely put it on your reading list. At its roots, when you get past the basic adventure story of a group of boys stranded together on an uninhabited island, this is a novel of civilization and how easily and rapidly it unravels in extreme circumstances. I’d heard about this novel most of my life but decided to read it only after reading Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis. In the opening novella of that collection, King brilliantly weaves the plot of Lord of Flies into his larger story. This book continually makes it on to top 100 book lists. Give it a read. You won’t regret it.