3000 years of utopian texts in one book

[Anne]

If you'd like to delve into the history of utopian writing, this book is the perfect place to start. (The Faber Book of Utopias by John Carey). There are extracts dating from 1940BC to 1998AD.

Here's my review:
Look no further than John Carey’s compilation of utopias/dystopias to gain a real appreciation of how this form of literature has obsessed writers over millennia. Yes, millennia! From The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (anonymous, circa 1940 BC), Homer, Plato, Tacitus, Plutarch, Tao Qian through to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Michel de Montaigne’s On Cannibals, Margaret Cavendish, Jonathan Swift, Marquis de Sade, Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (a personal favourite), Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kurt Vonnegut, Italo Calvino, Marge Piercy . . . .

I have lost count of how many people have borrowed my copy and gone on to buy their own. Many small excerpts – excellent bedtime reading.