Animal Farm / George Orwell / 113 pages

Animal Farm is a political satire, but comparisons to others are hard to make.  Orwell is even more critical of human nature than Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels, where the weary Gulliver comes home to find he much prefers the company of horses to that of people.  While the work was originally meant to criticize Stalinism, lessons can be applied to almost any human civilization.  Foremost is the pigs' use of "the enemy" to strengthen their status as leaders of the farm.  While a short book, it has many deeper themes that take time to digest.  This is a book meant to challenge the way a person sees the world and it is successful if you are not already cynical about government.