A San Francisco bookstore offers free copies of George Orwell's '1984'

A "mystery benefactor" bought the copies of George Orwell's dystopian satire at Booksmith and asked that they be given away free to interested customers, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Booksmith is located in San Francisco's famously progressive Haight-Ashbury district. The Orwell books were claimed, but the giveaway idea caught on. Another patron purchased copies of Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale" and Erik Larson's nonfiction book "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" to be given away to shoppers. Orwell's "1984," a dark vision about a Britain taken over by a totalitarian regime that uses "doublethink" and "Newspeak" to mislead and control its citizens, has seen a spike in sales since late January, after President Trump's advisor Kellyanne Conway appeared on "Meet the Press" and used the term "alternative facts" to defend the administration's provably false statements about the size of the crowds at the inuaguration.