"1984" publisher orders new printing as sales soar

NEW YORK (AP) - With "alternate facts" the latest catchphrase, George Orwell's "1984" is No. 1 on Amazon.com and the publisher has ordered an additional 75,000 copies.

Signet Classics told The Associated Press in a statement Wednesday that sales have been "remarkably robust" for a book that already is a classroom standard. The publisher noted that books such as Orwell's tap into "the fears, anxieties, and even hopes" of readers.

The heightened interest in Orwell's Dystopian classic, in which language itself is held captive, follows assertions by President Donald Trump and some White House aides about the size of his inaugural crowd and whether voter fraud led him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton last fall. Administration adviser Kellyanne Conway has called such assertions "alternate facts."