Finished an English-language solo recording today: Looking backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy. A hopeful book on what Bellamy thought the future should / could / would be like. We can judge how much of it did come true by the year 2000. From the summary on the Librivox catalogue page:

Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian novel by Edward Bellamy, first published in 1888. It was the third largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up more than a century later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts) but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the U.S.A. has been transformed into a socialist utopia. This book outlines Bellamy’s complex thoughts about improving the future, and is an indictment of industrial capitalism. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia)