Story highlights Orwell's famed book rose to No. 6 on Amazon's bestseller list

The book imagines propaganda in an authoritarian state

(CNN) 2017 has been "doubleplusgood" for sales of George Orwell's "1984."

The famed dystopian novel of life in a totalitarian state sat at No. 6 on Amazon's bestseller list Tuesday morning. On Monday, too, the book hovered between No. 5 and No. 7 on that same bestseller list, as CNN's Brian Stelter noted in his Reliable Sources newsletter.

First published in 1949 and imagining a future authoritarian society, "1984" is widely regarded as one of the most influential novels of the 20th century. Its state, Oceania, employs a language called Newspeak (and words like "doubleplusgood") to limit freedom of thought.

The book focuses in particular on the impact of omnipresent government surveillance and the state's use of propaganda to enforce orthodoxy to an all-powerful leader, known as "Big Brother."

The novel's newfound popularity comes several days after White House press secretary Sean Spicer argued defiantly that Trump's swearing-in Friday drew the largest-ever audience for an inauguration "period," despite obvious photo and statistical evidence to the contrary