Ever since reading 1984, I’ve been leery of Orwell. Decades later, the images remain frightening vivid. But in these politically troubling times, I thought Orwell’s perspective could be instructive. And sometimes I just hanker after quality.

For months, I had my morning coffee with a taste of Orwell. At 1400 pages, that’s a lot of food for thought. I found him a refreshing, though sobering, companion. His unornamented prose is bracing, but it often made me laugh with pleasure. Even his literary criticism fascinates. I already miss his voice.

This is a great book to have around. Whenever I want to read, but don't necessarily want to dive into the novel I am in the middle of, I can flip to any of the hundreds of essays provided here and enjoy his wonderful voice.

I didn’t get all the way through this beast, but it’s length and chronological organization was awesome for finding the heavy-hitting essays and his overall tone through particular events in European/World history and other contemporary authors. Good source to use as the Orwell file cabinet. Moving on to a smaller, directed collection next.

Lenin once said that your heart ought to be on fire, but your brain should be on ice.
George Orwell is one of those few individuals who seems to have taken this maxim to heart.
This volume, being a little under 1400 pages, contains Orwell's thoughts about a wide range of subjects including literary criticism, democratic socialism, the Spanish civil war, British imperialism, the second world war and of course Totalitarianism and everything related to all that.
Few of these essays have lost their relevance, and in none of them Orwell shies away from the facts or reverts to cynicism, very much contrasting him with many contemporary intellectuals.
Above all, reading Orwell is a lesson in intellectual honesty.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in English literature and/or the politics of the early 20th century.
Personal favourite essays of mine were; A hanging, shooting an Elephant, Bookshop memories, my country right or left, Gandhi in Mayfair, Can socialists be happy?, What is fascism (or as I please 17), As i please 28, Notes on Nationalism(George, the word you were looking for was tribalism), politics and the English language, As i please 80 and Marx and Russia.

I haven't read this in its entirety; I haven't even read half. But wherever I turn, I find myself blown away by the insights and the writing. Everything is crystal clear when you're reading Orwell. It's an absolute treat to read.

TWO COPIES

Some years ago, I had a chance to take part in a seminar in effective business writing. The moral was simple - the more direct your prose is, the better. If one were to look for a good example of this axiom, I don't think you could do much better than this collection of Orwell's essays. Orwell wasn't just a good essayist; he was superb. Never a wasted word, but more importantly, never a word put down without having thought out his aims first. These essays range from the tongue in cheek ("In Defence of British Cooking", which is also the shortest(!) essay in the book), literary and artistic criticism (the essays on Charles Dickens and Johnathan Swift are particularly noteworthy, as is the piece on Salvador Dali) and, of course, politics.



While I'm not particularly partial to Orwell's "democratic socialism", there is no doubt that Orwell was truly looking out for the welfare of mankind and to that end, he denounced totalinarianism wherever he found it. Many of these essays showcase his ultimate humanity and decency, but among the best of them are "Antisemitism in Britain", the epic "Notes on Nationalism" and, of course, "Politics and the English Language," which sums up Orwell and his writings better than I ever could. Essential reading; in fact, our schools could do worse than make this a part of the curriculum. There's more to this man than 1984.

Some of my favourite (arbitrarily rated) essays in this collection:

A Hanging, August 1931 (5*)
The Freedom of the Press (Animal Farm), August 1945 (5*)
Shooting an Elephant, Autumn 1936 (4.75*)
As I Please 67, December 1946 (4.5*)
Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, March 1947 (4.5*)
Charles Dickens, March 1940 (4.25*)
The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda, April 1941 (4.25*)
Looking Back on the Spanish War, 1942? (4.25*)
Can Socialists be Happy?, December 1943 (4.25*)
As I Please 12, February 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 14, March 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 24, May 1944 (4.25*)
As I Please 56, January 1945 (4.25*)
Anti-Semitism in Britain, April 1945 (4.25*)
The Prevention of Literature, March 1947 (4.25*)
Politics and the English Language, December 1945 (4.25*)
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad, April 1946 (4.25*)
Why I Write, Summer 1946 (4.25*)
How the Poor Die, November 1946 (4.25*)
As I Please 70, January 1947 (4.25*)
Toward European Unity, July-August 1947 (4.25*)
Reflections on Gandhi, January 1949 (4.25*)
You and the Atom Bomb, October 1945 (3.25*)

Some of these are available on https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-...

It feels kinda hard to rate this because it’s just kinda my default audiobook and it’s just an essay collection. I mean me just stanning George Orwell at this point. There’s a lot of really great essays in this collection, and a quote that I
and can’t read Orwell without thinking about. It goes something like, “everything I’ve ever written consciously or not was written against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.” and that line is at the beginning of this collection.

Already a year (or just about) has gone by since I started this 1366-page collection, reading a few essays here and there, in between other books, and while I really liked reading about Orwell's thoughts on a variety of subjects, I'm glad I'm done reading this book. Now I can move on to something else.

Some thoughts, then:

This book is best enjoyed when read in small doses. That way you can (1) avoid getting bored/annoyed with a seemingly endless string of essays, (2) take the time to reflect on what you've read and maybe even start a discussion with someone (perish the thought!) on that same subject, and (3) probably retain more of what you read, as opposed to 'cramming' info or 'sprinting' through the book. Just a thought.

Of course I recommend it.

There are really few essays that were tedious reads. Some I enjoyed more than others. Here are the ones that I actually took the time to mark with a post-it:


1936
- In Defence of the Novel

1939
- Review of Communism and Man by F.J. Sheed
- Marrakech
- Review of Union Now by Clarence K. Streit

1940
- Notes on the Way
- New Words

1941
- The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius
- Literature and Totalitarianism

1942
- Money and Guns

1943
- As I Please 5

1944
- As I Please 6
- As I Please 7
- Review of The Machiavellians by James Burnham
- As I Please 10
- As I Please 11
- As I Please 13
- Review of The Edge of the Abyss by Alfred Noyes
- Review of Cricket Country by Edmund Blunden
- As I Please 24
- As I Please 25
- The English People
- Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali
- Are Books Too Dear?
- As I Please 45
- As I Please 49
- Funny, But Not Vulgar

1945
- Review of Der Führer by Conrad Heiden
- As I Please 58
- In Defence of P.G. Wodehouse
- The Freedom of the Press (Animal Farm)
- You and the Atom Bomb

1946
- Pleasure Spots
- A Nice Cup of Tea
- The Politics of Starvation
- Bad Climates are Best
- Books v. Cigarettes
- Decline of the English Murder
- Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
- James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution
- Review of Ants and Men by Caryl P. Haskins
- Why I Write

1947
- As I Please 72
- As I Please 75 B
- As I Please 78
- Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm
- Burnham's View of the Contemporary World Struggle

1948
- Review of The Atlantic Islands by Kenneth Williamson
- George Gissing
- Such, Such Were the Joys

1949
- Reflections on Gandhi

Let's be honest, there was basically no chance of me rating this less than 5 stars. Orwell has been my favorite author for several years now, and with well over 1000 pages of his essays in here I do think this is an incredible compilation of a lot of his best work.

There's so much I could say about everything in here. It's laid out chronologically, and I find it kind of thrilling to be able to trace aspects of his thought through the years as they shift or become more robust and developed. Orwell is perhaps at his best as a literary critic, and he is also terribly catty at times - in a way that I find very fun. Reading his book reviews may not be for everyone, but it is for me. Not that it's all reviews, of course - there are several longer works as well, some of which are remarkable.

While he is best known today for 1984 and for his novels in general, George was gifted in shorter forms - capable of making his points quickly and well, and being remarkably entertaining all the while. This volume is a must for anyone interested in really exploring Orwell, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Gandhi? Actually sucks