A heavyweight collection of essays from one of the 20th century's most perceptive writers. The forty-one selections included here range from the political ones and discussions of literature to miscellany like 'Shooting an Elephant' and reminiscences about his boarding-school years (which was surprisingly interesting). The political and language-based ones are of the standard you would expect from the writer of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, and Orwell was so astonishingly clear in his analyses that many of them remain essential in 2019 – perhaps even more so than they were in the 1940s. The other essays vary in interest and contemporary usefulness – though the vast majority are excellent – and their presence makes for a more harmonious sequencing when reading the book through. Orwell had a fascinating mind and he was a true individual; these qualities ensure his non-fiction writing here is more readable than many other writers' fiction. ( )

Brilliant! The second time I read this and it will probably not be the last.

I am giving only 4 stars instead of the 5 that it actually deserves because his obsession with fascism and socialism sometimes distorted what would have otherwise been very insightful observations. An example would be in "Raffles and Miss Blandish". Given the times when these essays were written though, my judgement is likely unfair.

The back cover of my copy contains the blurb: "Anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century will still have to read Orwell." To me however, it contained some very interesting insights into specifically the english psyche.

Orwell tells it as he sees it, with amazing clarity and command of language.

The essays that made me think were:

Politics and the English Language
Shooting an Elephant
Inside the Whale
The Lion and the Unicorn
Benefit of Clergy; Some Notes on Salvador Dali
Antisemitism in Britain
Notes on Nationalism
The Sporting Spirit
Writers and Leviathan

Oh that he were around today to explain the state of affairs to us! ( )

"Shooting an Elephant" is the best narrative essay I have ever read. He surpasses what most fiction writers could ever aspire to evoke in their writing, and he does so in a few pages... "A Hanging" & "Marrakech" are other highlights. His sense for place, his choice of the perfect concrete detail to impress on the reader, is astounding... "Inside the Whale" should also be required reading for fiction writers.
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"Animal Farm" or "1984" are not the best books of Orwell. The essays are. Luckily there are so many of them.

If you hesitate, read "Why I Write" or "Shooting an Elephant".

Fascinating work and lots of it is much more interesting than his more famous Animal Farm. Conversational, philosophical and very funny in parts. ( )