Tag Archives: George Orwell

2006 Books

Books read this year. I actually may end up adding a couple more to the list – since I am bed-ridden at the moment and could finish 2 more books by the time the damn ball drops across the river. … Continue reading

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1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Jessa Crispin has an interesting interview with Peter Boxall, editor of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I loved what Boxall said at the end: “Having benefited from an extraordinary number of emails and letters as well as … Continue reading

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Dickens’ Monsters

More from George Orwell’s essay on Dickens. The fact that Dickens is always thought of as a caricaturist, although he was constantly trying to be something else, is perhaps the surest mark of his genius. The monstrosities that he created … Continue reading

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Orwell on Dickens

I’m in the process right now of reading George Orwell’s mammoth (and unbelievably good) essay on Charles Dickens. It is dense, exciting – and it’s making me want to pick up all of those books again. I re-read Great Expectations … Continue reading

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Snapshots

— I have now graduated in my life to a higher thread count. I have been living for years with kinda scratchy low-thread-count sheets, because I never wanted to spend the money for the higher thread-count. But after rolling around … Continue reading

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Totalitarian Reading

Over the weekend I finished two books: Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens (READ IT) and Language of the Third Reich: LTI: Lingua Tertii Imperii by Viktor Klemperer (I could say READ IT – but you would seriously have to … Continue reading

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“Grokking” Stalin And The Murder of Kirov

Update: I just realized that my description of 3 a.m. anxiety may obscure the rest of the post, which would be unfortunate. So if you want to skip over that part to get to the Stalin stuff, feel free. You … Continue reading

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George Orwell: “Reality Unhinged”

“It is, I think, true to say that the [British] intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left … Continue reading

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“With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought…”

From George Orwell’s 1984, which I am now rereading: He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own. … Continue reading

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Orwell

“It is, I think, true to say that the [British] intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left … Continue reading

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