Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
$9.44
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Frequently Bought Together
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":9.44,"ASIN":"0143036351","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":13.53,"ASIN":"0156033070","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":13.59,"ASIN":"0156186004","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0143036351::kq2nQvTybVfK7wrh7hcF3E18IHG0Np%2BKZUDK%2BFp8JlTRivu54Rnlac9uYFTM87UJf3cG%2Fzh5QEVedrgvO2%2BbyvGphBQclusVJ5nRu6s86KNTjwXxUCK%2BMA%3D%3D,0156033070::d8SJ7D%2BoHtAUB91k8MwStbyOpEj0wtV7uXarTZJR9btgc04hKeSy5UqywikHxAHbxNVFPD181Ur09h2SGy3%2BU1u78gqoBqOYBgaygyREP%2F50wlmO2PdPuA%3D%3D,0156186004::t73t4nzG%2BnPMzMOTmH2A3ZxIU0P9P0FCC2kpoOFF%2FXnmmdTymEv9Q%2FUCNPmDanNzv9cgYm2M1qwazqdxEd04f875mmpEEiHomMQfaJZCVZ4%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","xy":"same","yz":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z","w"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List","Add all four to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart","Add all four to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:","Price For All Four:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items","Pre-order all four items"]}}
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
This little book contains four essays written between 1931 and 1946. But the bulk of the book (85 of 120 pages) is taken up by one essay, "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius," written in 1940. The others are "Why I Write" (1946), "A Hanging" (1931), and "Politics and the English Language" (1946). I am not sure why these four essays are joined in this one volume or why the title of the volume is the title of one of the short essays. All of the essays are about politics in one way or another, but only the first and last deal with the profession of being a writer. Also, there is no introduction by an editor that might explain this collection.
In spite of this mystery, the book is a good introduction to Orwell, the essayist. One gets a taste of him early on in 1931, during the physical and psychological pounding of the Blitz (1940), and in his full maturity in 1946.
In "The Hanging," the young Orwell expresses his moral revulsion at capital punishment. As a policeman in Burma, he had to watch the hanging of a Hindu man. The crime for which the man is being executed is never named. Thus, we are forced to concentrate on the act of hanging a human being, rather than the execution of a criminal. Orwell writes, "I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide." (p. 98)
The long essay, "The Lion and the Unicorn," was written in 1940 as German planes were bombing London. This brings Orwell to reflect on patriotism and its inexplicable strength throughout Britain's highly stratified society. His essay is partly an analysis of three economic/social systems---capitalism, socialism, and fascism---in a time of war. He concludes that England will survive only if it undergoes a socialistic revolution.Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Well, there was Our Man eager to read the four essays that are mentioned in the product description. But lo and behold when you buy the Kindle edition by Crabbit House for a steal at under $2.00, it only includes the one 15-screen essay, Why I Write, which is freely available on Google. The other three essays, that are in the description, are not included in the collection. A steal all right, but not the good kind.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
George Orwell ("Animal Farm", "1984") an influential author of the last century wrote for political reasons. He believed that all good books are political. His goal was to make political writing into an art.
He had six rules: 1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. 3. If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out. 4. Never use the passive where you can use the active. 5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. 6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Orwell confessed that he could be caught breaking his own rules. The point is not to be fastidious but to work towards clarity of speech. He wrote "If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy".
"I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing".
“These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English ... I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.”
Malcolm Cameron 4 September 2014
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
The actual essay, "Why I Write" is thoughtful, clear. The essay "Politics and the English Language" is true and eternal.
Unfortunately, these fine essays take up only a small portion of the Penguin Great (sic) Ideas edition. Most of that book is given to an entirely temporary screed ("The Lion and the Unicorn") concerning the inevitability of socialism in light of the Second World War. In this much longer piece, Orwell argues that only a socialist or fascist state can wage effective war because "both are planned systems geared to a definite purpose." Private interest is unhelpful to the extent that it stands in the way of the single-minded state. Capitalism results in "frivolous consumption" whereas socialism allows every able soul to work toward a definite goal. Capitalism, therefore, might never win a war.
Granted, the essay was written before the United States entered the war. That nation temporarily organized its capitalists to produce military machines in war-winning quantities while exposing only a tiny fraction of its population to enemy fire. But this Penguin edition was published long after the end of the war. Its publication does no favors to the reputation of Mr. Orwell. Let's take up a few points.
War lowers a society's standards of living, "because the essential act of war is to manufacture armaments instead of consumable goods."
Yes, this is from the same essay in which socialism is preferred because it is better equipped to manufacture armaments. The essential act of Orwell's state would be to prepare for war, i.e., to permanently lower the society's standards of living.
"It does not seem probable that air bombing can settle a major war.Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
