Book 33: “a book you own but have never read”

This book is part of Penguin Books’ ‘Great Ideas’ series. I remember buying this book in high school because I enjoyed reading Orwell’s work and was curious to know what motivates him. I was surprised when I went to dig into this book that it’s actually comprised of four essays by Orwell about various topics on the theme of Politics and Language. It’s clear from his writing that he’s motivated by the potential power of language to impact politics and social change.

I was really intrigued by his essay about English Socialism – over and over I saw parallels between our current state of politics in America and Orwell’s world of England in the 1940’s. His discussion of the wealthy people co-opting the government through the influence of money was hauntingly familiar, and his discussion of the pushback that would result from an attempt to convert England to socialism sounded a lot like the political arguments we hear today. It was almost eerie how spot-on his predictions were.