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Check for Availabilityout of stock. Click on the button below to search for this title in other formats.  This title in other editionsOther titles in the Complete Works of George Orwell series:Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist. From his earliest published article in 1928 to his untimely death in 1950, he produced an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected—and illuminated—the fraught times in which he lived and wrote. "As soon as he began to write something," comments George Packer in his foreword to this new two-volume collection, "it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge—in short, to think—as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent." Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell's development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites classics such as "Shooting an Elephant" with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell's boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these narrative essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex. Review:"Best known for his late-career classics Animal Farm and 1984, George Orwell — who used his given name, Eric Blair, in the earliest pieces of this collection aimed at the aficionado as well as the general reader — was above all a polemicist of the first rank. Organized chronologically, from 1931 through the late 1940s, these in-your-face writings showcase the power of this literary form. The range of subjects is considerable, from 'Shooting an Elephant' to remembrances of working in a bookshop ('The combines can never squeeze the small independent bookseller out of existence...'); from recollections of fighting in the Spanish Civil War to culinary oddities such as a 'Defence of English Cooking' and 'A Nice Cup of Tea'; to the broad-stroke masterwork of boarding-school irony, 'Such, Such Were the Joys.' New Yorker contributor Packer (The Assassins' Gate) keenly assembles and introduces this selection, bringing into high relief Orwell's range of experience and committed humanism, showing how, as Orwell put it, 'to make political writing into an art.'" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) About the AuthorGEORGE ORWELL (1903–1950) served with the Imperial Police in Burma, fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, and was a member of the Home Guard and a writer for the BBC during World War II. He is the author of many works of nonfiction and fiction. GEORGE PACKER is a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq and other works. He lives in Brooklyn.
Table of Contentscontents Foreword by George Packer • vii Introduction by George Packer • xv The Spike • 1 Clink • 11 A Hanging • 23 Shooting an Elephant • 29 Bookshop Memories • 38 Marrakech • 44 My Country Right or Left • 52 War-time Diary • 59 England Your England • 109 Dear Doktor Goebbels—Your British Friends Are Feeding Fine! • 139 Looking Back on the Spanish War • 143 As I Please, 1 • 167 As I Please, 2 • 172 As I Please, 3 • 175 As I Please, 16 • 180 Revenge Is Sour • 184 The Case for the Open Fire • 189 The Sporting Spirit • 193 In Defence of English Cooking • 198 A Nice Cup of Tea • 201 The Moon Under Water • 205 In Front of Your Nose • 209 Some Thoughts on the Common Toad • 214 A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray • 219 Why I Write • 224 How the Poor Die • 232 Such, Such Were the Joys • 245 Notes • 296 What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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