In 1936, originally intending merely to report on the Spanish Civil War as a journalist, George Orwell found himself embroiled as a participant -- as a member of the Worker's Party of Marxist Unity (POUM). Fighting against the Fascists, Orwell's true account of life in the trenches -- with a "democratic army" composed of men with no ranks, no titles, and often no weapons, and of his near-fatal wounding -- is painfully vivid and occasionally comic. As the politics become tangled, Orwell was pulled into a heartbreaking conflict between his own personal ideals and the complicated realities of political power struggles.

Available for loan.

Released on Thursday, October 23, 2003 at postal release in Beverley, England United Kingdom.

Off to begin its bookring journey in England!

This was waiting for me when I got back from a wild weekend in London - Thanks! I have a couple to finish before I start this. I am really looking forward to it.

Order for the bookring:

fofum
charbono <--- on its way
Purplestars
kayters
apapsa
ahythloday
Clawdia
Fyodor
Tuz
kalipriestess
paultopia
Ramya

My apologies for the length of time I've had this. I wanted to take it seriously and I've had a couple of goes at reading it...but it has defeated me. The narrative parts I have really enjoyed, but Orwell's 'policical chapters' as he calls them, I found turgid. I was also a little niggled by the introduction, written by an American academic. I suspect when we read our own history being described by others it is always a strange experience...but his air of condesenstion did not enhance my reading of the text.

Orwell was a great man of principle and an analytical historian, what he has to say about his own time is illuminating for our own - but I think his fiction is more pointed and accessible than this autobiographical approach.