Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays
Author: George Orwell
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.Publishers Weekly
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." (Oct. 13)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
George Orwell (1903-50) is best remembered for his dark and prophetic political novels, Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949). In addition to four other novels, he also produced some of the best book-length nonfiction of the modernist era, including Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) and Homage to Catalonia (1939). Harcourt is now republishing in two volumes his collected essays, compiled by Packer (The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq ). What is most astonishing about these essays are their continuing freshness and relevancy more than half a century after Orwell's death. All are worth reading for some combination of literary, historical, or cautionary merit. His criticism of art and politics (and sometimes both) remains spot-on, and the "unpleasant facts" he considers, including war, poverty, homelessness, lack of adequate medical care, and even schoolboy bullying, are unfortunately still familiar topics. Orwell's crisp and clear journalistic writing style remains highly accessible to 21st-century readers, with the occasional, now obscure reference illuminated by Packer's notes. Essential for academic libraries; highly recommended for public libraries.-Alison M. Lewis, formerly with Drexel Univ. Lib., Philadelphia
Kirkus Reviews
The first of two volumes of the British author's essays, compiled by journalist George Packer. Orwell (1903-50) was no Flaubert closeted in aesthetic concentration. He was a vigorous participant in the chaotic life of his time, traveling to dangerous places (Burma under British rule, Spain fragmented by civil strife) and venturing into the culture of poverty-in his documentary masterpiece Down and Out in Paris and London and in such memorable transcriptions of personal experience as reports on his day spent in a filthy workhouse ("The Spike") and a similar adventure in a festering prison ("Clink"). Readers familiar with Orwell's work will not be surprised to find the aforementioned, or a kindred depiction of "Marrakech" as a swamp of poverty, overpopulation and disease, or a thoughtful if embittered retrospective essay, "Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War," which forms a bridge to his great nonfiction book Homage to Catalonia. Some may be surprised, however, to encounter a memoirist who displays a quirky affection for the minutiae of the quotidian ("The Case for the Open Fire," "In Defence of English Cooking," "Bookshop Memories") and a keen observer who always zeroes in on the broader ramifications of a simple subject (e.g., describing English football in "The Sporting Spirit" as "an unfailing cause of ill will"). The journalistic virtue Orwell does not possess in abundance is, oddly enough, objectivity. Readers will feel his inquiring, combative, judgmental sensibility lurking everywhere in his best work: bitter self-criticism in the twin classics "A Hanging" and "Shooting an Elephant"; stoical courage and depressive exhaustion in his immensely detailed "War-time Diary" (1940); hisneed "to make political writing into an art" in "Why I Write"; and the salutary indignation that enlivens his justly famous remembrance of public-school experiences ("Such, Such Were the Joys"). A generous display of the great English journalist's distinctive honesty, clarity and reverence for the pertinent fact and the perfect phrase.
New interesting book: The Ownership of Enterprise or Lessons in Learning e Learning and Training
The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America
Author: Thurston Clark
After John Kennedy's assassination, Robert—formerly his brother's no-holds-barred political warrior—was left stunned and grieving. He was haunted by his brother's murder and by the nation's failure to address its most pressing challenges—race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. When he announced that he was running for president, much of the country was thrilled to hear his message of healing and hope. Although fearing that there were, as he told one confident, "guns between me and the White House," he risked his life to ask Americans to help him reclaim "the generous impulses that are the soul of this nation."
Kennedy stirred huge crowds, who would often tear his clothes, and moved even the most hard-bitten of journalists and other intimate observers. After spending most of the campaign at Kennedy's side, reporter Richard Harwood, a former marine who had initially been suspicious of Kennedy, asked his editors at the Washington Post to replace him, telling them, "I'm falling in love with the guy."
Four days after Robert Kennedy was assassinated, two million grieving Americans lined the tracks to watch his funeral train carry his body from New York to Washington. In The Last Campaign, Thurston Clarke explains how one man could have this effect on so many people.
Publishers Weekly
Forty years before Obamamania, there was another White House run that was so frenzied, reporters feared they'd be crushed to death by the electrified crowds he generated. Clarke's encyclopedic study of that short-lived, 11th-hour bid in the spring of 1968 reminds listeners that Robert F. Kennedy understood that the fanaticism toward his campaign was a transmutation of the grief the nation felt over the assassination of his brother. In less than three months, RFK became presidential in his own right, inspiring Americans with both his message of hope and unparalleled oratory gifts. It's precisely this finesse with speech that proves the greatest challenge for this audio: Pete Larkin's reading of Kennedy's addresses simply can't compete with the late politician's familiar delivery. Larkin has the daunting task of calibrating his tone so as to match the optimism of the campaign's first 81 days, while acknowledging the horror of day 82. Without doing impersonations, Larkin uses slight pitch changes to differentiate between Kennedy and others. A Henry Holt hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 31). (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Kirkus Reviews
Tremendously moving chronicle of Bobby Kennedy's 1968 run for president. Addressing the needs of a "wounded nation"-mired in the Vietnam War, complacent about poverty and inequity-Senator Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16, 1968, offering to lead America back to "those ideals which are the source of national strength and generosity and compassion of deed." Clarke (Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech that Changed America, 2004, etc.) follows on Bobby's heels as he plunged headlong into his campaign, from Kansas and Indiana to Oregon and California, throwing off his brother's mantle and becoming at last his own man. He spoke passionately, almost recklessly, inciting crowds to frenzy with his idealistic speeches about the moral shame of Vietnam, the needs of the poor and minorities and the responsibility of each American. Incorporating accounts by a gamut of reporters, politicians, family and "Honorary Kennedys," as well as extracts from Bobby's own stunning stump speeches, Clarke compellingly recreates this "huge, joyous adventure." Seized by grief and guilt over his brother's assassination and morally opposed to the war and to President Johnson's reelection yet unable to reconcile himself to Eugene McCarthy's candidacy, Kennedy (but not all his advisers) decided it was now or never, and his gradual but determined evolution into a fearless, formidable, winning candidate makes stupendous reading. Johnson's decision not to seek reelection robbed him of an antagonist, but when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, Kennedy quelled riots with his heartfelt speeches and become King's "real successor." Many worried that King and JFK would not be the last; Clarke quotesaheartbreaking comment from one reporter, who dubbed Bobby's decision to campaign virtually unprotected by security as "slow-motion suicide." The hope he inspired, though eclipsed by his assassination on June 6, still proves instructive and pertinent, especially in this election year. Generous without being slavish, beautifully capturing Kennedy's passion and dignity. Agent: Kathy Robbins/The Robbins Office
Table of Contents:
Prologue: June 8, 1968 1Early Days
No Choice: March 16-17, 1968 19
"He's Going All the Way": March 17-18, 1968 39
"Bobby Ain't Jack": March 21-31, 1968 51
"Prophets Get Shot"
The Era of Good Feelings: March 31-April 4, 1968 71
A Prayer for Our Country: April 4-5, 1968 91
"Guns Between Me and the White House": April 5-7, 1968 112
"Prophets Get Shot": April 9, 1968 122
Red State Primaries
Like Frank Sinatra Running for President: April 10-15, 1968 139
Brave Heart and Christopher Pretty Boy: April 16 and May 11, 1968 153
"How Does It Look for Me Here?": April 22-24, 1968 166
"From You!": April 26, 1968 183
Riding with the Next President: April 27, 1968 193
Mother Inn: May 3-14, 1968 206
The West Coast
"This Is Peanuts": May 15-28, 1968 227
Resurrection City: May 29, 1968 239
"The Last of the Great Believables": May 30-June 3, 1968 249
"So This Is It": June 4-5, 1968 265
Postscript 276
Notes 283
Bibliography 307
Acknowledgments 311
Index 313
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