On Reading, the seventh in the Orwell's Essays series, collects together Orwell's short essays on books – 'Bookshop Memories', 'Good Bad Books', 'Nonsense Poetry', 'Books vs. Cigarettes' and 'Confessions of a Book Reviewer' – giving a rounded view of the great writer's opinions on the literature of his day, and the vessels in which it was sold.
Born Eric Arthur Blair (1903–1950), George Orwell was an English journalist, writer and critic. Orwell devoted his life to working against extremism, and in his description of how authoritarian regimes pervade our thoughts, he gave us a new vocabulary to understand totalitarianism. He is best remembered today for his innumerable essays, his novels – in particular Animal Farm and 1984 – and his longer non-fiction, especially The Road to Wigan Pier and Down Out in Paris and London.