“As a child I lived in a home that was full of books … Rare works and first editions were kept under lock and key, and it took all my skill with a hairpin to gain entry to them.” Leon Gellert As an enthusiastic collector of books by George Orwell (1903-50), the discovery that a […]
…in the last six months, a lot of people in Australia have discovered Twitter – particularly those folks who, like myself, are interested in what’s up-and-coming on the Web. Nearly all of those folks use Twitter these days, and most of them follow one another. I quickly got swept up into this madness, and am […]
This post has been updated. Read this one. “He hated Scotsmen!” Kay Ekevall “He wrote under the name ‘Orwell’, partly because he preferred separate identity as an author, partly because he disliked he idea of family origins in Scotland.” Anthony Powell Slave Owner: Blair Come here! You ! Adam ! You’d better jump a […]
“I am a lot better, but I had a bad fortnight with the secondary effects of the streptomycin. I suppose with all these drugs it’s rather a case of sinking the ship to get rid of the rats.” George Orwell: A Life in Letters On returning home […]
This review originally appeared in George Orwell Studies Volume 3 Number 2. George Orwell continues to have an extraordinary influence on how the English view England, writes Darcy Moore in his review of an important contemporary work of history. The English and Their History: The First Thirteen Centuries (2014) by Robert Tombs has deservingly been described as […]
“…flipping the system is about changing education from the ground up by allowing teachers to take the lead as a trusted and meaningful part of global education conversations.” Flip The System Australia: What Matters in Education edited by Deborah M. Netolicky, Jon Andrews and Cameron Paterson situates Australian education policy, research and practice within the context of […]
“I have heard briefly from Edith Morgan, at Christmas. She was visiting in Rome.” […]
“I came back to America in 1939, in October, but do not feel that I am at home yet. New York has been most inhospitable – and I am a rebel in a world that has become so regimented that I can find no foothold in it. I have all the more a desire to […]
“Among the letters in Orwell’s possession at his death was one from Ruth Graves, whom he had known twenty years earlier, in Paris. She had, she said, read all his essays but had been prompted to write on hearing Animal Farm described on the radio…as the ‘outstanding political satire of all time.’” Peter Davison (CW […]
I had not planned to visit Kastellorizo, just a few kilometres off the coast of Turkey. In fact, I had never heard of this Greek Island nor the deep connections the people have with Australia. I did vaguely remember seeing Mediterraneo, the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar Winner in 1992 but did not know it […]