George Orwell Tonight

If you're like me you read Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm in school. And that's all your know of this guy. The other day I picked up his 1936 novel "Keep the Apidistra Flying" . I'd never heard of it, but it had a "Staff Recommendation" flag flying from it in our local bookshop. It's a comic tale, it's light and goes down easy, but it deals with an issue close to all our hearts: money. Our hero is a young poet who disdains what he calls the "moneyworld" and the way it assures that all major life decisions are predicated on money. To make his stand against the established order he quits his good job and vows to live a life making no effort to obtain money, becoming more and more emibttered the process. As an old '60s guy, I've watched each of my friends make his own particular compromise with the "moneyworld" - here I am running a business that serves not-for-profits. So seeing this inner struggle through the eyes of a between-the-wars Bohemian was quite refreshing. We've always known Orwell as an important commentator on politics and society, but this is far more personal, less global, that his more well-known works. Give it a read.