Not a bad book if you're really into reading the daily accounts of Orwell's attempts at farming: the weather, how many eggs the hens laid, how much gas was used that day. Also interesting if you want to read Orwell's reaction to the news and events in London during World War II. Not particularly full of Orwell's thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. Really, my favorite parts were those from his stint as a tramp. ( )

Despite being a lifelong Orwell-ophile, I found these diary entries too often mundane, and of very little interest or insight. ( )

The main appeal of Orwell's diaries is for the avid gardener, do-it-yourselfer, get away from urban/suburban civilization, live off the land in remote island precincts type of person. If any of these sounds like you, these diaries will be of interest.

About three quarters of the entries covering the 30s and 40s deal with his daily efforts at gardening on a large scale, animal husbandry, raising chickens and a daily count of how many eggs were gathered and the price they fetched, fishing for food in the evenings after farming all day, closely monitoring the supplies of petrol, paraffin, Calor gas cylinders, cleaning clogged drains, repairing farm implements, and recording daily weather conditions. Orwell was one hell of a petit bourgeois for a socialist. In another time and place with better health he might have been a successful kulak.

The locales for these diaries include Morocco where he lived for an extended period from September,1938 through March,1939, a rented property in Wallington, Hertfordshire (before and after the Moroccan stay) and the isle of Jura, part of the Scottish Inner Hebrides beginning in May,1946 through September,1949.

Notwithstanding all of the above the diaries do include sections related to his hop picking career described in Down and Out in Paris and London, sociological observations about industrial/mining communities of the north of England, his experiences in Spain, his publishing career, war work in the BBC, the Home Guard experience and observations about the foreign affairs in the run up to World War II. Most of the wisdom Orwell had to impart on these topics he saved for his books.

What was most striking in his diary entries on World War II was the "class war" based analysis in which Orwell repeatedly talks about the need for revolutionary reforms if England was to have any chance of holding out against Hitler, much less defeating fascism. In reality, what was needed was what actually happened: change in leadership that occurred when Churchill became prime minister, the gain of a de facto ally when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and the American entry into the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor. ( )

In college, I read "Homage to Catalonia" for an English class and then went on to read his other non-fiction books and his novels and eventually his collected essays, letters and journalism. During the pandemic lockdown, I acquired this edition of his diaries and read them a bit at a time every day for weeks. Orwell was not a consistent speller, but his style in the diaries is as lucid as in his published works. At times, I read passages in the diaries that he seems to have used in some of his published work. For anyone with a more than passing interest in Orwell, the diaries are fascinating and revelatory. ( )

A diary is a form of writing in which the author has no responsibility to the reader, it wasn't written for us. The only form of writing that is true of.

I love Orwell's writing, the non fiction more than the fiction, this however was boring. Much of it was notes for works that were published in other formats, Road to Wigan Pier etc. and better. If I should ever raise chickens I'd count the eggs too, and I do make garden notes but it's dull reading. There is surprisingly little intimate writing, he hardly mentions his wife Eileen. His collected letters are much more revealing.

But the dullness is not Orwell's fault and a dull or fascinating diary is not an indicator of a great or significant person, Chips Channon, of the same era and place, wrote a fascinating diary and was a useless waste of air.

Just hope that this is not the first book by Orwell that someone reads.