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Title: Poor selection of essays
Review: There are 14 essays in this book and 6 of them are Orwell's criticisms of various English writers, including Dickens and Kipling, and publications such as various weekly magazines for kids. As such, they are outdated and would be of little interest to most present readers. Another essay is about what Orwell thought of Gandhi, which, again, may not be relevant any more. I enjoyed only 2 of the essays, Shooting an elephant and Marrakech. The first one is Orwell's reminiscences of a particular incident from his days as a police officer in Burma, while the other one is about his experiences in North Africa. In the latter piece, Orwell offers some interesting generalizations about the insignificance of the lives of most humans.
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