'George Orwell'. 'Why I Write'

When imbibing in all things arty at the Buxton Festival, a trip to the nearby High Peak Bookstore is a must for us. Basically it's a large unprepossessing warehouse filled with discounted books; a bonus point being its chill cafe, serving yummy, reasonably priced food. This year, from amongst the eclectic array of book titles I plucked out, was 'Why I Write' by George Orwell, a slim 'Great Ideas' publication by Penguin Books.

Excited by the prospect of trade secrets being spilled by a master wordsmith, I was rather peeved to find that after chapter one, it turned into a political essay. Which of course, stupid me, was the whole idea. Why George Orwell wrote, was to reveal the truth about things that mattered to him, predominantly the global political landscape. Making it relevant to the timeframe it was written in, his now classic 'Animal Farm' had been published the previous year in 1945.