47: Aspects of Orwell

D. J. Taylor, literary critic, novelist and Whitbread Prize-winning author of the definitive Orwell: The Life and its highly acclaimed sequel The New Life, and Masha Karp, Orwell scholar, former Russian features editor at the BBC World Service and author of George Orwell and Russia, join the Slightly Foxed team at the kitchen table in Hoxton Square to take a fresh and deeply personal look at the life and work of George Orwell. 

The man who wrote Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four defies categorization. In this quarter’s literary podcast David and Masha sift through newly discovered stashes of letters written by Orwell in the 1930s, and share personal recollections from his adopted son Richard and other living members of his inner circle to tease out fact from fiction and explore the legacy of Orwell’s life and work. 

Books mentioned
We may be able to get hold of second-hand copies of the out-of-print titles listed below. Please get in touch with Jess in the Slightly Foxed office for more information.

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• D. J. Taylor, Orwell: A New Life (0:30)
• George Orwell, A Homage to Catalonia (7:27)
• Masha Karp, George Orwell and Russia (15:10)
• George Orwell, Burmese Days (31:46)
• George Orwell, Animal Farm (31:47)
• George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (31:48)
• George Orwell, A Clergyman’s Daughter (34:04)
• George Orwell, Why I Write (38:22)
• George Orwell, ‘Confessions of a Book Reviewer’, Essays (39:56)
• George Orwell, ‘Dickens’, Essays (43:45)
• George Orwell, ‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’, Essays (44:28)
• Nicholas Fisk, Pig Ignorant (45:25)
• Joanna Rakoff, My Salinger Year (45:42)
• James Aldred, Goshawk Summer (49:10)
• Edward Chisholm, A Waiter in Paris (51:38)
• George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (51:50)
• Emilé Zola, The Drinking Den (53:18)
• Claire Wilcox, Patch Work (55:11)

Related Slightly Foxed articles

• The Nightmare of Room 101, Christopher Rush on George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Issue 69
• Betrayals, Christopher Rush on George Orwell, Animal Farm, Issue 65
• An Extraordinary Ordinary Bloke, Brandon Robshaw on George Orwell, Essays, Issue 56
• Pox Britanica, Sue Gee on George Orwell, Burmese Days, Issue 40
• All Washed Up, Christopher Robbins on George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, Issue 21
• The Road to Room 101, Gordon Bowker on George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Issue 11

Other links

• The Slightly Foxed Calendar 2024
• Readers’ Day 2023 
• The George Orwell Foundation

Opening music: Preludio from Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major by Bach
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