The Latest Breaking News from George Orwell

This week’s bookcase includes reviews of Julia by Sandra Newman and The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith.

Rejoice, comrades

George Orwell apologised to his close friends the writers Anthony Powell and Julian Symons for his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. He told one that it was “a good idea ruined” and the other that “I ballsed it up rather, partly owing to being so ill while I was writing it.”

George Orwell stood up for democratic socialism and against totalitarianism. He praised lucid writing and condemned euphemistic language. Many of the phrases with which we analyse politics and culture today — from the concept of Newspeak to the idea of Big Brother — come from Orwell. He is like a…

Authors from Jonathan Swift to NoViolet Bulawayo show how much can be done with what might sound a narrow form – and how much fun can be had with it

This ambitious retelling from Julia’s point of view gives Winston Smith’s lover the agency she lacked

On election night, a triumphant Anthony Albanese declared Labor was committed to the Uluru statement from the Heart “in full”, thereby including establishing an Indigenous Voice.

Birchen Edge, Derbyshire: This one, the largest I’d seen for a while, had narrowly escaped my boot as it paused in the sunshine

‘Orwellian’ is an accusation increasingly levelled by both right and left but what does it mean, asks author Sandra Newman, who has reimagined Orwell’s novel – and why does Orwell’s dystopian classic speak so powerfully to our current moment?

As the culture war permeates American life, combatants set their sights on the ways we express ourselves.

Losing yourself in a great novel is one of life’s joys. Here our critics Ceri Radford and Chris Harvey pick the books you need to read