Penguin Books published a while ago a series titled Great Ideas, and in 2025, I am setting myself a challenge: I’m going to read all sixty of them before bed (not in one go!).
These books span centuries, from Greek and Roman writers through to modern thinkers—authors who defined their age and whose works remain timeless. They’re bite-sized gems, beautifully produced, and I was lucky enough to receive two as Christmas gifts. Today, I’m reading Books v. Cigarettes by George Orwell.
I’m a huge Orwell fan, having read all his books over the years, but I’ve never fully dived into the wealth of essays he published throughout his life in the British press. This particular book, as part of the Great Ideas series, feels like a fascinating window into the world of our grandparents. And, to be honest, not much has changed.
The second chapter, Confessions of a Book Reviewer, had me chuckling from the start. Orwell’s essay, written in 1946, is a snapshot of a weary, post-war Britain—rationing still in effect, cities still wounded from the Blitz, the air thick with coal smoke and resignation. It was a time of lean cupboards and government-issued tea, a time when the lucky ones had a coal scuttle that wasn’t empty. Into this backdrop, Orwell paints a scene so tangible you can almost hear the clatter of typewriter keys and smell the stale tobacco:
“In a cold but stuffy bed-sitting room littered with cigarette ends and half-empty cups of tea, a man in a moth-eaten dressing gown sits at the rickety table, trying to find room for his typewriter among the piles of dusty papers that surround it. He cannot throw the papers away because the wastepaper basket is already overflowing, and besides, somewhere among the unanswered letters and unpaid bills it is possible that there is a cheque for two guineas which he is certain he forgot to pay into the bank. There are also letters with addresses which ought to be entered in his address book. He has lost his address book, and the thought of looking for it, or indeed of looking for anything, afflicts him with an acute suicidal impulse. He is a man of thirty-five, but looks fifty. He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only pair were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak he will be suffering from a hangover. At present it is 11:30 AM and according to his schedule, he should have started work two hours ago; but even if he had made any serious effort to start, he would have been frustrated by the almost continuous ringing of the telephone bell, the yells of the baby, the rattle of the electric drill outside, the sound of heavy boots of his creditors clumping up and down the stairs..."
Orwell’s prose is razor-sharp, his wit both cutting and weary. The beleaguered reviewer is trapped, smothered by deadlines and financial precarity, as cigarette ash falls into cold tea. It’s a moment in time, yet painfully universal. The poor sod is meant to be reviewing a book, one that has sat untouched for days, and his deadline looms. He knows he must begin, but the weight of exhaustion, distraction, and everyday survival pins him to the spot.
I mean, this is a snapshot of my own life—minus the moth-eaten dressing gown and unpaid bills (I keep track of my finances, thank you very much). But Orwell captures something intrinsic about the writer’s existence: the solitary pursuit, the mess, the distractions, the utter avoidance of the task at hand. The tools may have changed—thank God I don’t have to wrestle with a typewriter—but the experience is still the same. There’s a joy in sitting at my desk, listening to my own playlists, reading publications, and tapping out content for either the blog or the manuscript. Though I count myself lucky to be writing today and not back then.
Typing on a mechanical monster would fill me with horror. That said, as a Gen X’er, I did learn to touch type the old-school way while waiting to join the army. I worked at the United Nations Headquarters in Cyprus, in the comms pool, where a man named Ian Cheeseman, a bloke with an enormous moustache that twitched uncontrollably when he spoke, drilled typing into me. It’s a skill that has stayed with me, though the world around it has changed beyond recognition.
Orwell also had a thing or two to say about the cost of books versus cigarettes. He noted how his friends scoffed at the price of a book while happily spending their money on pints or packs of smokes. Books had the power to change lives, yet his peers treated them as extravagances.
The same attitude persists today. I’ve had friends ask me for a signed copy of my book, as if I keep a crate of them in the boot of my car. Yet these same people will spend more than a fiver on a half-drunk Starbucks they’ll discard without a thought. But spending the same amount on a book? That’s apparently a step too far.
It’s absurd, really. People complain about the price of books but will throw money at overpriced coffee, streaming services, and whatever else demands their direct debit every month. Orwell would’ve had a field day with today’s economy, but at its core, human behaviour hasn’t changed all that much.
So, here I am, embarking on my Great Ideas reading challenge, starting with Orwell and his razor-sharp observations. If nothing else, I expect the series to confirm one thing: we are still the same flawed, distracted, paradoxical creatures we’ve always been. But at least we have books.
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