Confessions of A Book Reviewer by George Orwell is the thirty third of The Essays - you find this collection in the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, nevertheless, the algorithm changes the places in the hierarchy, ergo you could see a different structure, I don’t know what data is used, however, if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend from the top spots, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the front rows, and they will become the “GOAT” – that notwithstanding, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you are interested

 

Confessions of A Book Reviewer by George Orwell is the thirty third of The Essays - you find this collection in the 917th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site, nevertheless, the algorithm changes the places in the hierarchy, ergo you could see a different structure, I don’t know what data is used, however, if it takes into account the ‘reading public’, then the chefs d’oeuvre will descend from the top spots, and the likes of The Da Vinci Code will dominate the front rows, and they will become the “GOAT” – that notwithstanding, you have more than five thousand reviews on books from the aforementioned site and others, with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists waiting for you on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you are interested

 

 

10 out of 10

 

The Essays of George Orwell https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/some-thoughts-on-common-toad-by-george.html have been a joy to read, and the latest is even concerned with something we do on Goodreads – as long as they keep me there, due to some MAGA complaints I got suspended once, and then who knows what comes next

 

Confessions of A Book Reviewer should interest those on Goodreads, although we are talking about amateurs there, and the protagonist of the essay has to earn a living from it: “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-grown sits at a rickety table, trying to find room for his typewriter among the piles of dusty papers that surround it.”

Nevertheless, those of us who ‘review books’ today do that in much better conditions, only the result is those flimsy, superfluous lines – by the way, Orwell has written some rules on writing, and I do not follow them, including using long words when short ones are available – so maybe we should go through some serious diet, or an ascetic period https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/politics-and-english-language-by-george.html

 

Amateur reviewers are privileged because they write their view of books they like, that is the reason they read them, whereas The Book Reviewer of the essay has to do it to live, indeed, the number of volumes he has to go thorough is immense – a caveat, very often I put down lines on an opus I did not like, then digress

‘He is a man of 35, but looks 50. 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…’ this is the portrait Orwell gives us

 

‘Three of these books deal with subjects of which he is so ignorant that he will have to read at least fifty pages if he is to avoid making some howler which will betray him not merely to the author (who of course knows all about the habits of book reviewers), but even to the general reader…’ this second quote confirms the humor

As I have started a habit https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-power-of-habit-by-charles-duhigg.html I will finish this note with Scenes From A Marriage (a Bergman masterpiece) venture off the topic – a spoiler alert is implied – and mention something that comes to mind ‘stream of consciousness’ style

 

A sort of peculiar thing happened today, I thought I am talking to a stranger, but when we met, we both found that we actually knew each other, but more seriously, there is this old Israeli coming to the club, who praised my standing on the head in the lotus position, the time when I am in lotus and all raised on my hands and the Israeli lawyer said ‘ I should go deeper’, meaning probably that I with find the Truth, Nirvana, Flow…so I should try it

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’