Good Bad Books by George Orwell is the twenty fourth of The Essays that are placed on the 917th spot on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where an algorithm changes the places of the compilation, I don’t know what data is used, but 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” – nevertheless, 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

 

Good Bad Books by George Orwell is the twenty fourth of The Essays that are placed on the 917th  spot on The Greatest Books of All Time site, where an algorithm changes the places of the compilation, I don’t know what data is used, but 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” – nevertheless, 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

 

 

10 out of 10

 

The Essays of Geroge Orwell https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/10/in-defense-of-pg-wodehouse-by-george.html have been mesmerizing, and what is more, I find that I agree with the author on most, if not all things, from his take on Dali to his defense of Wodehouse, and now he has a marvelous few lines on Good Bad Books aka:

 

“what Chesterton called the “good bad book”: that is, the kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable when more serious productions have perished’  - the first few books mentioned are unknown to me, expect for Tarkington https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/alice-adams-by-booth-tarkington.html

Then we have some other titles and then we read: “like Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy – gains something from the clumsy long-winded manner in which it is written; detail is piled on detail, with almost no attempt at selection, and in the process an effect of terrible, grinding cruelty is slowly built up”

 

Nevertheless, An American Tragedy is 183^rd on The Greatest Books of All Time site, as high as sixteenth on The Modern Library Best 100 list, and what is even more important for the purpose of this note, paramount actually, I have read the book and enjoyed, even liked the film https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/a-place-in-sun-based-on-masterpiece.html based on the chef d’oeuvre

Perhaps I should not have gone so far and call it a magnum opus, still, I was even thinking of reading it again, now that Orwell speaks of detail piled on detail, and then we look at the size of it, it seems unlikely, at least for the moment to make a new start with what is an audiobook with more than twenty hours of listening

 

‘Exhibitionism and self-pity are the bane of the novelist, and yet if he is too frightened of them his creative gift may suffer. The existence of good bad literature – the fact that one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one’s intellect simply refuses to take seriously – is a reminder that art is not the same thing as cerebration.’ How excellent these statements are! And then there is so much more and splendid analysis:

 

“How about Sherlock Holmes, Vice Versa, Dracula, Helen’s Babies or King Solomon’s Mines? All of these are definitely absurd books, books which one is more inclined to laugh at than with, and which were hardly taken seriously even by their authors; yet they have survived, and will probably continue to do so. All one can say is that, while civilization remains such that one needs distraction from time to time, “light” literature has its appointed place; also, that there is such a thing as sheer skill, or native grace, which may have more survival value than erudition or intellectual power”

It is so fabulous to see that, again, I feel validated by George Orwell in that I also do not respect the above titles, even as we see them on various lists, one would be The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, Dracula is one book I have had enough of…

 

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…’