Book of the week: Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit

This curious, meandering book restores ‘something missing’ from the popular perception of Orwell

1984 by George Orwell
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

George Orwell is often presented as a “rather dour and austere figure”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Observer – a chronicler of hardship and a “prophet of doom”. But according to the American essayist Rebecca Solnit, there was a softer side to the author – which expressed itself in his love of gardening.

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