4.0 out of 5 based on 2 reviews. – Customer review on 10/01/2011

Presents an account of the author's experience as a police officer in imperial Burma.
This collection features the essays that include classics such as "My Country Right or Left", "How the Poor Die" and "Such, Such were the Joys", his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, and boys' weeklies and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative and hugely entertaining, all show Orwell's unique ability to get to the heart of any subject.

5.0 out of 5 based on 2 reviews. – Customer review on 10/05/2009

This is a collection of truly brilliant texts from a one-of-a-kind author. Orwell's style, whilst polished and eloquent, has a personal quality to it, which makes the reader feels as thought the story were being told to him or her individually, and in person rather than being read from a book. The essays cover a wide variety of topics, form Orwell's years of extreme poverty ("The Spike"), reflections on various occupations, and the fabulously human account of his having to kill an elephant in order to not appear foolish in front of the native population he was policing, from which the collection derives its name.