After 12+ years in Amsterdam, my husband Thomas and I moved to Barcelona (well Badalona actually) this month.
Living by a beautiful beach and swimming with fish in brilliant blue waters is a bit of a dream, but leaving Amsterdam was slightly heartbreaking.
For English classics, still my favourite genre of books, we read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" coupled with another non-fiction, political, memoir: "Down and Out in Paris and London".
I like Orwell's progressive views and vision for social democracy:
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia#cite_note-1
Orwell's thinking was clearly ahead of many on the left, especially Sartre, who was intoxicated by Soviet propoganda until much later (1956 Hungarian invasion).
It was a good conversation last night, parallels to Jack London, the superb quality of writing: characterization, details of city life in Barcelona, Paris and London, details of squalor, mental and physical challenges of an infantryman.
We also discussed parallels to Roald Dahl's "War: Tales of Conflict and Strife" which we also read a few years ago. The first part of this new collection of Roald Dahl's works is his autobiographical Going Solo: a fantastic if slightly fanciful tale, at times Dahl seems to have a slightly romantic view of empire whereas Orwell is under no illusions about the economic realities of empire:
Orwell's father was Richard Walmesley Blair, who worked as a Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in the Opium Department of the Indian Civil Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Early_years
It was nice that we had a local Barcelona join the Amsterdam book club (hybrid online and in-person) and add a bit of local history.
I'm keen to explore Barcelona, a beautiful city with a very rich history and also some amazing beaches.
