Orwell; The Golden Ring

Back in the '90's, when I was still running the library bookmobile, I noticed in the discard bin in the passage outside the Extension Services workroom, volumes 3 and 4 of The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell.  When I saw that volumes 1 and 2 were still in the collection, I realized that a weeding mistake had been made.  I brought the discarded volumes up to Adult Services.  Volume 3 was put back in the collection.  I don't know what happened to volume 4.  This was what introduced me to Orwell's writings beyond Animal Farm and 1984.

Now we have a collection of Orwell's diaries, edited by Peter Davison, and with an introduction by the late Christopher Hitchens.  I love to read diaries and journals.  They are a lot like blogs, to me.  When Diaries came in on reserve for me, I thought to look at the catalog record for The Collected Essays.  There they were, with a note that the library lacked v. 4.  They had not been checked out much lately, though I think they would survive our current weeding criteria  In any case, the 800's are my responsibility, so I am their guardian.


A lovely travel article in the Sunday NYT by Celestine Bohlen, Driving Russia's Revived Golden Ring.  This area of Old Russia is the setting for a series of mysteries by "Boris Akunin" featuring a Russian Orthodox nun, Sister Pelagia.