Orwell's early school days are described as remarkably distasteful. Discuss your own experiences in primary education - were they as awful as Orwell's? How is contemporary public education different today from the public education of the early 1900s?

Charles Dickens remains one of the most respected and widely read authors of all time. Which Dickens novels have you read? Did you consider them enjoyable and insightful? Did you find Dickens difficult to read?

Orwell describes a category of comic postcards that he states are obscene and vulgar. What is the difference between obscenity and vulgarity? Do such postcards exist today? Where could you purchase a newly printed postcard that is simultaneously funny, vulgar, and obscene?

Like Sherlock Holmes, A.J. Raffles was a character in early British detective novels. Today the Sherlock Holmes novels enjoy wide circulation in the United States of America while...