Having recently finished Julia by Sandra Newman (Granta Books. ISBN: 978-1-78378-916-0. £9.99), I felt compelled to re-read Orwell's masterpiece, 1984. I have now done so by immersing myself in the 2008 Penguin Books mass market paperback version, with the eye-catching cover art by Shepard Fairey, while enjoying the baritone voice of actor Andrew Wincott as he narrates the Canongate Books unabridged audiobook version of Orwell's dystopian novel, available from Audible.

Four decades on from 1984, Orwell's story is no less chilling... and plausible. The appendix to this Penguin edition of 1984 was a bonus. Titled The Principles of Newspeak, it provided a deeper insight into Orwell's fictional language of Oceania.