Coming Up for Air

George Orwell's paean to the end of an idyllic era in British history, Coming Up for Air is a poignant account of one man's attempt to recapture childhood innocence as war looms on the horizon. George Bowling, forty-five, mortgaged, married with children, is an insurance salesman with an expanding waistline, a new set of false teeth — and a desperate desire to escape his dreary life. He fears modern times — since, in 1939, the Second World War is imminent — foreseeing food queues, soldiers, secret police and tyranny.