This morning, Google finally launched its much-anticipated e-books platform Google eBooks. The site provides access to over three million books, and when you download the eBook program you get free access to three titles: Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland and Pride and Prejudice. There are all kinds of other free things to look at as well. Bizarre things. Scanning for George Orwell‘s travel books, we came across something from 1894 entitled “Official documents, comprising the department and other reports made to the Governor, Senate and House of Representatives of Pennsylvania.” A stirring read, we assure you.

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From the NYTimes:

The observations were made by George Orwell, whose copious diaries are now being published every day in blog form, exactly 70 years after they were made. The scholars behind the project say they are trying to get more attention for Orwell online and to make him more relevant to a younger generation he would have wanted to speak to.

“I think he would have been a blogger,” said Jean Seaton, a professor at the University of Westminster in London who administers the Orwell writing prize and thought up the idea of the blog.

Orwell’s blog is here.

Okay, we have nothing pithy, snarky or flippant to say about it. It’s just really really cool.