Animal Farm by George Orwell, Illustrated by Chris Mould

I grew up in a place where the themes in this book weren't fiction. They were Tuesday.

Orwell wrote Animal Farm as an allegory about Soviet Russia, but the pattern it describes is universal. A group overthrows its oppressor. The new leaders start with ideals. Then the ideals quietly erode. The famous line — "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" — is one of the most devastating sentences in English literature.

The story is deceptively simple. Farm animals rebel against their human owner. The pigs take charge. Slowly, the pigs become indistinguishable from the humans they replaced. Orwell doesn't need complexity to make his point. The simplicity is the point.

What makes this book stick: the corruption isn't sudden. It's gradual. Small compromises. Rewritten rules. Manipulated language. I've seen this pattern in organizations, in politics, in tech companies that start with "don't be evil" and end up somewhere very different. The mechanics of power corruption that Orwell describes apply far beyond politics.

Chris Mould's illustrations in this edition add a visual layer that sharpens the emotional impact. Boxer the horse — loyal, hardworking, ultimately betrayed — hits harder when you can see his face. Napoleon the pig's transformation from revolutionary to tyrant is more visceral with Mould's art.

My one criticism: the book's allegory is almost too clean. Real power dynamics are messier. People aren't purely naive like Boxer or purely manipulative like Napoleon. Orwell sacrifices nuance for clarity. That's a fair trade for a short book, but worth noting.

Read this if you haven't already. Read it again if you have. It takes two hours and it'll change how you see every organization you're part of.