Homage to Catalonia

My copy of Homage to Catalonia which I bought for this month's Ridge Readers Book Club meeting is the 49th printing of the American edition. Why are we still reading Orwell's memoir of fighting in the Spanish Civil War? Less because of the long-ago politics, I imagine although part of his enduring appeal is that people from almost anywhere on the political spectrum can claim his legacy than because of the way he wrote and lived: stepping into the fray without losing his ability to observe or his sense of morality.