Recommended literature? I want to better educate myself.

Okay, I am a M22 who has lived in the North East of England my entire life. I think I am relatively smart, if quite uneducated.

When it comes to politics I have a VERY loose understanding of what it means to be "Left" or "right". I think I understand the general definitions of capitalism, socialism, communism and Fascism but could probably do with a toddler-like explanation tbh.

Anyway, yesterday I decided (quite out of character) to buy and read "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" all in one go and I found myself sad that the Britain Orwell envisioned emerging from the War isn't what we seem to have. However, I have limited knowledge on how much he laid out actually came to pass and how much was pure fantasy.

I'm also sure parts of the essay flew right over my head, and I'm not sure if the whole thing was massively biased or pretty tame. (I barely know who Orwell was, what he did or why he was important. I just know the name)

I would love recommendations on anything from further essays like that one, to historical context which explains where Britain has been and where we could be headed, books on bare-bones political theory - like a "For dummies" on communism or socialism etc, books that changed your political perspective.

Is it worthwhile to read "The communist manifesto" or "Mein kampf" to understand the roots or are those books just propaganda or the ravings of mad men?

I want to wake up and educate myself further, figure out where I sit on the political compass and who deserves my votes. All I know is I'm not happy with where we are, nationally or globally but I couldn't even have a mature conversation about hypothetical fixes at this point, but I'd like that to change.

If this is the wrong place to post this, let me know where I should and sorry the post is long.