Welcome to Litsy!

This was a struggle. I switched to audio, but overall I was just bored. I know this is a well loved book. The writing was great but I found all of the characters annoying. Many are very priggish more so than the couple who are called out as. I like Cecilia but we barely get to see her (calling her puritanical sister Dorothea Dodo cracked me up) I realized later it takes place over 2 yrs in these characters lives and I am shocked felt like 70 yrs.

Taking my neighborhood walk many neighbors are all set up for the season!

Listen to this tagged on audio while also reading it, it is pretty chunky.

Really enjoyed this as an audiobook

#bibliophile #authorwithpseudonym
@eggs @@alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I really liked the two sisters in the first section but the doctor is soooo boring. Made it about 20% before bailing.

QUESTION

I got this as an epub file from Libby which I downloaded and then emailed to my kindle. I‘ve never done that before so I‘m wondering if the epub will automatically disappear when my loan ends? Or is it different than a normal Libby checkout?

What a lovely way to talk about morality and spiritual discernment. Just started middlemarch expecting I would probably put it down but idk, its more readable then I expected.

I have finally finished Middlemarch. I have had several attempts to complete this book..I just didn‘t engage with the characters at first. But as I read on the lives of the people in this small English town got to me…and it‘s described with words we just don‘t use anymore!!
Now for some John Boyne ❤️
#classicliterature #fiction #mustreadclassic

This is a stack of Classics I hope to get to in 2025. To work one in a month. I have plenty more sitting on my kobo too.

It hasn't been a great reading month, but I did finish this beast! I've spent the better part of the year in Middlemarch. Some days it was delightful, and others it was frustrating. The characters were achingly human: I was deeply invested in their fates. The book was well worth the challenge. I've rarely seen such deep understanding of human relationships and emotions.

This was my March #bookspin selection.

3✨We follow about three pairs of people with several side characters in this chunkster. I found that it focused on women in different walks of life, and for the men it looked at how they could make their way in the word. Obviously, a lot happened throughout the lives of these characters. It was a nice slow read.

#AboutABook
#OneWordTitle
@Eggs
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I loved this one.

Nothing like a classic and way too much sugar after dinner. 🤤😅🥰💛

#CoverLove #yellow #day6

I was reviewing extracts of Middlemarch.What makes it such a great book is the layers on every character.Dodo for example,choses Casaubon because she appreciates his intelligence and wants to better herself,but also almost out of certain vanity,like she wants to show the world how different she is,how little she cares about appearances.Her character develops through suffering the consequences of her choices,but there's vanity in her martyrdom. ⬇️

July #TBR

Lots of oldies, trying to clear the shelves!

After almost six months of visiting Middlemarch, how strange that it‘s over. There were many parts of this #tome that I didn‘t love, but I did love Dorothea, and also the final sentence of the book, and I‘m still thinking about all of it. I understand why it‘s considered one of the greatest English novels, and I also feel like this didn‘t quite hit five stars for me personally, although I am so glad I read it.

Another Middlemarch-accompanied puzzle! #audiopuzzling

“But what the deuce was the name?”- 🤣

Trying to figure out what I just read with course hero. 😅

#20in4 #Readathon @Andrew65

I finished my puzzle and reached the 75% mark in Middlemarch, so I'm happy with my weekend of reading!

#audiopuzzling

#20in4 #Readathon I've been getting some good reading in this weekend, amidst work and social commitments! A little bit of time with Cross-Stitch, and tons of lovely time listening to Middlemarch while starting a new puzzle. 🥰🧩
@Andrew65

25 April-6 May 24 (audiobook)
Long and complex but a classic worth investing some time in. I feel I cheated a little by listening to the audiobook but I really love Juliet Stevenson as a narrator and I found I was able to focus quite well. Unlike many of her contemporary female authors, Eliot did not exactly write romance and her work is more akin to Dickens than Austen or Brontë. But she does give many interesting depictions of marriage. And fate

I absolutely loved this one. It's long and it starts a bit slow, but after about 1/3 of the book I felt resentful towards my other reads because I only wanted to read this. You see where everyone is going to end and it's a bit Dickensian in the sense that everyone is connected to someone else, but it's the countryside so very believable. Didn't know how to feel initially about Dorothea, that mix of religion, devotion and wanting ⬇️

Here's my list for April's #bookspin and #doublespin. I've decided to use it to work through my (very long) list of essential women writers.

Is this the perfect novel as some describe it? Not in my humble opinion, but there are some really insightful observations about human nature and relationships. Some had me guffawing out loud!

One of my favorites:

“He took a wife, as we have seen, to adorn the remaining quadrant of his course, and be a little moon that would cause hardly a calculable perturbation.” 😂

It‘s a beautiful night for an audiowalk. I‘m listening to the very weird Strange Bedfellows Death-march Through Middlemarch podcast. Members of the #hashtagbrigade might get a kick out of it.

https://open.spotify.com/show/3qhQK56wn0mbTmXGgEnKgX

#FreebieFriday
#LitsyLove
#favoritechunkster

I truly enjoyed MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot; it remains my favorite chunkster that I actually loved and finished! 😃

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Read4life @TieDieDude

“He took a wife, as we have seen, to adorn the remaining quadrant of his course, and be a little moon that could cause hardly a calculable perturbation.” Perfection!!

Oh Lordy! No wonder Casaubon feels nary a whisper of passion for Dorothy. No good can come from this union.

Perhaps the well runs deep with Casaubon, but on the surface he has the personality of a doorknob.

My reward for peopling and course prep this week. ☺️ I am going to reread Middlemarch this year and savor it. I didn‘t want to suffer thru the tiny print of my mass market edition, so this is my treat.

I have I mentioned how much I love deckled edges?

Pulled this off my pile of partially finished books and so happy I did. This story was an absolute delight. The many trials and small victories of the residents of Middlemarch, it is a perfect window into early 19th century England with all its contradictions.

#OnThisDay #Nov22

I read four more chapters of Middlemarch after reading Frankenstein and I can honestly say after reading a good, enjoyable read that Middlemarch is unduly long winded and a bore with no rationale to be so except for the authors own self conceit and pride to prove herself and her mastery of the English language which is an unnecessary feat when writing a novel for personal enjoyment. She should have wrote a text book at this point.

I‘ve read up to chapter 19, page 167 of this early 19th century provincial plot and could no longer push through another page. I found the premise behind provincial life dull and could not beat any further interest. I am going to start giving a book about 50 pages before I toss it. If it hasn‘t hooked me in that time and the reality is, if the author hasn‘t hooked me at that length, he or she really hasn‘t done their job.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/10/george-eliot-biography-marr...

Here‘s an interesting article for all the #PemberLittens who struggled through…er…read…Middlemarch earlier this year. It‘s about George Eliot‘s view of marriage and how it differs from Jane Austen‘s, and compares to her own relationship.

Any other Jeopardy watchers who nailed the Middlemarch category tonight?? #pemberlittens

My goodness, this book was a real project! I put it down for periods of time, but did manage to finish it through a combination of listening and print formats. I did like it, although truthfully I enjoyed Adam Bede much more. And now I feel like I‘ve had the George Eliot experience, and I‘m none to anxious to pick up any more books by her.

#14books14weeks halfway point update …
As I suspected I got distracted reading book club and Camp Litsy selections. Not only have I let Middlemarch slide, but I only finished 3 of these books in the first 7 weeks 😳

I‘m going to have to step it up if I want to get close to finishing!

#14books14weeks
Week 1 progress report: made it to chapter 6 of Middlemarch, yay

For those of your following along at home, some (maybe) bad news for my final total … my best-paying client just offered me a news feature due the first week of August, so I‘m going to be a lot busier this summer than I expected 😬

This topped my list of books I was intimidated to read. I‘m sure I would have really disliked reading it if by myself but I came to quite enjoy my nightly ritual of reading a chapter and checking @BarkingMadRead ‘s post, hashtag, and comments. The pretty edition helped too 😊. While I would have needed to read this in an English course to be convinced of its merits, there were some little gems sprinkled in, like this last sentence that I loved.

So close to finishing Middlemarch, and this last sentence describes quite well how I‘ve read half of this book… 🫥. But #hashtagskeepmegoing

I feel like a lone reed, buffeted by the wind but rooted firm in my conviction that – like Anna Karenina – it‘s just okay. I‘m sure studying the novel would illuminate more of it, make it feel richer and more engaging, but as a casual reader… *shrug*. I didn‘t hate it, but I‘m glad to have put it behind me. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/middlemarch-george-eliot/

“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think it‘s emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the eldest inhabitants of Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock and reflect that there are plenty more to come.”

Oops, just realized I never posted a review after the #pemberlittens read. The prose is clever and often subtly funny, but I really had to slog through the first 2/3 of this book before I cared about ANYBODY, so it doesn't get a pick. Plus the misogyny, and I don't mean the times, I mean how Eliot describes women. The character development of Dori is my favorite part even though I despised her at first.

I learned a while ago that George Eliot was a pen name for Mary Ann Evans Cross. Because of that it immediately went into my tbr pile. I'm finally getting around to starting it.

I loved this brilliant examination of small-town English life in the 1800's, and reading it was made especially enjoyable with the chapter-a-day read-along with the #pemberlittens. Thank you @BarkingMadRead for hosting!