Book Club: Year of Connections
Unconventional Books for Book Bingo
Favorite Books of 2020
The Yellow House — a gorgeous memoir
Bookish Advent calendar quotes
Great novels by women of color
Reading resolution: do Book Bingo
In which Middlemarch amazes me
Middlemarch by George Eliot
3 words: lyrical, character-focused, absorbing

Middlemarch. I still can’t believe how much I love this book. And as the weeks go by, I continue to ponder it and feel enriched by having read it.
Part of me wishes I’d read it earlier in life, because one of the things I hear over and over is that readers who return to this book find themselves observing the characters differently as their own circumstances and life experiences change. I love that this book is bountiful enough to offer that kind of reading. I’ll have to begin my re-reading experience closer to midlife… and I’m OK with that. But it would’ve been more rewarding to have had a younger person’s take on it.
Here are the aspects I loved most…
The characters
While Dorothea Brooke could be considered the main character, the other characters — so beautifully drawn, so complex and vivid, so imperfectly human — are vitally important to every aspect of the story.
Eliot lovingly crafted not only a rich and nuanced story, but also a cast of individuals who are realistic enough that I feel like I could carry on a conversation with them. I feel like we go way back.
And the characters and the situations they face are real and painful and joyful and strange and uncomfortable and comforting and loving and harsh.
There are young people doing foolish things, and older people, too. And young couples figuring out the world and older couples who are happy. And others who are not. And the small details of their interactions make them abundantly real. I feel like this book could be read as profiles of four married couples. I didn’t expect the wisdom that emerges from the way the people of this book relate to one another. But it’s the greatest gift this book gave me.
The narrator
Another surprise: the narrative voice was fascinating. An omniscient narrator comments on the actions and secret motivations of the characters, and the warm wisdom of that voice was comforting and delightful and unexpected. It seemed a very modern way of telling the story.
The language
Classics can kinda scare me, because dense prose can be tiresome. But this book wasn’t scary and wasn’t hard to read. It wasn’t dense or burdensome. While Eliot is fond of the Very Long Sentence (some of them went on for a full paragraph), she knows how to string together words in a very pleasing way. I found that I needed to slow down my reading a bit and just enjoy the words. The reading wasn’t difficult, but it wasn’t fast. It felt like a comfortable stroll through a beautiful garden — not hurried, and so much to claim one’s attention and to delight.
Now I want more
I found myself wanting to talk with readers who are set just like me, and ask them to give me another classic that’s this wise and warm and absorbing and delightful.
Give this book a whirl if you like… a big, absorbing story; classics; reading about a village; nuanced character portraits so detailed you’d recognize the characters if you met them; fiction that inspires the reader to examine her own life
So, my fellow readers… what classic novel is your favorite, and why should it be my next big read?
What I’ve Been Reading: February 2019
February was a wonderful reading month — with plenty of snowstorms and polar vortex action and gusting winds to make it extra cozy.
My reading this month was a mix of book club assignments, recommendations from other readers, an Audie Award nominee, and the long overdue reading of a classic. We have a fine blend of nonfiction and various fiction genres to tempt any appetite…
Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson
3 words: lively, heroic, crisp
Give this book a whirl if you like… space; tales of heroic daring; the behind-the-scenes story; the full team (including wives and families) that made Apollo 8 possible, getting to know the people behind the myth
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
3 words: profound, measured, philosophical
Give this book a whirl if you like… memoirs of survivors, the power of the mind, Holocaust narratives, encouragement through difficult times
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
3 words: cheeky, inventive, suspenseful
Give this book a whirl if you like… a mix of suspense, family drama, and grim humor; a highly responsible character trapped in terrible circumstances by the acts of a loved one; tension between integrity and family loyalty
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
3 words: creative, poignant, whimsical
Give this book a whirl if you like… inventive style, quirky bite-sized anecdotes, delight in daily life, clever writing
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: An Oral History by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman
3 words: irreverent, conversational, humorous
Give this book a whirl if you like…TV stars being real people, humorous memoirs, stories of couples, celebrity memoirs
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
3 words: gripping, disturbing, journalistic
Give this book a whirl if you like… true stories of audacious deception, How’d she get away with it?, true stories that seem too strange to be real, reading about white collar crime, Silicon Valley start-ups, being infuriated
Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
3 words: lyrical, multi-generational, quirky
Give this book a whirl if you like… quirky historical fiction, a big cast of eccentric but believable characters, bowling, independent women, family sagas, a wee touch of magic, a big story to fall into
Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman
3 words: warm, charming, offbeat
Give this book a whirl if you like… the revelation of family secrets; smart romantic comedies; unusual but believable characters; unintended consequences
And that was my February.
What were your favorite reads of the past month?