What Are You Reading?

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Fall is here and it is my favorite time of the year.  It is a great time to read and I am making a list of the books I want to enjoy this season.  This is the time of the year when I go into nesting mode and spend a lot of time at home, especially in my kitchen --  cooking, baking, and anticipating the holidays.  But the other rooms draw me in as well, especially the ones with a comfortable chair and ottoman.  Now that the weather is cooler and the days are shorter, I love to read and have fantasies of sitting with a great book, a cup of tea at my side, and a fire in the fireplace.  I have always loved 19th-century British novels and want a book that will take me away to a place where the fog is rolling over the English moors and chimney smoke is coming out of thatched cottages.  And so this is the time of the year that I like to pick a classic book to read.  Right now a long, sprawling Victorian novel sounds perfect for those afternoons in front of the fire and the one I have decided to read is Middlemarch by George Eliot.

Have you read it?  I have always been intrigued with "Middlemarch" because so many writers have loved it.

Virginia Woolf wrote that George Eliot's power "is at its highest in the mature Middlemarch, the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."

When Emily Dickinson was asked what she thought of "Middlemarch" she answered "What do I think of glory?"

Zadie Smith wrote that "Middlemarch" is one of the books that had the greatest impact on her, calling it "A work of genius.  But more important...a woman wrote it...Eliot was the first woman I read who could go toe-to-toe with, say, Tolstoy."

A.S. Byatt wrote "It is possible to argue that Middlemarch is the greatest English novel."

And recently "The Guardian" published an article listing the ten best closing lines of novels.  "Middlemarch" was one of the chosen along with 'The Great Gatsby," "Ulysses," "Heart of Darkness," "Wuthering Heights," and "To the Lighthouse."

There are also some very exciting new books that have just come out or are coming out this fall that I can't wait to read.  Here are the ones on my list:

Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth
Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue
Zadie Smith's NW
Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies


What are you reading?  And are you attracted to the classics at this time of the year?  I would love to hear what you are reading right now and what is on your list for the fall and winter.

By the way, speaking of fantasies, here is the place where I would love to do all this reading.

Photo via here

Happy Fall!