Rebecca Mead in the Guardian on her new book, The Road to Middlemarch, and what Middlemarch has offered her at different stages of her life.

Martin Amis, A. S. Byatt, Kathyrn Hughes and John Mullan also offer their thoughts on how Middlemarch has changed for them as they have got older.

‘In an age when we grasp so tightly and so tragically at the idea of the beauty and pleasures of youth, George Eliot and Rebecca Mead have both extended it far beyond its natural boundaries to find a richer source of creative inspiration and pleasure in middle age,’ says Michelle Legro in Brain Pickings.

NZ Booklovers calls The Road to Middlemarch ‘an intricate intertwining of lives that has been faultlessly and exquisitely executed,’ adding, ‘if you have ever been touched—changed—by a novel, you will appreciate this book.’

‘What [The Road to Middlemarch] ultimately offered me,’ says Rohan Maitzen in Open Letters Monthly, ‘was its celebration of the continuities as well as the changes that mark our growing into ourselves, and of the special role books so often have in this process as tangible symbols of who we have been, are, and aspire to be.’

‘As The Road to Middlemarch shows so beautifully,’ adds A Bigger Brighter World, ‘great novels resonate profoundly through all life’s stages and engaging with them as deeply as we can brings great fulfilment.’

You can watch Rebecca Mead in conversation at the New York Public Library, read an interview with her on the Hoopla and hear her on the 4ZZZ FM podcast.

The Road to Middlemarch is available now in bookshops and online.