The author and New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead talks to Joseph Planta, about her new book, My Life in Middlemarch, part memoir and part look at George Eliot’s book, Middlemarch.

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead (Bond Street Books, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: My Life in Middlemarch

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

I started reading My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead this weekend, and I was immediately taken by it. That its author is a fine writer in her own right, probably made the book all the more engaging, but what grabbed me was her enthusiasm about a book. It’s really fun to see someone ponder a book, a great one at that, George Eliot’s Middlemarch. What Ms. Mead has done is tell the reader about her experiences with the book, from reading it from the first time at the age of 17, and subsequent readings of it throughout her life. What she’s also done in this book is seek understanding about her life, and the meaning she derives from the Victorian novel. It’s a great memoir of Ms. Mead’s life, and a thoughtful look at the life of Eliot, as well as a critical look at Middlemarch. Rebecca Mead joins me now. I’ll get her to tell us about this book, and the aspects of her life that manifested itself through the pages of Middlemarch, and the spirit of Middlemarch that haunts her life still. Rebecca Mead is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and the author of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. Recently, Joyce Carol Oates said in the New York Times: ‘My Life in Middlemarch is a poignant testimony to the abiding power of fiction.’ This is a Bond Street Book, which is an imprint of Random House. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Rebecca Mead; Ms. Mead, good morning.

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