In this trenchant memoir of reading and writing, Pamela Erens returns over a lifetime to George Eliot'sMiddlemarch.The calm, understanding, and generosity that shefinds in Eliot's masterpiecealbeit differently, at different moments in her own lifeinflects Erenssown account of becoming, and being, a mother and a writer. This short bookis filled with wisdom.Claire Messud, author ofKant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I WriteandThe Woman Upstairs

Erens makes an engaging andconvincing case for the value of readingMiddlemarchtoday, when we are still struggling to answer the questions it raisesabout marriage, about community, about society, and especially about how to balance our individual needs and desires against the claims of sympathy and conscience.Rohan Maitzen,author,Widening the Skirts of Light: Essays on George EliotandMiddlemarchfor Book Clubs

Thoughtful, frank, and always artful,Middlemarch and the Imperfect Lifeis an involving and deeply satisfying account of the reading and writing life.Rebecca Mead, author,My Life in MiddlemarchandHome/Land

A masterly evocation of life in a provincial English community,Middlemarchis considered perhaps the greatestnovel of the Victorian era, praisedby writers from Emily Dickinson to Virginia Woolf.

In the latest volume in Ig's acclaimed Bookmarked series, critically lauded author Pamela Erens talks about howMiddlemarchrescued her, first as a distressed college student, and then during the tragic events of the global pandemic.