Welcome to the 2015 reading blog for Hollins University, where students, faculty, staff, alumnae, parents, and friends will share the experience of reading two magnificent books, George Eliot’s Victorian masterpiece Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life — which Virginia Woolf described as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people” – and My Life in Middlemarch, an absorbing tribute to the novel, and a passionate meditation on how we are shaped by the books we love, by Rebecca Mead, a staff writer for The New Yorker.

You are invited to join the lively conversation among readers–to consider, for instance, the “ambiguities of moral choice”– by sharing your thoughts and observations about these two marvelous books. We invite all readers to share your remarks as often as you feel so inclined. We have little doubt that the novel, and Rebecca Mead’s illuminating examination of her own reading experience, will provoke an enthusiastic discourse.

For students wishing to enroll in this course for academic credit, please email Professor Julie Pfeiffer at jpfeiffer@hollins.edu.