And the 2025 classic read is ...

Middlemarch. Yes, I've read it before - I read it in college for English 272, which was a survey class on some 19th century Brit Lit classics. (I still have the asssigned copy, which is why I know what specific class it was ... I wrote it inside the cover.)

But Middlemarch slithered into my consciousness because of that column in the New York Times Book Review called "By The Book" - a weekly interview with some author who has just published something. I skim it every week, and often it's too twee for words, but what I started to notice was how many people mentioned Middlemarch in response to a question.

• What books are on your night stand?
• What books are you embarrassed to admit you’ve never read?
• What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?
• What’s the last great book you read?
• Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine?

Because this had come up in conversation, on Sunday, my sister texted me a picture of the 12/29/2024 book review because yes, Elda Rotor named Middlemarch as something she was embarrassed not to have read.

In a fit of something or other, I sat down at my computer and I methodically searched the Times website for the entirety of 2024, and located 51 of the 52 "By The Book"columns. There may have been one on 9/1/24 - but I couldn't surface it. And 11 times in 51 weeks, someone answered Middlemarch. That's 20 or 22% of the time! (Math is complicated because Robert Kagan gave Middlemarch as the answer to two different questions in the same interview.)  If you would like to see the fruits of my labors, I made a spreadsheet - it's here. 

This is a long way around to explain why I'm cracking Middlemarch open later.