This was a couple weeks ago, so much that I'm already almost through my next audiobook (Anthony Beevor's Second World War ), but I do want to note that Middlemarch was a doozy. So, so good. I'm certain that I can't have had any thoughts that haven't been already been had better and sharper, so I won't bother with more than a few disconnected points. 1) As I just said, it was stupendously good. The only thing I can think to compare it to is War and Peace . Slightly less epic scale, but balanced by more penetrating psychological insight, more fully realized characters, better plotting, and less goofy historical theorizing. This is a work of extreme skill and brilliance. 2) That said, there were slightly too many coincidences driving the plot for my taste. The very last one, where one character walks in on two others having a conversation and comes away with what seemed like an unjustified idea of what was happening, grated quite a bit. (I suspect this is just