The Road to MiddlemarchWhat would happen if I stopped to consider how Middlemarch has shaped my understanding of my own life? Why did the novel still feel so urgent, after all these years? And what could it give me now, as I paused here in the middle of things, and surveyed where I had come from, and thought about where I was, and wondered where I might go next? At the age of 17, Rebecca Mead read Middlemarch for the first time, and has read it again every five years since,