Reaching her 40s, Mead decided on a fresh approach: she would apply the tools of her day job to this private passion. Her aim was to discover what writing the novel meant to Eliot, and how reading it has shaped her own life. She chronicles her relationship in The Road to Middlemarch , a delightful book filled with sharp observations and told in a voice poised between chatty confidant and brilliant teacher.
Playwright Samantha Ellis has clocked up even more time with Wuthering Heights. She was 12 when she first read Emily Bronts gothic romance, and without fail, shes returned to it annually in the run-up to her birthday. This year when she will turn 39 might just be the first time that she skips it, but only because all those re-readings have now inspired a book, How to Be a Heroine.
It begins with a heated conversation Ellis had with her best friend while on a pilgrimage to Yorkshire in the north of England, where the novel is set. Which heroine was best, Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw? As they quarrelled, Ellis realised shed spent her life trying to be Cathy when Jane was a far savvier role model. This sets her off on another journey, back to the books that shaped her ideas about how to move through the world as a woman. Its a risky enterprise because, just as Mead knows, though the words on the page stay the same, our readings of them change.
Both Mead and Ellis testify to the myriad ways in which really good books not only stand the test of repeat reads, but also bestow fresh gifts each time we crack their spines. These kinds of books grow with us. The writers also explore the motivations behind re-reading.
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