The best book I ever listened to

Middlemarch! This book, as one review put it, is bananas. So much happens...25 CDs, 880 pages and yet so few words are wasted. It took me about 3 weeks to listen to the whole thing, but it made every drive to and from work fly by. 

I wasn't sure I would like this book so much when I first started listening. The main character (Dorothea) takes a little time to warm up to, but she makes such a huge mistake and changes so much throughout the book, I was desperate for things to work out for her in the end. It's not just about her though. There are 3 main plot lines that weave in and out and keep things interesting. The characters are all flawed and end up getting themselves in trouble in one way or another. For a good portion of the book, it seems like no one will ever end up happy. But George Eliot does not disappoint (well...very much). 

I don't know if I would have loved this story reading it as much as I did listening to it. There's something about having a Judi Dench-sounding narrator build up the suspense and add personality to the different characters (the actual narrator is Nadia May, I should give her credit). It probably also helps that I love Victorian novels. 

So now it's over. What should I listen to next?