@ignatius i had to laugh at your comment. Completely agree. S2’s now wife would not agree to marry him until he went back to school, graduated and got a job in that field. It turned his life around. Now S3 Is following the same path with his girlfriend. I really related to that thread of the story. Their relationship built early on earning respect and they agreed on the goals before they were married. Lydgate and Rosamond took a long while to get there. In the end though even Lydgate managed his career in response to the will of a woman. He was never happy about it though since they had not agreed on it prior to marriage “he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to. “
I would be nice if a few modern day authors did the same. I think our group would have made The Nix, for example, a whole lot better.
There’s no debate about right/wrong - match/mismatch with Fred and Mary. He adores her and she grounds him. And they know each other really well – there’ll be no surprises of the Lydgate-Rosamond variety.
I think the worry is that Fred will fall back on his old ways. Eliot allows him to be wrong about horses, but not to make major mistakes again. That was rather sweet.
I’m thinking about reading soothing books next like all the Noel Streatfeild books I somehow missed.
Soothing sounds good to me. However, I don’t really know what qualifies. Is it bad that I never heard of Noel Streatfeild? I thought it was a man until I looked her up.
Here are a few books a friend recently recommended:
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
Normal People by Sally Rooney
I mentioned to my husband that it might be hard to obtain certain titles with all the libraries and the bookstores closed. He said to just pick whatever paperback is on the endcap in the grocery store. That’s a scary thought. 
I just came across a Time article, “Books to Read While Social Distancing” and Middlemarch was on it. We were prescient. Writer says:
That’s a fair summary. Here’s the rest of the list: https://time.com/5807460/books-to-read-coronavirus/
My mind is somewhat blank on books. I lean toward easy to get (i.e. library or pdf). I’d prefer not to purchase, but the library isn’t open and I have no idea when it will be. I have a kindle but so many books have a waitlist at the moment.
I thought of suggesting The Plague by Camus. You can read it for free online (pdf). It’s not long and actually very good but I have a feeling that many want to veer away from plagues and pandemics.
Let me think. It’s getting the book that won’t be easy, so many of us use the library.
@ignatius, My son is a professor and when his class went to distance learning, they voted unanimously to abandon the syllabus and read The Plague instead. He really likes the book and it’s on my to-read list. That said, I’m sure you’re right – most folks will probably want something that steers us away from what we’re currently dealing with.
Are there any not-new (but not Victorian!) books that many of us already have on the shelf at home to read or re-read? An already owned comfort read – To Kill a Mockingbird, All Creatures Great and Small, Rebecca, Flowers for Algernon…that sort of thing?
I just spent time on Project Gutenberg looking at titles by popularity and found:
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome - We’d actually considered this as a duet with Connie Willis’ *Say Nothing of the Dog/i Humor and we’d actually be reading something we strongly considered.
First, let me say how much I enjoyed the discussion of Middlemarch even though I did not read the book, just watched the BBC series. It was very interesting to get additional insight into the story.
Second, just went to my bookshelf and looked for what was buried behind all the junky romance novels. Some ideas:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The Once and Future King
Rebecca
The Right Stuff (I considered Bonfire of the Vanities but that is really a depressing book, imo)
Shogun
Forever Amber (spoiler, there’s a plague)
Peter Pan
The Great Gatsby
Any Agatha Christie (I have them all in a carton in the garage)
Other classic books for consideration:
Gulliver’s Travels
A Tale of Two Cities
The Three Musketeers
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
I just checked the San Diego Library web site and they have four online book clubs reading…
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Modern Classics Book Club)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen Book Club)
Call of the Wild (Short Classics Book Club)
Moby Dick (Bucketlist Book Club)
Noel Streatfeild is a British children’s book author. Most of her books are about children who work as actors, dancers, skaters etc. They are very soothing. In America they were all packaged as “Shoe” books - Ballet Shoes, Skating Shoes, Theater Shoes etc.
I got given The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and would like to read it.
The Schrödinger Girl by Laurel Brett sounds intriguing and was written by someone who used to post here on CC. It got a thumbs up from someone in the main book thread.
I’d think To Say Nothing of the Dog and Three Men on a Boat might be a lot of fun. I’ve read the former, and always meant to read the latter because of it. Connie Willis mostly rights time travel sci-fi that’s barely sci-fi. Sometimes her comedy ends up a bit too screwball for me, or her history gets way too serious (her pair of books about the Blitz), but when she’s on she’s really great.
Speaking of Connie Willis I just checked out her blog. She had some movie and reading suggestions:
If you are the type of person that’s calmed down by watching movies about how other people have coped with crises, here are some great ones:
DARKEST HOURS (the Blitz)
MRS. MINIVER (the Blitz)
THEIR FINEST (the Blitz)
GONE WITH THE WIND (the most popular movie in London during the Blitz, for obvious reasons)
GRABBERS (monsters on a cut-off Irish island, and the only protection from them is to get
roaring drunk)
TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN (a bunch of kids go on a weekend trip and when they come back, they find the world has changed completely)
PRIMEVAL (in Seasons 4 and 5 they accidentally destroy the future)
and if you like Bette Davis, JEZEBEL, about the yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans in the 1800s
Or you can read:
JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR by Daniel Defoe
“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN by Michael Crichton
“Pale Horse, Pale Rider” by Katherine Anne Porter
THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS by John Wyndham
THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion
DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis
and of course, WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells
On the other hand, if you’re the kind of person who does better just escaping from what’s going on–or need a break (the most-read books in the tube shelters during the London Blitz were Agatha Christie mysteries and P.G. Wodehouse comedies), you can read:
Agatha Christie’s mysteries
P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories or LEAVE IT TO PSMITH
Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries
E.M. Forster’s A ROOM WITH A VIEW
Helen Fielding’s BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY
Alan Bennett’s THE UNCOMMON READER
your favorite kids’ books (when I’m stressed, I always go back and read the Beany Malone books)
I have to admit the other thing I really am feeling like reading right now is Dorothy Sayer’s Gaudy Night. It kills me every time.
Thanks – and wow @Marilyn, you have an eclectic mix of books on your shelves!
Coming off of Middlemarch, it would probably be best to go a bit shorter and/or a bit lighter than some of the great works listed above (like Moby Dick, The Three Musketeers, etc.), and we’ve done Pride and Prejudice. But hmmm, here’s a shorter list of possibilities, cherry picking from all three of the above posts:
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Duet (first is free online, second is fairly inexpensive kindle or paperback)
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (Kindle version is free if you have Amazon Prime)
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier (easy to get an inexpensive used paperback)
The Once and Future King by T.H. White (free on Gutenberg)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (free online or $2.99 Kindle version)
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (easy to get an inexpensive used paperback)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
These are just suggestions, chosen with the quarantine in mind. However, if you think libraries will be open again soon OR if you’re fine with buying a new book, we can go in an entirely different direction.
And as usual, if the above get vetoed, we’ll come up with something else. Lots of fish in the sea!
**I just edited the list to add two of the books @mathmom mentioned (cross-posting). The Andromeda Strain might be fun because it’s timely and yet (if I recall correctly) not a dark or disturbing read.
Still chugging along bravely through Book II. This thread has been so insightful and helpful. I certainly won’t finish for months but am appreciating it more after this discussion, so thank you!
Agree with something lighter for next time. I’m game for most of the possibilities mentioned. The Right Stuff is a personal favorite. Love Dorothy Sayers but sometimes feel not-well-educated enough to catch her references. 
I want to add And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie. (It can be found free online.) *Thanks to @Marilyn and @mathmom (or Connie Willis) for reminding me of Christie.
I want to veto two:
The Night Circus - I read it and - hmm - felt like the reviews were an example of much-to-do-about-nothing. I didn’t “not like it” but neither would I recommend it. I own a hardcover copy and it was one of those books that I regretted buying rather than getting from the library.
The Right Stuff - Read it fairly recently!!! And it’s good but I’m not interested in rereading it. Tom Wolfe’s writing style - exclamation points!!! and italics - drives me crazy.
I just checked my library site and they currently list the return date for all books currently checked out as June 1. I don’t know if they think to be open before then and are giving patrons time to return or whether they think they won’t be open before then because Coronavirus prevents it. (Gee - now I’m depressed and it’s only 7 in the morning.)
@HouseChatte, here’s another quote about Middlemarch to keep you motivated – from a list of 100 Must-Read Classic Books, as chosen by readers in a Penguin survey. On the list, each book has a brief summary by Penguin followed by a brief quote sent in by a reader.
The entire list is fun to browse: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2018/100-must-read-classic-books/
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Duet (first is free online, second is fairly inexpensive kindle or paperback)
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (Kindle version is free if you have Amazon Prime)
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier (easy to get an inexpensive used paperback)
The Once and Future King by T.H. White (free on Gutenberg)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (free online or $2.99 Kindle version)
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (free online)
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers (free online)
I removed the two vetoed selections and added an Agatha Christie and a Dorothy L. Sayers. Those two are probably quick reads – we could read them as a duet and do a “Whdunit better?” compare and contrast. The two authors were peers and friends-rivals.
^ That should read “Whodunit” of course. And with that pair, we wouldn’t have to worry about when the libraries might reopen, since as @ignatius points out, it could be a long wait.
Also, I just want to say “Happy Easter” to those who celebrate the day!!
I like these 3.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Duet
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
- **And Then There Were None** by Agatha Christie and **Whose Body?** by Dorothy L. Sayers - Duet (whodunit) or **Three Men in a Boat** by Jerome K. Jerome and **To Say Nothing of the Dog** by Connie Willis - Duet (humor)
- **All Creatures Great and Small** by James Herriot
- **The Andromeda Strain** by Michael Crichton
- **The Once and Future King** by T.H. White
- **A Tree Grows in Brooklyn** by Betty Smith
Another book club recently chose A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The only reason I listed it as #5 is because I read it within the last year. However, if chosen, I’d happily read it again.
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier - another I read for an IRL bookclub. I liked it and it would make for a good discussion. I’m a little less enthused about reading it again but would if it gets chosen.
Such good choices overall, considering we’re taking into “new normals” in the midst of pandemic-closures.
I’m up for any of those listed, although I too would prefer not to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I think I’ve read it half a dozen times.