I stumbled on like a ten-part omnibus Radio 4 version of Middlemarch one day when I was sick in bed and I was absolutely captivated by it. I had to read a different Eliot for a lit class like ten years earlier and really liked it (The Mill on the Floss), enough that it was one of the novels I didn't sell back to the bookstore at the end of the semester (though I'm not sure I've re-read it since, oops!), but that was all I knew about her writing before I heard this radio version.

I did read the book two years ago: as with a lot of long or difficult books I want to read but struggle with, I got it as an audiobook (free from librivox.org) and that worked really well for me. I remember being at the gym on a treadmill listening to this story, and that kind of thing. :) I absolutely loved the book.