63 books like The Mill on the Floss

By George Eliot,

Here are 63 books that The Mill on the Floss fans have personally recommended if you like The Mill on the Floss. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God

JoeAnn Hart Author Of Arroyo Circle

From my list on horrific fictional floods.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live by the Atlantic Ocean, so the thoughts of floods are never far away, especially as the seas are warming through human-caused climate change. I wrote about storms and floods in my novel Float and, more recently, in my new novel listed below. I did a lot of research on flooding for both, and I am constantly amazed by the power of the natural world, particularly one out of balance as it is now. My passion and purpose is to bring the dangers of this imbalance to my readers. Even if you have never been in a flood before, fiction allows you to know what it feels like. 

JoeAnn's book list on horrific fictional floods

JoeAnn Hart Why did JoeAnn love this book?

Everyone should read this book right now which features hurricanes and flooding in Florida. The flood scene in this book still stays with me, years after I read it. The waters are not just terrifying, but contain horrors such as a rabid dog clinging to a piece of debris.

That scene still keeps me up at night, and I think about it often now with all the flooding in the south. It’s not just the water, it’s what’s in the water. 

By Zora Neale Hurston,

Why should I read it?

18 authors picked Their Eyes Were Watching God as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cover design by Harlem renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones

When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...

'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece…


Book cover of Salvage the Bones

JoeAnn Hart Author Of Arroyo Circle

From my list on horrific fictional floods.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live by the Atlantic Ocean, so the thoughts of floods are never far away, especially as the seas are warming through human-caused climate change. I wrote about storms and floods in my novel Float and, more recently, in my new novel listed below. I did a lot of research on flooding for both, and I am constantly amazed by the power of the natural world, particularly one out of balance as it is now. My passion and purpose is to bring the dangers of this imbalance to my readers. Even if you have never been in a flood before, fiction allows you to know what it feels like. 

JoeAnn's book list on horrific fictional floods

JoeAnn Hart Why did JoeAnn love this book?

Among many wonderful things about this book, I consider it a climate novel and a climate justice story in particular. Hurricane Katrina wipes out a Black working-class family who are flooded out of their house. I was deeply attached to the narrator, the teen daughter in the story, and I loved her even more for having hope that things could change. 

By Jesmyn Ward,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Salvage the Bones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

_______________ 'A brilliantly pacy adventure story ... Ward writes like a dream' - The Times 'Fresh and urgent' - New York Times 'There's something of Faulkner to Ward's grand diction' - Guardian _______________ WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Hurricane Katrina is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. He's a hard drinker, largely absent, and it isn't often he worries about the family. Esch and her three brothers are stockpiling food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets;…


Book cover of Middlemarch

Annie Sereno Author Of Blame It on the Brontes

From my list on romance novels disguised as literary classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was the ten-year-old child who devoured David Copperfield (and then every other Dickens book), the teenager who began a lifelong love of Russian literature after discovering Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. To this day, my greatest reading pleasure is to lose (and find) myself in the rich, expansive world of a nineteenth-century novel. In my contemporary rom-com, Blame It on the Brontës, my heroine is torn between her literary ideal of love and the reality of losing the love of her life. To paraphrase Keats, she tries to reconcile “the truth of imagination” with “the holiness of the heart’s affections.” As a romance writer, it is my quest, too. 

Annie's book list on romance novels disguised as literary classics

Annie Sereno Why did Annie love this book?

In this book, George Eliot’s novel of provincial life in 1830s England, nearly everyone marries the wrong person. Even the future happiness of its heroine, Dorothea, when she finally unites with her true love, Will, is questionable. And yet it stands for me, not only as one of the finest novels ever written but one of literature’s greatest romances.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that it is a novel “for grown-up people.” I believe it is essential reading because it reflects real life where couples are mismatched, love goes unrequited, and ambitions are thwarted. It illuminates the small ways our better selves become compromised—and the larger gestures by which we are redeemed. As Eliot’s characters zigzag their way to each other, it is love that brings this redemption. How very romantic!

By George Eliot,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Middlemarch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'

'One of the few English novels written for grown-up people' Virginia Woolf

George Eliot's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly evocation of connected lives, changing fortunes and human frailties in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfilment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his…


Book cover of Daniel Deronda

Paula Marantz Cohen Author Of What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

From my list on mysteries with literary motifs or settings.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a literary critic and novelist, now serving as a Dean at Drexel University. I’ve written several modernized spin-offs of Jane Austen’s novels and several, including a YA novel, dealing with Shakespeare. What Alice Knew is my only thriller/mystery—and it was a painstaking labor of love to write. (I also wrote a nonfiction book on Hitchcock.) I am a great fan of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, and the idea for What Alice Knew grew out of my wanting to put the bedridden Alice James (a life-long invalid) in the position of Wolfe, with her brothers Henry and William serving as two versions of the legman, Archie Goodwin. 

Paula's book list on mysteries with literary motifs or settings

Paula Marantz Cohen Why did Paula love this book?

This is Eliot’s last novel about an ostensible British aristocrat’s journey to uncovering his real identity. Often referred to as Eliot’s “Jewish novel,” it reflects her unerring ability to empathize with the Other. It is very long but also un-put-downable, with two interwoven plots that complement each other masterfully. It’s at once a conventional 19th-century novel and an entirely original and surprising take on the genre. As a Jew with a love of nineteenth-century British novels, this one spoke to me most powerfully.

By George Eliot,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Daniel Deronda as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English upper-classes. And while Gwendolen loses everything and becomes trapped in an oppressive marriage, Deronda's fortunes take a different turn. After a dramatic encounter with the young Jewish woman Mirah, he becomes involved in a search for her lost family and finds himself drawn into ever-deeper sympathies with Jewish aspirations and identity. 'I meant everything in the book to be related to everything else', wrote George…


Book cover of Scenes of Clerical Life

Pamela Erens Author Of Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life: Bookmarked

From my list on George Eliot books to start with.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a lifelong fan of George Eliot and other classic psychological novelists such as Tolstoy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. I read their fiction over and over again. It deepens my understanding of the way people think and feel, how relationships and communities function, and what makes for a good life. Through these books I sort out my own muddled experiences.

Pamela's book list on George Eliot books to start with

Pamela Erens Why did Pamela love this book?

For a long time, I assumed that I would find these three novellas about churchmen and parishioners in the English countryside of the late 18th and early 19th centuries sleepy and dull. They’re anything but. Eliot depicts the presence of alcoholism, spousal abuse, loneliness, and life-damaging gossip in her fictional communities. But her signature empathy and wit, already on display in this early work, make it invigorating, not a downer.

By George Eliot,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scenes of Clerical Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him'

George Eliot's first published work consisted of three short novellas: 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', 'Mr Gilfil's Love-Story', and 'Janet's Repentance'. Their depiction of the lives of ordinary men and women in a provincial Midlands town initiated a new era of nineteenth-century literary realism. The tales concern rural members of the clergy and the gossip and factions that a small town generates around them. Amos Barton only realizes how much he depends upon his wife's
selfless love when she dies prematurely;…


Book cover of Felix Holt, The Radical

Pamela Erens Author Of Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life: Bookmarked

From my list on George Eliot books to start with.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a lifelong fan of George Eliot and other classic psychological novelists such as Tolstoy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. I read their fiction over and over again. It deepens my understanding of the way people think and feel, how relationships and communities function, and what makes for a good life. Through these books I sort out my own muddled experiences.

Pamela's book list on George Eliot books to start with

Pamela Erens Why did Pamela love this book?

Felix Holt is fascinating to read right now, when our electoral system seems to be blowing up in our faces. It takes place at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832, which increased the number of men (not women, of course) eligible to vote by fifty percent. The result: pandering to the masses—shallow sloganeering, hypocrisy, bribery and other misuses of funds, political sins that still feel all too familiar. There’s even a terrifying election riot. Since this is a Victorian novel, there are also subplots about thwarted love, hidden paternity, and an inheritance.

By George Eliot,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Felix Holt, The Radical as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Felix Holt is an endearing but opinionated Radical, who returns to Treby Magna just as the wealthy landowner, Harold Transome, announces his bid for election. It marks the beginning of a tumultuous time as unethical players seek to undermine the voting process.

Treby Magna is a small English community that's home to Felix Holt and Harold Transome. Both men have returned after stints abroad with Harold eager to elevate his status in the political realm. He seeks election to a county seat as a Radical, which surprises the residents. The election process becomes a point of contention as Felix considers…


Book cover of Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

JoeAnn Hart Author Of Arroyo Circle

From my list on horrific fictional floods.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live by the Atlantic Ocean, so the thoughts of floods are never far away, especially as the seas are warming through human-caused climate change. I wrote about storms and floods in my novel Float and, more recently, in my new novel listed below. I did a lot of research on flooding for both, and I am constantly amazed by the power of the natural world, particularly one out of balance as it is now. My passion and purpose is to bring the dangers of this imbalance to my readers. Even if you have never been in a flood before, fiction allows you to know what it feels like. 

JoeAnn's book list on horrific fictional floods

JoeAnn Hart Why did JoeAnn love this book?

This is one of my all-time favorite books. It is so darkly funny and strange that I laugh and shiver right through it every time. It begins in the middle of a flood in a small English town, where ducks are swimming and quacking in the drawing room, and I am also a big duck fan. Strange deaths follow. You can’t beat that. 

By Barbara Comyns,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Comyns’ novel is deranged in ways that shouldn’t be disclosed.” —Ben Marcus

This is the story of the Willoweed family and the English village in which they live. It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch. Then the miller drowns himself . . . then the butcher slits his throat . . . and a series of gruesome deaths plagues…


Book cover of Drowned Worlds

JoeAnn Hart Author Of Arroyo Circle

From my list on horrific fictional floods.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live by the Atlantic Ocean, so the thoughts of floods are never far away, especially as the seas are warming through human-caused climate change. I wrote about storms and floods in my novel Float and, more recently, in my new novel listed below. I did a lot of research on flooding for both, and I am constantly amazed by the power of the natural world, particularly one out of balance as it is now. My passion and purpose is to bring the dangers of this imbalance to my readers. Even if you have never been in a flood before, fiction allows you to know what it feels like. 

JoeAnn's book list on horrific fictional floods

JoeAnn Hart Why did JoeAnn love this book?

I like a good fiction anthology, and this one, which focuses on the future if we do nothing to stop human-caused climate change, is really good. It focuses on the rising seas, looking at the future in a drowned world, both good and bad. There are a number of excellent speculative fiction writers here, including my favorites, Ken Liu and Stanley Robinson.

As bad as things are getting and will get, I like to be reminded of human resilience, and most of these stories do that. Some are apocalyptic, but I need to be reminded of that as well; what happens if we’re not resilient?   

By Jonathan Strahan (editor), James Morrow, Kim Stanley Robinson , Charlie Jane Anders , Ken Liu , Paul McAuley , Kathleen Ann Goonan , Jeffrey Ford , Lavie Tidhar

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Drowned Worlds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We stand on the brink of one of the greatest ecological disasters of our time - the world is warming and seas are rising, and yet water is life; it brings change. Where one thing is wiped away, another rises.

Drowned Worlds looks at the future we might have if the oceans rise - good or bad. Here you'll find stories of action, adventure, romance and, yes, warning and apocalypse. Stories inspired by Ballard's The Drowned World, Sterling's Islands in the Net, and Ryman's The Child Garden; stories that allow that things may get worse, but remembers that such times…


Book cover of Earthworm Gods

Olen Crowe Author Of The Caverns

From my list on reads like B-horror movies.

Why am I passionate about this?

My favorite books as a child were the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine. This began my love of all things horror (including cheesy, campy B-horror). The movies that people love to hate (and also the books that stir up the same emotions) combine humanity's most basic instincts: fear, lust, and humor. Bringing these three together in perfect union creates a combination I can't get enough of. It's what drives my own writing and my insatiable desire to seek out more stories like this.

Olen's book list on reads like B-horror movies

Olen Crowe Why did Olen love this book?

"I want to read a book like the 1990s cult classic movie Tremors; hold the (Kevin) Bacon, please." Funny you ask! Earthworm Gods (or its alternate title, Conqueror Worms) will scratch that itch while throwing in some ancient one worship à la Lovecraft. One day it starts to rain, and then the rain never stops. Monstrous earthworms terrorize the townspeople. What happens next? Probably not what you expect. There's enough quirkiness in here to keep it light, so you can chuckle while watching the world go down in flames (or...er...floods); just what you'd expect from a rainy, Saturday night B-horror film.

By Brian Keene,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Earthworm Gods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE CULT CLASSIC RETURNS!!!

One day, it starts raining-and never stops. Global super-storms decimate the planet, eradicating most of mankind. Pockets of survivors gather on mountaintops, watching as the waters climb higher and higher. But as the tides rise, something else is rising, too.

Now, in the midst of an ecological nightmare, the remnants of humanity face a new menace, in a battle that stretches from the rooftops of submerged cities to the mountaintop islands jutting from the sea. What hope does an already-devastated mankind have against this new supernatural adversary.

The old gods are dead. Now is the time…


Book cover of The House That Sailed Away

Chris Callaghan Author Of The Great Chocoplot

From my list on reluctant readers to discover a love of reading.

Why am I passionate about this?

I didn’t read much when I was young. But I’ve always loved stories, and found them in TV, films, and comics. It wasn’t until I was older that I found that books can contain the most amazing adventures that connect with your imagination and makes them seem even more real than on the big screen. Discovering children’s books with my daughter, and writing my own, I wished I could have read more when I was young. I try my best to encourage young people to find the joy in reading, in the hope that they don’t miss out on all those amazing stories.

Chris' book list on reluctant readers to discover a love of reading

Chris Callaghan Why did Chris love this book?

This was probably the first book I ever chose to read. I read books at school or for school, but I saw this being read on Jackanory (for the young ones, that was a TV programme where a book was read by a famous person over five days) and went to the library to borrow a copy. I just couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.

It’s a crazy story of a house that floats off down the street during a particularly bad storm. The family has all sorts of strange adventures on the high seas. It really appealed to my sense of humour and general wackiness.

I read it to my daughter many years later and loved it even more. 

By Pat Hutchins, Laurence Hutchins (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The House That Sailed Away as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

Illustrated by Laurence Hutchins. Grandma, Mother, Father, Morgan, the baby and Tailcat find themselves catapulted into the whackiest adventure ever when their house floats off down the street and out to sea! Blood-thirsty pirates, a kidnapping and buried treasure are just some of the hair-raisers in store in Pat Hutchins' own adaptation of her ever-popular children's novel.


Book cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God
Book cover of Salvage the Bones
Book cover of Middlemarch

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Interested in floods, climate change, and climate fiction?

Floods 16 books
Climate Change 221 books
Climate Fiction 49 books