100 books like The Mill on the Floss

This is another of my go-to books in time of trouble.

Writing in 1871-72, Eliot goes back to the Midlands of her youth at the time of the Reform Act, 1832. So far, so dry as dust, I you say. But Eliot writes so well, creates such wonderful characters and deals with problems that still vex us today, not least the speed of change when you’d rather things stayed the same. But no one could not love the idealistic Dorothea, the frustrated Dr. Lydgate and the poet Will Ladislaw who becomes a great social reformer.

It’s one of the longest novels in the English language, but I’m always so distressed when I have finished it and have to say goodbye to the characters I’ve come to know so intimately.

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.

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.

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.

This book reminds me of my favorite Georgette Heyer romances in its depiction of the Georgian period. When I read historical fiction of any kind, I want to feel I’m in that time, not reading about modern people in costume.

The story of a blind young woman confined to a country estate because her brother feels she is unable to deal with society was compelling. I liked the characters, and the story carried me along so successfully that I regretted finishing it (after keeping me up after I should have been in bed). 

I’m a critical reader, and I couldn’t find a thing in the book to annoy me.

While the cover only lists John Stuart as the author, he acknowledged in his autobiography that the book was “directly and literally our joint production” with his wife Harriet. And certainly, the book has a different tone than ‘his’ other works; less academic, and more lively. Anyway, what they wanted to show was that the “only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind.” This is so relevant today when autocrats from Beijing, through Moscow, to Budapest are muzzling voices with different degrees of severity. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. And the evidence shows that dictators and despots are fallible. Democracy works. Dictatorship does not.… show more.

I became well acquainted with Economics after my undergraduate studies, and found this book to be an excellent resource.

It begins with the ancient Greeks and culminates in the modern era. It elaborates upon crucial issues such as money, markets, prices, and production. What sets it apart from others is its focus on the evolution of economic ideas, rather than the economists themselves.

Backhouse's writing style is clear and accessible, and makes even complex concepts understandable. One thing I appreciate is that Backhouse demonstrates that no economic theory emerges "out of nowhere" as is often implied, rather it builds on its predecessors.

This book offers insights that have stayed with me long after reading, and I still refer to it for its depth of knowledge.

I mention this book as a way to listen to some old hour-long video talks by the sage Isaiah Berlin. He did, in fact, hate to write, but he loved talking. After reading any of his several essays, go right to the meat. Which will give the political, philosophical How-to Guide to leading a Nazi, Marxist or Terrorist revolution. I give talks and podcasts on the biological psychiatry of such evils and he is my go-to guy.

I read this book to stay true to my commitment, inspired by John Stuart Mill, to always make an effort to understand the strongest against your own convictions (a key reason for always including Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom in my political philosophy courses). Like most progressives in the 70s, I was part of the anti-nuclear movement, not just opposition to nuclear weapons, but to nuclear power as well. I did not expect this book to radically shift these commitments—but it did. Not the first one, but the second. I realized on reading this book that I had not thought seriously about these issues in decades. The issue of climate change was not on the table in those days, and I had not paid much attention to the development of nuclear power since then. The issue today is too urgent to ignore. Looking at the evidence presented in this book… show more.

The Community of Advantage is an excellent exposition of how moral philosophy informs and is informed by economics.

The title itself is taken from a political philosopher: John Stuart Mill. There is one caveat: Sugden speaks of behavioral economics, and as such, takes a different approach to rational agency than neoclassical economics.

Individual agency is not moral, but it is not assumed to be rational either. The book, and Sugden’s work as a whole, is of special relevance for two reasons: 1) It links morality with self-interest. 2) It uses society to argue for morality in self-interest.