Hanna Rosin
Journalist and author of The End of Men: And the Rise of Women
Rebecca Mead
Author of literary memoir My Life In Middlemarch, New Yorker staff writer
Rebecca Mead is a New Yorker staff writer and author of the critically acclaimed My Life in Middlemarch—a celebration of literature. A thoughtful and witty speaker, Mead talks about understanding ourselves through books, breaking with convention, and the unexpected possibilities of middle age.
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About Rebecca Mead
Rebecca Mead is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of My Life in Middlemarch and One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. While One Perfect Day takes a sobering look at contemporary nuptials, My Life in Middlemarch is a genre-defying blend of memoir, literary criticism, and biography, that sees Rebecca Mead revisiting the seminal book of her youth—George Eliot’s Middlemarch. In her lectures, Mead talks about how great books can shape our identities and help us understand our own stories. Delivering on both wit and seriousness, she explores universal themes echoed across all great literature: love, marriage, parenthood, and morality. Rebecca Mead was born in London, England, educated at Oxford University and New York, University, and lives in Brooklyn.
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Speaking Topics
Reading for Your Life
Most devoted readers have one book they return to time and again. Rebecca Mead shows how understanding literature can help us understand our own lives, explaining why we read books, and how they read us.
Is It Too Late?
George Eliot was fifty-two when she wrote her pasterpiece “Middlemarch,” and once spoke of her happiness in leaving behind the “long sad years of youth.” Rebecca Mead talks about what George Eliot’s life and work has taught her – and can teach us all – about the unexpected possibilities of middle age.
A Strong-Minded Woman
George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evans, broke with convention professionally, personally, and creatively – while also maintaining a profound respect for the ties of family and tradition.Rebecca Mead shows how a girl from the provinces transformed herself into the dominant novelist of her age, and explains how today’s women might be inspired by her example.
Categories: Journalist Speakers, Women's Interest Speakers -
Video
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Praise for Rebecca Mead
Praise for My Life in Middlemarch
A rare and remarkable fusion of techniques that draws two women together across time and space.
— Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewIn this deeply satisfying hybrid work of literary criticism, biography, and memoir, New Yorker staff writer Mead brings to vivid life the profound engagement that she and all devoted readers experience with a favorite novel over a lifetime… Passionate readers, even those new to Middlemarch, will relish this book.
— Publishers Weekly, starred review -
Books by Rebecca Mead
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Media About Rebecca Mead
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and Availability
- 212 572-2013
- Rebecca Mead travels from New York, NY
Featured Title
My Life in Middlemarch
“Mead’s rekindling of appreciation for Eliot and her books blossoms into a celebration of the entire enterprise of writing and reading, of how literature transforms our lives as it guides us toward embracing ‘all that might be gained from opening one’s heart wider.’”—Booklist, starred review
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