Computers are great, but I still love books.

When I went to college, I had no idea what I wanted to study, but I was certain that it wouldn’t be literature: I hated the subject in high school. But I took a required course from a gifted teacher who made it come alive for me.

I not only majored in English literature, but got a master’s and a Ph.D as well. I was as serious a student as you can imagine, and I threw myself heart and soul into it for many years.

Towards the end of graduate school, though, the elements of pretension in literary theory started to wear on me, and I knew I shouldn’t make it my life’s work (SAS was still waiting for me).

So unlike most Ph.D.s in English, I did not become a professor.

I loved British novels. George Eliot was my favorite, and I wrote my dissertation on her works.

Eliot wrote relatively few books (compared to Dickens or James, for example), but there were still a couple of her works I hadn’t read by the time I finished graduate school.

In 1999 a new biography came out about George Eliot. In addition, I had newly discovered how well eBay fits into the life of a book lover (perhaps more so then than now), and I was buying interesting editions of Eliot’s books (such as Italian translations of her novels).

I decided to read everything she had written, in chronological order, along with the new biography of her. It took me a year.

I never stop second-guessing that decision not to go into teaching. I know from my many friends who stayed in the field that life in academics is sometimes very difficult, but that it is also very rewarding. And I like the concept of the sabbatical.

But the decision resulted in a gift: I can read whatever I want, whenever I want, and if I don’t feel like reading I can stop for a while.

That has been a blessing.