Thomas Hardy 
Far from the Madding Crowd 

Who wouldn’t want passionate love in their life? Of course, this love is usually accompanied by a lot of jealously, conflict and tragedy and this novel is no exception to that rule! Poor Bathsheba has three different suitors; however will she choose between them? Each suitor adds more uncertainty and complications to the ordered world of Bathsheba and she is soon lost in a vortex of passion, love, and social problems. ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ is the novel that brought Thomas Hardy considerable literary success and has been made into a movie many times, most notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 version. The most recent film is from 2015 and starred Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba, Matthias Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak and the famous Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen’s dad.-