If you plan a hiking trip of a week or so, and you will have no access to book shops during the time, and you want to carry reading matter which is sufficient for the period, and not too much either; if you look for something light enough to withstand disruptions and doesn't require strong concentration; if you want to avoid the risk that you dislike what you decided to carry: then there is a lot to be said for taking a Trollope novel. Be sure to be a male above 60 and able to stand a conservative stance without foaming at the mouth. I was quite happy with my decision to take this first volume of the Palliser series to a hike in the central Japanese mountains. It kept me amused and somehow filled my co-hikers with respect. I wonder why. Anyhow, I managed to unload the book on one of my fellow hikers who was afraid that her return flight to London might be affected by the `ash'. (I am sure the book would have served her well had she been stuck in Narita due to the European airspace shutdown, though she was not male over 60.) So I didn't even have to carry it home! (There are nearly no garbage bins in Japan; I wonder how they stay so clean.)

So, this is, as I said, number 1 of 6 Palliser novels. Plantagenet Palliser (Planty Pall to his non-friends) rises to Chancellor of the Exchequer while still not even 30. (This might qualify as a spoiler, I apologize; but no sane person would read this for suspense.)
But Planty Pall is not the main acteur here; not even the splendid Lady Glencora, his disrespectful wife, is.

Heroine in the center of attention is a pre-emancipated woman with an own head and serious troubles finding her position in a man's world. Alice is a minor relative to serious money and nobility. She is not impoverished, she is even attractive to some male sharks for her moderate means. She doesn't make up her mind easily and she is too easily influenced by her surroundings. She gets engaged to one guy, but finds him wanting. She drops him and has her next engagement with a perfect male specimen, but then finds him too boring. She returns to the first champion, who is in time unmasked as a really bad guy. In the meantime she has acquired a reputation as a jilt... Trollope was a brilliant describer of the mind of people who can't make up their minds.

`Side' issues of this central vacillation theme are: the British parliament and how to pay for getting elected to it; fox hunting; the generally low standard of male suitors in different classes of society. Alice has a widowed aunt who is given to flirtation and who is not short of male attention. This story thread is of the nature of stale comedy, which makes me deduct a star.
I had also carried something for reserve, and luckily I did, as Trollope turned out to be shorter than 12 days. But that is another story. (Just wait for the Magic Mountain!)