Welcome to... WAR AND PEACE.Folks, it's with great sadness that I must inform you that when you're asked, "When did you know you were witnessing Emma's downfall?" you can tell them: September 1, 2024.Today, I begin the project that will surely bring about my mortal end.On this day, Elle and I will read one chapter of Tolstoy's *War and Peace*, and then we will do that again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and so on and so forth for the following 357 days, shaking our heads to show ...

We* did it, girls!

*We = me and my multiple existential crises. Seriously, tackling Tolstoy's *War and Peace* was a feat. If you're looking for epic Russian literature to make you question everything, Leo Tolstoy's *War and Peace* is definitely it. Consider this your sign to finally dive in!

Who's right, and who's wrong? Nobody! But if you're alive – live! Tomorrow you could die, just as I might have died an hour ago. And is it really worth tormenting yourself when you have only a fleeting moment of life compared to eternity? Leo Tolstoy's *War and Peace* grapples with these weighty questions, making it a truly thought-provoking read. If you're looking for profound book reviews, look no further than *War and Peace*.

This is one of those books that can genuinely change your life. I read War and Peace as a teenager, and I remember exactly where I was (sitting on my bed, in my grandmother's house, in southern Germany) when I finished it. I must have spent an hour just staring out the window, in awe of the lives I'd just lived, the experiences I'd just had. **** I'm now re-reading War and Peace, enjoying it immensely and no doubt appreciating it much more than I did the first time. Tolstoy has the most amazin...

Before I turned the last page of this massive volume, which had been neglected on my bookshelves for more than six years, *War and Peace* was a pending task in my mental reading universe, known to be one of the greatest Russian, or maybe simply one of the greatest, novels of all time. Well, in fact, it was something else entirely. I have a selective memory—I don’t know whether it comes as a blessing or a curse—that enables me to remember the most insignificant details, like, for instance, wher...

So... I finally did it. I finally convinced myself to read *War and Peace* by Leo Tolstoy, partly because it's just something everyone wants to say they've done, and partly because one always needs a good excuse to procrastinate during exam time when I should have been studying. And, you know what? I actually really enjoyed most of it. The novel is far less taxing than I imagined. I don't know if that's because the English translation goes easy on us non-Russians or because Tolstoy wrote it in a...

In these frightening and isolating times, let me point you towards *War and Peace*. People often resist this book—it's become a bit of a punchline as this monolithic, difficult novel. But, honestly, it's one of the frothiest soap operas I know of in novel form, with far more narrative drive than the excellent (but occasionally slow) *Anna Karenina*. You've got two nations at war—great world leaders and generals, sure, but also the grim realities of trench life, and even more relevant now, the wa...

When I was growing up, the conventional wisdom was that *War and Peace* was the *sine qua non* of difficult books: the scope, the length, OMG the length! Conquering this Everest was The Test of whether you were a Man/Reader. I have now read it. Thump chest and make Tarzan yell. Actually, you know what? Big deal. The mountain really wasn't so large after all. There are love affairs, there is a war, peace eventually returns to Russia. Sorry, got confused there for a minute with Lord of the Rings, ...

Okay, I know you've all been hanging on tenterhooks for the past couple of months, and since I should be studying for my social work licensing exam tonight, it feels like the perfect moment to end the suspense.After all my agonizing and the thoughtful suggestions about whether I should mutilate my gorgeous hardcover Pevear and Volokhonsky translation in the interest of less hazardous subway toting... Readers, I carried it. All 1272 pages of War and Peace. Every single day, across five boroughs a...

Whatever else I am, I'm the kind of person who tackles classic novels out of a sense of duty. And, I'll admit, a bit of vanity. My ego's as fragile as a goldfish, needing constant attention like a newborn. Every now and then, it craves a boost, and the intellectual workout of a Dostoevsky or Dickens really hits the spot. Now, I've been told that forcing myself through books I don't particularly enjoy is a pointless waste of time (and that the reviews that come out of these efforts are a pointles...