I recommend The Library Book by Susan Orleans. It’s the story of the LA Library, the fire that burned it in 1986, the arsonist, the history of the library and of libraries in general. Very interesting. I read primarily non-fiction and this is an engrossing story.
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ITA on The Library Book. I’d also recommend two other books that she wrote–The Orchard Thief and On Animals.
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So I have been thinking that it’s kind of ridiculous that as much as I read ( I ALWAYS have at least one book working on Audiobook and often another on Kindle or paperback or even hardback), I have never read what is often referred to as the greatest novel of all time- War and Peace. Now, I don’t for a moment believe it’s the greatest novel of all time. But how can a “reader” go through life without reading such a renown work?
But I have always found it so intimidating that I’ve never even considered going there. Well, I finally decided to at least give it a go. My sister says the hardest thing about it is the number of characters and the fact that they have long names and also nicknames very often, so it can be hard to follow who is in a given scene.
So I made a chart of all of the main characters and their families, as well as other important characters and just a blurb about each one, so that when I encounter them in the novel, I can refer to my notes and have at least a clue.
Is this like training for a marathon or half marathon or some such big goal? It’s all about achieving it, not so much the actual doing of it?
Do I dare???
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@Nrdsb4 ! DARE!! A great read (but Peace more than War.) Just make sure you give yourself chunks of time to read it and completely fall into the time and place.
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I liked War and Peace a lot but if you haven’t read Anna Karenina I’d start there. I’ve only read War and Peace once, but I’ve read Anna Karenina multiple times and it reads totally differently at different stages in my life - who I identify with, whose motives resonate, etc. Not trying to dissuade you from W&P though!
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I actually read Anna Karenina as a teen! My mother and I were hooked on the Masterpiece Theater TV version (or was it some other production?), so I chose to read it in High School when we were assigned a book from a long list for summer reading or something along those lines.
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When I was young I tried several times to read War and Peace. The Russian names threw me off. I took 2 Russian history courses in college. So, I started it again after I was married. I loved it. I read it once a year for about 3 years. I count it as one of my great reading accomplishments!! (I guess I should read it again, but my pile of TBR books keeps growing!!!
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I took a class called War and Peace as a senior in college. That’s all we read. That was the whole class.
It was probably my favorite class ever. It’s really a book to be read in a class with an enthusiastic professor! Short of that, a reader could maybe find a book club online that is reading it and read along. Or maybe find a book club that has finished reading it but left their meetings still available so you could read their comments as you read each chapter.
But I definitely say go for it. It’s worth it. You can always find direction on certain chapters online if you get lost.
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It’s a wonderful novel, which I ate up in high school. I will confess I tried to read the most recent translation and got bogged down. Then too much time passed and I’d forgotten who people were. I think if I were to give it another go, I’d watch one of the movies first as a refresher. Speaking of Tolstoy, I’ve never read Anna Karenina, every time I say this to my husband, “Yeah, but we know how it ends.” War and Peace at least has a reasonably happy ending.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. I’m late to this thread so can’t be the only person who has said this! But I just read it in January.
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I finished it last month, too. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I was so moved by the evolving relationships among the characters and loved getting to know them over thirty years.
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BTW I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, because the French was translated only in the footnotes, and a friend of mine (who spoke French at home) told me that one advantage of having read it originally in French, was that the characters switch from “vous” (formal you) to “tu” (you for family and friends) and that’s almost impossible to translate into English. But at least as far as I got, I was struck by how everyone seemed to be using “vous” when I thought they should be more intimate.
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Are there translations where they translate the French to English? That makes no sense. I remember being frustrated I didn’t know what they were saying sometimes (footnotes would have been nice) but it’s important to know that wealthy Russians at that time often switched to French when speaking.
Common to this day. Not as common as in the 19th century, but still more common in French than in other languages with the T/V distinction.
Yes, I had a gap year in France, and my French “parents” were “vous” the whole time, but everyone my age was a “tu” from the get go, or very soon thereafter. IRC, I’m talking about people who were cousins using “vous”, I wondered if it was a 19th century thing, or a Russian thing.
(But that’s very interesting that you think the French are hanging on to this longer than others. My husband always insisted on being informal with his German post-doc professor, I am pretty sure he was the only one, but he didn’t get told not to either. I suspect he was just considered the clueless American.)
That’s typical through university. Post-uni, adults typically use vous with each other, aside from your BFF’s and those you’ve known since childhood.
A little of both. French was the preferred language of the Russian upper class, which was codified during the reign of Catherine the Great. Although Catherine died before the events of War and Peace, the tradition continued. So Russians speaking French would have followed French norms regarding language.
German is less formal than French, but more formal than Spanish. But unless told otherwise, a professor is always “Sie.”
Believe me I used to tell him that, but he was having none of it, having called his PhD advisor by his first name, it just seemed so wrong to him. I always called his boss “Herr Professor”.
Read Ms. Demeanor last week! Loved it. Super fun. Good break after some heavy reads.
I read All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir before that. Wow. A great read. I don’t read YA very often but I highly recommend it. Did not read like a book for high school kids.
And just finished Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet. Five stars. I’m having a good reading year so far!
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Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand. It’s a Gothic murder mystery. The narrator is a rural boy from Maine barely existing on carpentry jobs who sees a Craiglist ad for a caretaker job for a rich guy on an island in Hawaii and goes for it. The novel is set a couple of years ago during Covid lockdowns. I’ve honestly never been particularly interested in Hawaii (“rube Valhalla”) but after reading this book I want to go there. It details the gritty reality (inland poverty, fentanyl, lots of beach homeless) but also invokes the tremendous beauty of the landscape. Rural America is gorgeous, and also hopeless.
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Ooh. That sounds very interesting!!! Thanks for the heads up on it.