A Year of War and Peace is the bibliotheraputic equivalent of mainlining your favorite mood enhancer.
Over the course of one year Medium members will be offered the opportunity to read and discuss one chapter of Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace per day as well as a reflective essay individually tailored to that day’s chapter. These reflective essays focus on the novel’s nineteenth century characters with the aim of improving contemporary readers’ twenty-first century lives. In 2017 I published these essays on Medium. …
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andréevich Bolkónski’s estate, the arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but this expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old prince’s household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andréevich (nicknamed in society, “the King of Prussia”) ever since the…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the Great and talking eagerly. …
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and on the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated with red light like…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the princess’ room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for) and Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was driving into the court of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels rolled softly over the straw beneath the…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
While in the Rostóvs’ ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced, to a tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired footmen and cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezúkhov had a sixth stroke. The doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute confession, communion was administered to the dying man…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the count’s visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms, some in the sitting room, some in the library.
The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
At the men’s end of the table the talk grew more and more animated. The colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared in Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day been forwarded by courier to the commander in chief.
“And why the…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From time to time he went out to ask: “Hasn’t she come yet?” They were expecting Márya…
Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish weekly essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film. Finally, feel free to share with your friends.
After Anna Mikháylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov, Countess Rostóva sat for a long time all alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang. “What is the matter with you, my dear?” she said crossly to the maid who kept her waiting…
For my friends and family, love. For my enemies, durian fruit.