Introducing A Year of War and Peace +

A daily, yearlong, chapter-by-chapter reading of and meditation on Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel War and Peace

Brian E. Denton
8 min readFeb 4, 2021

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Squad goals

What It Is

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. This year, 2021, for the convenience of Medium members, A Year of War and Peace+ offers daily publication of both the public domain Maude translation of War and Peace and my reflective essays.

This unique approach to reading War and Peace is quite popular. Over seven thousand people, for instance, follow a subreddit dedicated to the plan. It also breaks down an intimidatingly long book into easily manageable, bite-sized parts. Finally, if you prefer audiobooks, I’m also providing a reading of A Year of War and Peace complete with all possible manner of mispronunciation of French and Russian words! I’m sure you’ll love it.

I’ve read War and Peace every day this way since 2009. I love it and invite you to join me.

What follows is an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents. Please bookmark for future reference should you choose to join me on my reading this year. Though, it should be noted, A Year of War and Peace+ does not need to be read on the calendar year. It can be started any day you choose.

Enjoy.

Introduction

When a reader loves a book she never wants it to end. If her favorite novel is War and Peace it almost never does. Eventually, however, she’ll find that the thirteen hundred or so pages of the novel have all finally been turned. She will then…

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Brian E. Denton

For my friends and family, love. For my enemies, durian fruit.