Who recommends it
- Megan CollinsInterview
I think I’ve stopped believing in there being a hierarchy of impressiveness when it comes to books. When I was younger, I might have said Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, or something just as heavy and classic. But I’m done with the idea that a book’s length or age or genre or presence in the literary canon ascribes it…
- Miguel FariasInterview
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Notebook of Colonial Memories by Isabela Figueiredo (in Portuguese).
- The Greatest Ever Romance NovelsReading list
A story of doomed romance, thwarted love and the complexities of being a mother and woman in 19th century Europe, this is one of the most compelling novels I’ve ever read. The difficulties it explores – love, motherhood, betrayal, society – are as pertinent now as they were 150 years’ ago. Anna’s final soliloquy, on…
- Jeff KreislerInterview
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (not kidding, read this giant book in 3 spring days mostly under one tree on campus, sticks in my mind). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Candide by Voltaire, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by…
- Keren DavidInterview
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, and Emma by Jane Austen.
- Luciano FloridiInterview
Too may… but I would like to mention some books that everybody talks about but few actually read: Moby Dick by Herman Melville and Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes, both totally fascinating and in some pages also terribly boring. War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, to be read in a single year, without…
- Annabel AbbsInterview
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is the earliest example of a man successfully slipping inside the skin of a woman and writing through her eyes. Am I allowed to mention my teenage daughter’s novel, Chasing Cecilia? She’s been writing on Wattpad for two years and, although she’s just 16, her novels are regularly ranked…
- Alison JacksonInterview
When I was growing up I was always very aware of the distinction between a private life and a public persona. I’ve carried that through into my professional life and it’s a major theme in my art work. Because of that there are certain books (I can’t just choose one!) that have resonated with me; books where we as the…
- Bari TesslerInterview
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. My beloved Poppy (my grandfather) was Ukranian and loved Tolstoy. I read Tolstoy for him.
- Emma BennettInterview
- Sophie RatcliffeInterview
Ah – what a segue! Well, the book was partly inspired by the idea of reading on trains. More precisely, by one famous train-reader – Anna Karenina, in Tolstoy’s novel of the same name, who sits on a train, turning the pages of a novel, trying to hold back her racing thoughts of illicit love. And the book iscentrally…
- Michael MichalkoInterview
Russian author Leo Tolstoy author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyic.
Often recommended alongside
War and Peace
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Bell JarMore books by Leo Tolstoy our guests recommend
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