War and Peace

"I can’t say anything more than that it doesn’t get better than this. Here is an author who creates characters with every human quality one might encounter. This vast and sweeping saga is thrilling and Tolstoy’s sense of visual extravagance is without parallel."

"It’s been many years since I read this one, but I can still remember certain sequences: men riding horseback into battle, and the way they try to distract themselves from the fact that they could be dead or wounded terribly in an hour’s time."

"Tolstoy is considered by almost everyone as the greatest novelist that ever lived, and I can only say, me too. From his first beautiful book on [war] and [Sebastopol,] all through his long and marvelously productive life he stands alone as a writer…It is interesting to me to think of the seeds of his stories, ‘his illuminations.’ Anna Karenina was evolved because he had heard of a woman who had jumped in front of a moving train and died. The grandeur of [ War and Peace ], a historical novel,..."