War and Peace
by Lev Tolstoi · first published 1869
21% recommend75% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Sprawling epic that rewards patience: it observes people at every social level with deep empathy, plus Tolstoy's take on Napoleon and history. Suits readers willing to push past a slow start.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events surrounding the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. The novel begins in the year 1805 during the reign of Tsar Alexander I and leads up to the 1812 French invasion of Russia by Napoleon. The era of Catherine the Great (1762–1796), when the royal court in Paris was the centre of western European civilization,[16] is still fresh in the minds of older people. Catherine, fluent in French and wishing to reshape Russia into a great Europea
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…nonsense! Whoa! I learned some cool facts about Abe Lincoln which I enjoyed. I will read a summary or watch a video some day. Btw, I have had some really great recommendation from book threads on HN. - War and Peace I was really enjoying it. Will definitely finish it someday. ________ I only read a book when it appears on my radar from multiple sources. HN threads, Reddit threads (not r/books pseudo-intellectual,…
on “Ask HN: What books have you not finished?” ↗War and Peace came immediately to mind for me as well, but mostly because I do not think I have ever read a more magnificent novel. I'm a literature professor, and in academic literary study, we don't spend a lot…
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗War and Peace by Tolstoy (I like the Volokhonsky and Pevear translation, though I first read a different one that I also liked and now can't remember). If you read it casually, it'll take you most of the summer; if…
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗Tough to pick just two. For now I would say: War And Peace (Pevear & Volokhonsky translation) Dune
on “Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.” ↗…for a human being to read even one tenth of the great, all-time classic books. There just isn't enough time. My advice would be to read at least a few books that have reputations for being difficult. War and Peace, Gravity's Rainbow, In Search of Lost Time, Ulysses, etc. (The reason I'm only listing near-undisputed classics here is because these books are difficult, and in some cases very, very long [looking at…
on “Ask HN: What do you read?” ↗…Babylon 5, "What do you want?" Figure out what you really want. You have some money. Quit working on anything for a while. Go sit on a beach and stare at the sunset for a few months. Walk to Peru. Read War and Peace. Get your mind in order, and figure out what you want, rather than just what you don't want, and means-to-undefined end fantasies.
on “I need help moving forward” ↗…the end. It introduced me to western classic literature for the first time and I was really impressed. Then in college, there was an ongoing bet that who could finish the entire unabridged version of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It tool me three months to read the whole of it. It changed me as a person and made me aware of the fact that the problems faced by humans haven't really changed over the centuries, but…
on “Why Read the Classics? (1986)” ↗…Roughing It. Emma and Pride and Prejudice. Iliad, Odyssey and first half of the Aeneid. A Room With A View and The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Great Gatsby, Call of the Wild and Age of Innocence. War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Don Quixote.
on “Ask HN: What are some must read books?” ↗…Camus - pick any of his works, but the shortest is considered to be the finest - The Stranger (~ 80-100 pages) - Herman Melville - Moby Dick was a wonderful journey I enjoyed thoroughly - Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace is a book that will raise the bar for fiction, I couldn’t start a new one for a month after finishing it, tried but I was still living in the book. I remember taking a vacation at work to finish the book,…
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite fiction book?” ↗"Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy "What to Listen For in Music" by Aaron Copland
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗War and peace by Leo Tolstoy. I loved it because, among several other reasons, it masterfully portrayed flow of time, as in transformation of people over a long period of time.
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite novel? Why?” ↗…doorstop-sized single narratives that I've read and recommend include Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Wm. Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. (The world is also full of good single narratives that span multiple thick volumes, of course.)
on ““The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]” ↗Most memorable books I read this year: Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. It took our reading group about six months to read it. Our discussions really added to my understanding and enjoyment. Thomas Rid, Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History. From Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗Those Russian guys were writing pretty big novels 150 years ago too, though. I will say that War and Peace was a much faster read (at least for me) than Infinite Jest - though I greatly enjoyed both, in very different ways.
on “How To Write With Style (1999)” ↗Fiction War and Peace Crime and Punishment Count of Monte Christo 1984 God of Small Things Paradise lost Divine comedy Non fiction Selfish gene Meditations Madness explained (the best book I've encountered for explaining…
on “Ask HN: Which books do you wish you'd read earlier in life?” ↗