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How to Read War and Peace

By Dawn Raffel

At 1,400-plus pages, War and Peace can seem daunting. Here's how to read it.


Where to Start

War and Peace is not so much difficult as it is long. Dig in, though, and you'll quickly see why Tolstoy's exuberant opus—set in the years just before, during, and after Napoléon's invasion of Russia—is arguably the greatest novel of all time. Within these pages, you'll find family drama, trenchant social observation, military history, brilliant discourse on the question of free will, and a love story for the ages. 


Read More Hard Books

From the July 2006 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine