War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy

   This vast panarama of Russian life in the early 1800s focuses of the loves, sufferings, and fortunes of a few of the rich families in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the monied countryside. Their sons marry, fight in battles, and sometimes die, while their daughters marry, suffer in matrimony, and sometimes die.

   Especially interesting scenes:

• tea parties
• evening soirees
• battlefields
• burning Moscow
• a fox hunt
• Christmas sleighride in the countryside
• conversations between protagonists
• a large ball (party)
• the opera house

 

   The presentation is interlaced with French phrases and intellectual concepts. Theories of history and moments of blissful abandon exist within pages of each other.
   The characters are real and multifaceted - although sometimes an overemphasis on particular traits made this reader unready to accept some personality changes later (Pierre from dolt to gallant).