Read-a-Long Warning

I've decided to join Wallace at Unputdownables for an end-of-the-year read.  There's still time to join if you are in the mood (it is a 12 week reading schedule--totally manageable, right?)  I'm excited at the prospect of re-reading Anna Karenina, since I enjoyed War & Peace tremendously in 2009.  I'm not planning on blogging every week about it, although you never know when inspiration may hit and the blogging bug takes over, although some status updates in the next few months are to be expected.

I originally read Anna Karenina in high school.  I was a teen that loved to read, but had migrated away from the quality reads of my younger years and was spending all my time with forgettable, dramatic stories.  My mom finally had enough, and challenged (dared?) me to read a classic.  She'd had a friend that read War & Peace in high school, so Tolstoy seemed a perfect choice.  I flew through Anna Karenina, mostly because I enjoyed seeing the horror and chagrin on my mother's face when I told her of all the dramatic plot points.  (What can I say?  I was a teen.  I knew everything, and had to make sure my mom knew it.)  Reading Anna Karenina earned me the right to go back to reading the silly stuff of my own choosing.

Now, more years later than I care to claim, pretty much all I remember is that there was an affair a train accident.  Definitely time to revisit.  In the last couple of years, Tolstoy has become one of my favorite authors.  I'm seriously in love with how the guy thought, and how he expressed those thoughts.  In War & Peace, all the philosophical bits weren't the boring parts...they were just exciting in a different way.  I'll admit, I have high expectations for this experience.  But I don't think Tolstoy will let me down.

Title: Anna Karenina
Author: Leo Tolstoy
My copy published: Penguin 2001
Originally published: 1873
Translated by: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
Pages: 817 (without notes)