"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett, published by Milestone Editions, New York, undated (1965).

Hard boards, two-color original cloth with black box and gold lettering on spine, Tolstoy's signature in gold on the front board [a little shelf wear, one stain on front board: see photo], 6.1/2" x 9.1/2"; title in Russian and former owner's signature on the front endpaper, 1116 pages, very good condition.

"A coworker asked what I was reading and I replied "War and Peace." He asked what it was about and I replied "War and Peace". War and Peace is about war and peace, sorrow and joy, the duality and inevitability of these things in our life. it is about how we affect history, and how history affects us. It asks what makes us move as human beings, and as a society and civilization. It's about everything, I learned and grew so much while reading this...

Don't be afraid of thousand+ pages, take the plunge. Read the book, you will not only be glad you did, you will grow as a human being. I read many works of literature before I read this one… and yet I was intimidated by this book, not because of Its length so much as because we generally have the idea that very long books that are considered classics have to be filled with pages of exposition, you know pages describing a carriage or a sunset or a coffee mug (I'm looking at you Dickens!) but I felt it was finally time so I set off to my next challenge, to read War and Peace in a month on my hour lunch break...

What happened to me? I expected to find pages of prose and essays I could easily get through without having to sub vocalize, I expected to have to dig through mass amounts of extra words and ideas to get to the good stuff, which would motivate me to read at my top level. I expected to be able to get through a few chapters a day. But I miscalculated, instead of wanting to speed up, I found myself slowing down. I found myself reading not as fast, but as slowly as possible, to get the most out of every word. There was very little exposition, essays are only introduced in the later chapters and they add an interesting and vital perspective to the novel and also challenge everything I thought I knew about history.

The book is long because it contains so many characters, so many stories, and covers so vast a length of time. But you will be interested every step of the way. It did take the first 100 pages to really get exciting but once I got into the story, I went back and reread the beginning and found I loved every word.

I keep referring to this as a book as I feel it transcends genre or convention. is it a novel, an epic poem in prose, a very long essay, it is all of these things, and none of these things...[excerpts from a review]

US: Priority (c 2-4 days) ----------- $12.50
Canada: Priority (c 2-6 weeks) -- $32.50
World: Priority (c 2-8 weeks) --- $45.50