day 23 of the 30 day book challenge

Day 23. A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t

My list of books to read is something like 12 pages long. I'm not kidding. It runs in the family; you should see my mom's list. The only difference is she's good about hers: adding & crossing off. I feel the need to re-write mine every time I get a new journal.

There has been one book hovering at the top of the list (& severely weighing down my book shelf) since I first saw the movie on TV in middle school. It came across the ocean with me & accounted for 45 percent of my book weight allowance in my suitcase. (Joe & I set a limit: four books of reasonable size.)

I absolutely love Leo Tolstoy's time, style & story. Though I've only read "Anna Korenina," he's made an impression on me. The first book to go on my France packing list–don't act surprised, you know I had at least three– was "War & Peace" so that Joe & I could read it together.

*Side note: That cover is the Vintage Classics, so check it. Vintage US is one of my absolute favorite big publisher.

Since you won't click the link, let's see what Powell's says:

War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleons invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

 France meets Russia via Napoleon? Illegitimate children & tangled love? Princes? Bring. It. On. Then, Powell's page gets me even more excited by using a Virginia Woolf quotation:

“There remains the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of War and Peace?”

If Woolf says it, you know it's true or at least really interesting & worth considering. 

Posts like this bum me out, because I'll never read the number of books I want to. So I'm closing by saying that I started "Middlemarch" & adore it. The version I have also includes "Silas Marner," which I admit I didn't enjoy as much as the film version with Steve Martin.

What are you still trying to get yourself to read? What's stopping you?

Enjoy what you're reading? I'd love to know that we're on track. Click Follow on the right side of the screen to stick with us.