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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't really like to choose between brilliant writers who each have such different voices, but if you insist then of course I would choose Tolstoy. Even Dostoyevsky seemingly considered Tolstoy the better writer, and called [i]Anna Karenina[/i] a work of perfection.

OP you might want to check out [i]Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An essay in the old criticism[/i] by George Steiner.

As an English major with advanced degree who has loved reading and escaped into and lived via thousands of books over the last five decades, I can honestly say that if anyone asked me which one great novel they should read above all others, it would have to be [i]Anna Karenina[/i].

I first read it in the summer between sophomore and junior years in HS when I was just 15, and I can still remember all those long cool summer days I spent laying on the bed in the bedroom I shared with my grandmother, reading and reading and reading that enormous book which encapsulated all of life and human yearning. It changed my life and how I viewed everything around me. I have read so many amazing works of literature since, in the course of pursuing a BA and MA in literature and then just for the sheer pleasure - but nothing has ever moved me so much as [i]Anna Karenina[/i] first did.

One of my favorite daydreams is that I'd love to have a dinner party for literary giants, gather them all at the same table - and at the head would be Leo Tolstoy.[/quote]

I'm 100 pages into Anna Karenina but keeping getting sucked back in DCUM and doomscrolling.  Thanks for the inspiration to get off of here.[/quote]

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