I love how you captured what it's like to finish a long book you've been reading for a while - it's one thing to devour a book quickly, but it's quite another to have lived with one for months at a time and find that when your time with it is done, you can't imagine waking up the next morning and having no more of that story left to read. This is why I still try to read long books from time to time, even if my attention span is short these days. I like to live with a book.

have i read war and peace? no. will i ever read it? probably not. do i love these videos and am invested in them? absolutely

I still feel sad for Sonya. I did not want those last pages with the families to end . There are scenes that years later are still hanging around in my head

Emmie: *doesn’t care about Petya* Petya: okey, no problem, bye-bye

so, in Russia we read War and Peace in the 10th grade (which is kinda insane because we're just kids), and obviously nobody has even read past the first book (but i've read all the four books on my summer holidays so i was pretty invested!)... all i want to say is i am very sad that my school's program was fast and nobody has appreciated this masterpiece... but honestly the second epilog was pretty boring for me because of the repetition that you've talked about in this video. also there is a "tradition" between the russian students to skip all of the war parts, and literally generations of russians did this :D which is funny to think about. alsoooo i deeply recommend you to read "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky (not sure how his name is written in English) and "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev because these are my favourite books from the Russian classical literature!

I'm so motivated to read classics after stumbling upon your videos lmao and to think I used to hate classics (I think school ruined me for it)... I'm starting with Dorian Gray and then hopefully 100 years of solitude!!

These 30 minute videos make my day brighter! Can't wait to watch this! 😊

I have not read War and Peace so I will have to come back to this when I have (perhaps after finishing Phantom because that’s my whole life currently). I cannot wait to admire this beautiful video when I have completed the mammoth myself

I literally just finished War and Peace today! It was wonderful!!!

your tolstoy diaries will definitely be one of the reasons why im thinking of reading this!!! (even if the sheer size of it scares me huhu)

My friend fell in love with Andrei, then she read the part with his death, cried for two days straight and never touched this book again and never finished it

YES YES YES THIS JUST MAKES ME EXCITED FOR THIS WEEK!! thanks to you Emma I've braved myself to FINALLY read "War and Peace" and my copy arrives this week!! I can't wait!! I'll definitely re-watch your War and Peace series while I read the book!!

I started this got into like 100 pages, loved it and then my exams started. :"-(

"hello broken hearts" felt that to another level

Thanks to you, I am reading this masterpiece. At first I was intimidated, but once I started it and got past the 1st 100 pages, it started to flow. I did watch a little of the BBC series to kind of orient myself. I find myself going back over previous read pages...I am a bit of a binge type reader which I'm trying hard not to do with this book I tend to read very fast and need to go back and reread pages. I am learning to slow down and really enjoy the words. I have also enjoyed watching all your vlogs, sometimes end up watching them and not reading, lol! And thanks to you, Carolyn and Benjamin McEvoy and a few other booktubers for encouraging me to read the great classics. I was a science major and do enjoy my work as a microbiologist...I always felt robbed of time to read non science texts. But here I am many many years later getting to enjoy reading.

yet another incredible video filled with passion 💖🦋 thank you so much Emmie, for all the effort that you put in your videos

My impressions of the characters are that they represent a facet of his wonderful personality and humanity.You do great justice to this incredible symphonic work of literature❤️

its been so great following your war & peace journey while reading it myself 🌼 thank youuu

Thank you for your thoughtful and heartfelt commentary on one of my all-time favourite works of literature. I'm in the midst of reading it once again--is this five or six times? Not sure--but can say that each time I dip into it, something new emerges that makes the familiar story come alive.

Emmie: I'm getting so tired of reading Kutuzov's name. Me: Yes. This.

Loved this series ❤️You’ve inspired me to pick up Anna Karenina-looking forward to the next Tolstoy Diaries!

So glad I read this. It was a lot of dedication and time but so worth it. I’m currently reading Anna Karenina now and so good. I’ve been wanting to read this for so long and did yay!!

I just finished war and peace. I lived two months entirely dedicated to this characters and their stories, I’ll miss them a lot

I was very upset when Natasha gave up music and became a simple family woman :’(

Finished the book today, so now I can go back and watch these videos finally 🌟

Hello from Russia😊Recently discovered your channel and I can comment tiny bit on the book because of course it's one of the main we study in Russia and it's obligatory to read it at school)) Haha we have jokes about the french parts that are maybe not so necessary but it goes with the time of course. Considering the historical part, yes, it's supposed to be the novel based on facts and supposedly it describes the events as they were but here what Russians think is very controversial. Usually critics agree that Tolstoy made sth similar to the encyclopedia of life (Russian aristocracy of the nineteenth century) but the war with Napoleon, the actual participants think, wasn't represented with such accuracy and is more tainted with Tolstoy's own views on the matter. Personally I like Mariya the most haha because she was so both clumsy and seemingly not beautiful but her eyes were full of light and that's why Nikolai got attracted to her so much. Natasha is a very interesting character with her liveliness and desire to live fully, she's very compassionate but goodness me I didn't like the ending. For Tolstoy yes it was a proper ending for a woman, she's fulfilling her true purpose but i remember when I've read it in high school i felt almost insulted)) Tolstoy is a very controversial writer for me and honestly i feel pity that so many of other Russian writes are left behind and without attention and the world practically knows only Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Bulgakov too. Thank you for the review, it was interesting to see other people's point of view, especially, not Russian) Ah i forgot to add, i think the book represents our Russian mentality a lot. Getting changed and supposedly better through suffering is very mm essential from our point of view. As if we're who we are only through such life changing experiences as the ones Andrey and his best friend went through. I agree. But sometimes i think we, Russians, pay too much attention to suffering and forget how to be happy))

"Yes, a new kind of happiness was revealed to me, one of the inalienable rights of mind... Happiness beyond materialism, beyond all external, material influences, happiness known only to the soul, the happiness of loving!". Thank you Emma and Carolyn for the opportunity to read this masterpiece, War and Peace.

It's so fascinating how Tolstoy focuses on these moments of awakening right before death. One of my favorites of his stories, Master and Man, is about two men from vastly different backgrounds who get lost in the snow (one survives, one doesn't) and their last thoughts as they lie dying. I wonder if Tolstoy got to have one of these moments as he died as well....

Emmie because of you I started reading more and decided to read war and peace though...❤️❤️❤️

What you say at 20:17 reminded me of a quote from The Love Songs Of Miss Queenie Hennessy. How everyone is in some sort of battle, maybe physically or in their own minds: "People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And no one knew the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that. Moved and humbled, he passed his paper napkin"

"Life...this ocean where we are all drops in it." That totally sounds like Cloud Atlas' last line🤩🤩

u posted right after i finished my last exam ty!! now i get to celebrate by watching ur vids

Emmie, enjoyed your War & Peace series. I really like how you were able to visually convey the experience of reading which is such an internal act. I have a recommendation for anyone who is thinking about reading War and Peace. Before I reading it, I did a lot of research into the different translations and finally settled on the Antony Briggs version. This is the edition published by Penguin books as one of their Clothbound Classics editions. It has the dark blue cover with with a comet pattern. The Briggs translation is not considered the most authoritative, but it is the most readable version in my opinion. I read War and Peace on the bus to work everyday (this was pre-COVID) and it took me a couple months to finish. Don't be intimidated by War and Peace, its not a difficult read, just long. I recently read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and found Dickens' dense prose a slog compared to Tolstoy's writing style.

Could you give us a little insight to your notes and annotations of the books?

Yeeesss please to the review! I would love to see you dive into it

I will never forget the final images that accompany the completion of your reading of Vojna i mir since the epilogue. These are the most beautiful that I have received, which give an idea of ​​this deep and existential work

I absolutely love your long journey for "WAR and PEACE". It was a great happiness to me to get through this book with you together. I think I will watch this series at least a few times more. Thank you for your sincere concentration and effort for tolstoy series .

Your videos give me so much peace, calm, and serotonin💛^_^ Congrats on finishing the book .-.

These videos have made me feel so motivated to finally read war and peace. It has scared me for so long but after hearing you talk about it I finally feel ready to pick it up!

I'm on page 150 (though I have a different edition) and already my heart has been broken so many times. thank you so much for motivating me to finally read this book. I haven't finished it yet, but I know it's going to become one of my favourite books of all time now.

Loved this. I'm on PG 327 of War and Peace, so far and I am enjoying it so much. Thanks so much for your videos and book recommendations Emma. I've gotten several of them and they will definitely get me through being laid up for the summer with a bum knee. Keep the vids coming and thx so much for your inspiration. hugs! 💚💚💚💚 Ps. Love how he put in a minor character who has the last name of Tolstoy. It's like when Alfred Hitchcock would make a cameo appearance in all of his films in the background, I feel that's what Tolstoy was doing with that. Very clever. 😊😊😊😊

Ok, as soon as I've finished it, I will come back and watch this!:)

yay finished and finally was able to watch these!

I love your dedication ❤❤❤. You really make me want to read this book

Sorry if this is long, but I just finished War and Peace in August, and am watching the Soviet series currently. This was very addicting to listen to--dominated my priority list, in fact 😅 War and Peace has a place in my heart with how original and wonderful it is, the plot, the characters...right from the start, too! Pierre is a great example for this; to me, he's very true to life in that he struggled to figure out what to do and lived in this bubble where he didn't understand. No one appreciated him except Andrey, ironically. Andrey wasn't perfect but I understood his resentment, and his wanting something better. This is of course them at the beginning of their journey. And really, with all the changes they undergo, they often stay rather consistent: Pierre, once he got his answers to life, found peace; it's really what he wanted. Even Natasha, one of the most constantly shifting characters, had her tendencies she more strongly develops later on in life: she was already very possessive (not the best word, but it'll do) of Andrey and didn't want much separation at all. She had a lot of love that she did want to pour into someone. As an aside, while I do love all of them, I was definitely an Andrey fan. Pierre was already bestie level for me but Andrey was the little plant I just kept rooting to grow :D I think the only thing that I might not like was the repetition (yes, I liked the war!). Never know, one day I may have a different opinion on it. Also, if you'd like any audiobook rec, I *thoroughly* enjoyed Scourby. I don't like emotion being forced on me as a reader (manufactured, if you will), and he avoids subjecting me to that. If anything, at times I was thinking "well he should've read it this way"--but eventually the more I listened the more emotions I discovered he had, so many nuances...(In a genuine way)....and in general he has a perfect narrator voice. As for the parts that weren't terribly emotional it became like reading a book with a friend. And, most importantly (besides his capturing true emotions so well) he could read such important parts of the book in the most profound way ever. It's so good. Anyway watching your videos made me relive War and Peace which was wonderful. Felt the story beats with you, had a similar reaction to some passages (think Andrey), and....yeah. I'm almost done the Soviet adaption and for book to movie adaptions, it's kinda insane. Not only does it have impressive shots for the 60's, a giant army for complex battle scenes (WHO has that anywhere), but also it has Such book-accurate everything, the emotions, thoughts, dialogue, direction of the actors--it's literally lifted right off the page. It's incredibly emotional too, with the music and the visuals. So, compelling movie+a book lover's dream of adapting the book and only the book? How is it real?? Also, as an aside, I think Andrey just had a reality check when he got engaged to Natasha, as in, he saw that she had a lot of growing up to do, and still had love for her, but also now a responsibility too in his dealing with her. They still got on famously after his engagement, and before he left. And, as a finally note, I am very much a fan of Marya and got extremely invested in her relationship with her dad. I always wanted it to get better :')

I have just read War and Peace last month as well and I swear the death of Prince Andrei is the most emotional! I even cried ..., A LOT 😢

I've read "War and Peace" for school, but I didn't realize many things and aspects of this book you talked about. Thank you for such a deep and wonderful analysis! Maybe I'll even try to re-read this book ;)

“There is a universe in War and Peace and each universe has so much to talk about.” Okay now I’ve got to reread it because I feel like I got so much out of it the first time but NOT ENOUGH apparently! I need to go back and see these things again and think about them WAY MORE. Also I skipped the epilogue because I couldn’t focus so I need to really read that too. I love the way you talk about books Emma!

The last episode was the best, Emma. Beautiful to see your feelings during the reading. Love to see your passion.✨

Good job! Let me recommend "And Quiet Flows the Don" by Sholokhov, it is a lot more catching (in my opinion) than War and Peace

I’m going to start reading it after I finish the book thief pretty soon

Your voice is so soothing, I love to hear you talk about Tolstoy. When is the live show?

Your vlogs make me so happy!

You are definitely making me wanna read War and Peace... I love these types of vlogs!!!

I know how you did it, but because I watched all the episodes for war and peace videos I dreamed with the book today and I haven’t read it hahahaha

I doubt anyone will see this, but i just finished War and Peace and I know this book will haunt me the rest of my days.

A more or less hypothetical question: If you've already read War and Peace 15 years ago and now you'd only had 3 years left to live, would you re-read it? If it was 5? Or 10?

Yaay! I hope you like Anna Karenina, I love it even more than War and Peace.

You inspired me to read this, so I organised a book club where we are going to read war and peace :)

I purchased this same translation of War and Peace (Oxford paperback) to read again after a decade or more, thanks to your vlog. I am daunted by your forest of page markers and underlinings. Walter Benjamin read like that. Did you ever see that photo of Benjamin reading in the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris? Jay Parini wrote a bio-novel about him, *Benjamin's Crossing* : he was the great deep reader, rather like yourself.

My dream/goal for my life is to read W&P in Russian, since I already know the language. It is not happening soon, but i just wish to do it someday

i can literally just put on your video and to my work. I can listen to your voice forever

I would love a les misèrables series

I'll never get over that epilogue 1 ends on a cliffhanger for a book that never ended up being made. Knowing that all of this was only a prologue to the story of post-Decembrist Russia makes me wonder what kind of depth he would have gone into there had he stuck to it. Or maybe he really did end up saying most of what he wanted in this one.

I just finished War and Peace today (I started it because of you, Emma, and also read One Hundred Years of Solitude last year for the same reason!) and... wow. I cried at Petya's death. I think that's only the second time I've ever cried reading a book. It was so sudden and horrific, I didn't actually understand what had happened for a minute. And Denisov's reaction was gut-wrenching too. I must say I found the second epilogue quite boring -- I felt like I got the point early on and that Tolstoy was wasting words repeating it. But this book is going to live with me for a long time.

Hello dear, I'm studying librarianship in Brazil and I love your videos ! You make me feel proud of choosing this course, what you do looks so incredible and peaceful .... My dream is work in other country at a important library and I have no idea how is this job in other country, here in Brazil is hard to get a job with this course. How is in your country about this area ? Is it hard to find a job at a Library? Sorry for this english 😑 keep posting this videos to us, we love !!

I hate what Tolstoy did to Sonya!!!! She was my favorite

End of an era...well at least the War & Peace Era. I’m excited for what’s next.

It's so lovely to watch your videos ♥️♥️

Wow you have been uploading so consistently!! Love it😍

Thanks for this amazing journey. I loved the book and your videos. 💖🌸😊

You inspire me to keep reading!

Hey can you please do a full video on how you annotate...Please 🙏

I would pay to get your annotated war and peace 🥺

No joke. I read the video title as "Peace and War" and thought, "ooooh, what book is that?" *face palm*

Finallyyy just what i needed 😌😌🙏🙏🙏

not me crying over u finishing war and peace 🧍🏻‍♀️

Don't know if it was mentioned but War and Peace was originally serialized in periodicals back in the 1860s, which might explain the repetitive nature that annoys you

Amei o vídeo! Que edição incrível

Try to watch the old War and Peace movie by Bondarchuck. This is the only good one, where the actor who plays Prince Andrey is just perfect for his character. And the director himself plays Pierre.

I love these vlogs, thank you! I I'm so looking forward to Anna Karenina and I might join in and read it with you! I have one request, though: could you credit the translator when talking about the beautiful passages of translated fiction? Because for example in this case, Tolstoy didn't write a single word of the English version you were reading - they were all the translator's work and prose, so it would be nice to mention them for their huge work and the prose they have created (that of course took its meanings from and was language use-vise inspired by Tolstoy's original work, but still were the translator's interpretation and wordings). I'm not saying this to dampen your mood or criticize you or anything, but I thought I should mention this just in case people are not aware of the translator's role and how much the English version is actually their doing and not the original author's. :) But back to the topic, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about the cultural differences you have witnessed between Tolstoy and Dickens' works and overall the differences or similarities between the two author's works!

❤❤❤ thank you

omg your vlogs are so beautiful and you're so cute, i'm always delighted ❤️

The fact that i JUST picked up my copy of War and Peace from the post…lmao

I'm a beginner but I wish to read beautiful classics one day :)

You know, I think I fully watched the first two episodes and wasn't able to see the full 3nd episode....but when you read some of the things in the book, what I am thinking is “Oh, I think a good annotation tab/highlight could be called ‘Therapy Talk’”

Love it when you post

i finished it in one sitting 🙈

Love this video so much ♥️🌼

congrats, that’s seriously such an achievement!

war and peace is not just a book is a journey!!!!!

I am Tempted to Read War & Peace ....I hope my mind doesn't Wander after I reach Half Way through & I hope am able to Grasp it 😌🙁😧😊

Has Emmie discussed her annotations? What the colors indicate? I simply am ready to start. So impressed. Thanks.

could you please make a video about those colors and tabs you use for marking pages? Thank you. I LOVE YOU, YOU ARE GREAT 😊❤

Yesss give Sophia the credit she deserves

Ngl I immediately went out and bought War and Peace after watching these

*sighs* alright then *adds war and peace to my wishlist*

congrats on reading this book!!! i’m definitely gonna try it myself.

J'aime beaucoup tes vidéos ❤❤