War and Peace

I read this in Russian as part of my undergraduate degree at St Andrews. I was the only final honours student who was doing single Russian, so I had pretty much to take all the modules that were on the course, including the dissertation module. My subject was a comparison of Tolstoy's novel with the 1969 movie version directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. Looking back on that period some 12 years later, it stands as one of the most useful and interesting things I did at uni.

A NEW TRANSLATION BY RICHARD PEVEAR AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY Tolstoy's enthralling epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict. He creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships. His heroes are the thoughtful yet impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his ambitious friend, Prince Andrei, and the woman who becomes indispensable to both of them, the enchanting Natasha Rostov.