At the beginning of the pandemic, many of us joined Yiyun Li online to read Tolstoy's War and Peace together. Join us for a conversation about this book Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace, both a reading guide and a collection of essays, that's a necessary companion on your journey through the novel. Contributors Thomas Kitson and Adrienne Celt will discuss literary translations and the appeal of reading classic novels with a contemporary lens.

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This event will be hosted on Zoom. You'll receive the link to the Zoom meeting the day of the event via email. Free registration/ticket sales will end at 6:30pm on 10/19. Please email events@whitewhalebookstore.com if you miss this cut-off and need a ticket. For questions, check out our FAQ for events here.

About Tolstoy Together:

“You know how, very occasionally in your life, there’s a ‘before and after’ reading experience? Well, reading War and Peace with Tolstoy Together has been that for me—a milestone not just in reading but in living.” —Michael Langan

"Among the many pleasures of the #TolstoyTogether group, while life has often felt on pause (which has ups and downs to it) seeing how much we’ve read reminds me I’ve been traveling all along, and not alone." —Carl Phillips

From the acclaimed author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, a book about the art of reading. In Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace, Yiyun Li invites you to travel with her through Tolstoy’s novel—and with fellow readers around the world who joined her for an online book club and an epic journey during a pandemic year.

“I’ve found that the more uncertain life is,” Yiyun Li writes, “the more solidity and structure War and Peace provides.” Tolstoy Together expands the epic novel into a rich conversation about literature and ways of reading, with contributions from Garth Greenwell, Elliott Holt, Carl Phillips, Tom Drury, Sara Majka, Alexandra Schwartz, and hundreds of fellow readers.

Along with Yiyun Li’s daily reading journal and a communal journal with readers’ reflections—with commentary on craft and technique, historical context, and character studies, Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace includes a schedule and framework, providing a daily motivating companion for Tolstoy’s novel and a reading practice for future books.

About the contributors:

Adrienne Celt is the author of Invitation to a Bonfire (Bloomsbury) and the forthcoming novel End of the World House (Simon and Schuster).

Thomas J. Kitson’s translation of Iliazd’s Rapture (Columbia University) won a Special Mention from the Read Russia Prize jury.