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War & Peace

Ambitious me. During this period of unemployment, I have been in anguish over lost and wasted time. I trend towards isolation out if a sense of responsibility and duty (to my husband and obligations). I want to do my part but I get into psychological trouble with this mode of thinking. To combat this trend, I have been stepping out to seek the company of real, live human beings. When I'm holed up at home, besides satisfying my obligation to continue to actively seek work, I've taken some online courses, worked on my photography and knitting, learned how to blog, and I've started working on my 'bucket list' of reading.

My bucket list of reading consists of great literary works. Personally, I trend towards popular reads by Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Ann Rule, and the like. One day (quite out of the blue) I decided to attack the grand-daddy of my bucket list - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Today I finished that read. I'd estimate it has taken me about 30 days. I started out with an audiobook but circumstances beyond my control, forced me to actually go to the public library and order up the full volume. What a workout! Physically and mentally. This tome would make a fabulous doorstop on a blustery day but even better is the epic saga of fictional members of the Russian nobility that this covers in the time period of the late-1700's and encompassing the War of 1812.

I didn't expect to really like this novel but I couldn't help myself. It felt like a peek-a-view into a time that I knew nothing about (and didn't know that I wanted to know). Even the war stuff and strategy was fairly interesting (although it absolutely droned-on from around page 1177 through the end on page 1217). I think something got lost in translation. (This book was translated into English from Russian.) Anyway, I was hooked-in to the characters and couldn't wait to find out what happened to them next.

Remember this isn't light reading and I'm glad I didn't decide to tackle it in the summertime but I'm glad I read it. I feel like it somehow enriched my life but I surely couldn't quantify that to anyone in concrete terms. Mark one off the bucket list and I'm happy to not be so wasteful of my time off from work.


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