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  Anna Karenina

  One of my favourite novels, Anna Karenina is ostensibly the tale of the beautiful Anna, a young Russian noblewoman who scandalises high society by leaving her loveless marriage and pursuing a passionate affair with the dashing Count Vronsky.

  Although many will see the novel as nothing more than a well-written story of a tragic romance, Anna Karenina is in fact a highly sophisticated novel, although thankfully it is also accessible and something of a page-turner to boot. In telling Anna's story Tolstoy deals with issues that, as a moralist, he felt compelled to address. Anna and Vronsky's turbulent relationship is compared with the quieter more 'realistic' pairing of Levin and Kitty, while setting the novel in the highest circles of Russian society gave Tolstoy the opportunity to expose the excesses of his aristocratic peers. In fact the novel is viewed by many critics as a parable of the difficulty of being true to oneself in a world that not only accepts but actively encourages falseness.

  Often acclaimed as 'the greatest novel ever written' and beginning with one of the most quoted lines in literature 'Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way', from start to finish Anna Karenina is nothing short of a masterpiece with characters that stay with you long after you have read the final pages.

  Review by Heidi Murphy on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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  Persuasion

  Review by Heidi Murphy on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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  3-star review

  Review by Heidi Murphy on 14:04, 04 Apr 2008

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