War and Peace

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At over 1700 pages including the two epilogues, War and Peace can seem like an insurmountable read.  It took me four months of on and off reading through Russia, Turkey, Greece, and finally the United States to finish it.  I'm sure everyone knows the title, but I'm sure not everyone knows the story.  It's a sweeping epic that takes place during the Napoleonic Wars.  War and Peace mainly follows the Rostov family and their acquaintances from prior to the war, through the war, and then into the aftermath.  The bulk of the book is like a serial soap opera.  There is love, betrayal, political intrigue, war, and passion.  The only parts I could imagine someone getting bogged down in are the very technical military parts (which I enjoyed) and the parts where Tolstoy starts self-aggrandizing his views and why they are right and why other historians are wrong (which I found tedious).  Overall, it is a pretty good read.  It just takes a lot of time and patience to get through.