Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace with Yiyun Li

by Yiyun Li

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Classics, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Literature, Russian Literature

256 pages, ebook

First published September 14, 2021

About the author

Yiyun Li is the author of seven books, including Where Reasons End, which received the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; the essay collection Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life; and the novels The Vagrants and Must I Go. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Windham-Campbell Prize, among other honors. A contributing editor to A Public Space, she teaches at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations?’

And so, for want of a War and Peace reading partner or book club, this little volume is possibly the next best thing. It is not a guide or an academic companion to Tolstoy’s masterpiece. Just the collected conversations, in book form, of a small group of readers travelling together, during Covid lockdown, through that massive novel and sharing comments over the internet. And Chinese author Yiyun Li as shepherdess.

There is nothing ground-breaking in there, just a collective reading journal and a lovely way to motivate and pace oneself on the group’s schedule (20 pages/day, slow and steady) while eavesdropping on the discussion.

No pictures to speak of but yeah, some conversations. For a review of the actual novel, see here.

[Mary Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept this book by my side as I traveled through Tolstoy's War and Peace for the past five months. It is a companion book to Tolstoy's masterpiece, created from the comments of hundreds of people all over the world, who read the book at the same time during the darkest days of COVID. All started reading the book on March 20, 2020, and all read 10 to 15 pages a day as prescribed by their guide, author Yiyun Li.

I am not totally sure how it worked, but I believe that all the readers met on email or on a website and typed in comments every day.

All readers completed the book on the same day having read for 85 days. Li combined her own comments with selected reader comments from each day and created "Tolstoy Together".

A little over two years later, I started War and Peace and attempted to keep up with Li's group.

Though it took me longer than 85 days, I loved reading all the insights from Li and her readers. My only regret is that Li's project was over, and I did not have a chance to express my own thoughts to all the other readers.

[L'Epistola · Rating 5 out of 5]

During the spring of 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yiyun Li led a small project with A Public Space: read a few pages of War and Peace each day. Li and A Public Space (a literary magazine) would soon find out, an open and unstructured read-along was exactly what the reading world needed. A community formed around the project. Everyday, Li's reactions to a few pages of the book would be published and people felt welcomed her refreshing, unpretentious thoughts. People discovered that War and Peace is just another book. It is a masterpiece, but it is also just another book. Many are intimidated by books that are considered so very important, and Li gave them permission to just read it. And it just happened to be a book that many aspire to complete before they shuffle off this mortal coil. Delightedly, most simply could not believe that they were reading War and Peace and said so in so many ways on social media.

Tolstoy Together successfully captures that moment in time and presents it in a way that future readers of War and Peace can carry a small community of readers with them.

[scarr · Rating 3 out of 5]

flew through this. Tolstoy Together is not what I was expecting it to be: it is a collection of notes about a group reading the book at the start of the COVID pandemic. I'm glad I read it and it did provide some insights I hadn't considered. I'm at the stage of my War and Peace reading where I want to consume content about reading War and Peace (lol)

[Helen - Great Reads & Tea Leaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing.

My readalong chats on Substack were far better.

[Sarah Faber · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT! Smart ppl picking out banger lines from books I love is my new fav genre. Also I love at the end of vol 3 when they all realize Dolokhov is obviously the best character in war and peace

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great reading companion and I recommend it to anyone seeking to tackle War and Peace. It will provide a structure and community of support even if you're reading solo!

[bookmonster2023]

I got Tolstoy Together from the library believing it was a guide for people to read through 85 days of War and Peace.

In reality, it's more of a historical artifact -- the text from an online book club held in the early days of 2020 pandemic. The novelist Yiyun Li led the group, and the book is half her daily commentary, half comments from the people reading along.

This would be fine, but two things kind of spoiled it for me:

First, Li's commentary preemptively stifled potential criticisms of the book, both by beginning the group with an essay about all the things people might not like about War and Peace and shutting those lines of critique down, and by beginning at least one difficult section (the beginning of a boring war segment) by saying something like "you may want to skip the 'war' segments, but this is basically like hiding from life." As a result, the comments from the readers were rarely critical, even when the book potentially merited criticism.

Second, the time-stamp of early pandemic is LOUD in this text, to the point where it's more like a time capsule than something you want to naturally "read along" with. People are continually comparing the events of War and Peace to the events of early 2020. (There's even a hilarious pull-quote on the back saying "This book club is a great idea, join it and then 90 days later you'll have read War and Peace and the pandemic will be over!"). There's nothing wrong with any of the commenters, or with their fears and awe for the historical moment they were living in, but it's sort of emotionally challenging in 2023 to sit with 2020's feelings about itself.

Anyway, I do recommend it as a strange time capsule, like maybe if you're reading this in 2045? But if you need a traveling companion now, I suggest checking out the subreddit and related podcast r/yearofwarandpeace.

[Gregor Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's actually a fantastic book to read right after Tolstoys War and Peave. Doubled up on some of my own observations and thoughts and gave me plenty of new ideas and point of views and insights. I learned a lot and enjoyed going back through my immediate reading memories.

Now, seeing what I feel this reading group gave each other in terms of structure and ideas, I would love to be a part of such a reading group, even to reread Tolstoys War and Peace. Or to reread Proust (In Search of Lost Time). Or to read for the first time, and together, Robert Musil (The Man without qualities) or James Joyce (Ulysses). Now can anyone point me to such a reading group?

[David Ivany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greatly appreciated the insights of Yiyun Li and the folks reading along at the time. There were sections of War and Peace that I really didn't get much out of, but took a lot from the insights in this companion. A few times the generational divide became clear in the commentary (did not really relate to some of the bootstrap-ier commentary), but it vastly improved my understanding and enjoyment of W&P. Would recommend for first time readers like myself or people diving in again.

[Bill Schocke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only way I could have read War and Peace all the way through

Many years ago, I got about halfway through Anna Karenina, but I put it down for some reason. War and Peace is more challenging than Anna, so I knew I'd need a plan. This book gave me that, as well as a number of companions to read along with me. I couldn't have tackled it without them.

[Jessiejet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolstoy Together is a wonderful guide through a large book like War and Peace. It was encouraging knowing that others had gone on this journey before me, and reading their notes added new layers to the book and pointed out things to look for while reading. I wish all long classic books had something like this.

[Nathaniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never studied literature in a formal setting, and reading this along with War and Peace felt a little what I imagine being in a graduate seminar might feel like. I loved getting to hear thoughts from various writers and readers. I learned a lot about how to read and understand a book like this, but also learned a lot about how other people can perceive the same work differently.

[mark]

There is nothing like War and Peace. And there is no one like Yiyun Li to shepherd us through it. And a huge shout out to apublicspace.org for making this and so many other great new reads for me available.

[Jimbo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay.

I started the book after rereading War and Peace, so I was following it with the reading schedule.

But overall, the limitations from Twitter produce responses that are far less engaging than I prefer when I read.

[John Kenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yiyun Li’s observations are really powerful, but the organization of the book, divided into 80 days, made not accidentally reading ahead and encountering spoilers really hard, so towards the end of my War and Peace read I would avoid, and then her observations were not so timely.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun read alongside War and Peace.

[Lowell White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, fun, insightful companion to Tolstoy's War & Peace.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent companion to War and Peace.

[Kathryn Pritchett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous companion to an epic read. What a memorable way to march through a pandemic-twice!

[Gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading for Yiyun Li's comments, and the little factoids that the other commentators brought were interesting. It bothered me that most people had no love for Sonya, who I liked.

[James Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great companion piece to War and Peace. Curated by Yiyun Li with a schedule to read War & Peace, and with thoughts and comments from many contributors along the way

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great companion book to read along with War & Peace.

[Zhen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks Yiyun. If covid has left any good legacy to us, this is the one.

[PK Lawton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book as a companion to my War and Peace read this summer. While it has its flaws, the sense of sharing the experience as part of a group read made it worthwhile.

[Jesse Young · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading the jabberings of insufferable “Miss Mainwaring” will not enhance your experience of war and peace.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a useful companion to read alongside War and Peace, with many insightful comments that help the reader to deepen understanding of the epic. Yiyun Li was profoundly affected by War and Peace and her passion with the book – perhaps obsession – comes over in page after page.

[Martha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poet Yiyun Li began this project during the pandemic, dividing War and Peace into five-chapter nuggets. She would read, then post her reaction and comprehension of each passage. She opened the experience online. Readers followed her five-chapter segments and posted their own responses. This book is the paper version of that experience. We read Li's thoughts and the comments of those original readers. What is striking is how fresh the pandemic is on the hearts of everyone, the tragedy of battlefield death right there in front of us all, the bodies of our beloved family and church and work lost to Covid and gun massacres. It's a rich way to tackle the book, although my one regret is that we didn't have more of Li's words. She is a marvel.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book a lot of fun. It’s wonderful to read the novelist’s thoughts about War and Peace in what felt like real time. It’s even better to see dozens of readers commenting on specific passages in the book, or on each other’s observations on those passages. I haven’t read War and Peace in 30 years but this book brought back a lot of the book’s magic. I’m not sure if this wiki literary criticism is something that should be applied to other novels, or whether repeating the experiment would quickly tire readers, like a seventeenth season of Real World.