Anna Karenina

By Leo Tolstoy

Categories: Literature & Fiction

Anna Karenina has a respectable marriage, a place in high society, and a life without passion, until she meets the dashing officer Count Vronsky. As their affair deepens, she has to face the hypocrisy of the world she lives in. Alongside her story runs that of Levin, a landowner searching for meaning in country life and in his love for Kitty. Leo Tolstoy sets both against a vast canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, exploring love, family, and what makes a happy life.

Recommended by 11 people

• Sam Altman
• Oprah Winfrey
• Jordan Peterson
• Jennifer Lawrence
• Jen Wilkin
• Chelsea Handler
• Bret Easton Ellis
• Austen Allred
• Jared Diamond: “What’s the best love story you’ve ever read? Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” — even though the love goes sour and the book has a sad ending.”
• Patrick Collison: “For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them.”
• Ben Shapiro: “The book is of course beautifully written. The plot is compelling.”