On October 11th, NYT Book Review Editor Sam Tanenhaus announced that the new translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace (by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) would be read and discussed in a blog format, one volume of the tome each week (plus the epilogue), with a panel of bloggers making their contributions and the door open for any and all of us to comment. The blog has been named "The Reading Room."
It's already October 26th, perhaps a little late to play catch-up with a 1200-page work but not too late to watch this baby and see what happens. It's definitely something different on the menu from Oprah's version with its message boards.
Here's the panel, as described by the Blog:
Bill Keller
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, reported from the paper's Moscow Bureau from December, 1986, until October, 1991.
Stephen Kotkin
Stephen Kotkin teaches history and directs the program in Russian and Eurasian studies at Princeton University.
Francine ProseFrancine Prose's most recent book is Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them.
Liesl Schillinger
Liesl Schillinger, a regular reviewer for the Book Review, studied comparative literature and Russian at Yale, and lived in Moscow in 1993, where she was editor of the English supplement of Moscow Magazine and wrote dispatches for The New Republic.
Sam Tanenhaus (Moderator)
Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of the Book Review.