Anna Karenina

Tolstoy's tragic love story is one of the best novels ever written.
Anna Karenina, written between 1873 and 1877, is a critical portrait of the aristocracy and political climate of Tolstoy's Russia. Its story of tragic love — between the young married socialite Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky — reveals Tolstoy's disdain for the hypocrisy and falsehood of the privileged society he himself was born into. It is brimming with vitality and considered by many contemporary writers to be one of the greatest novels ever written. Tolstoy traverses the gap between the realist and modernist novel as his omniscient narration changes tone and temperament to suit each character.

While Nadia May's in-character voices leave something to be desired (she is, for example, completely unconvincing as a man), she does manage to convey this shift between characters quite well: her haughty and liberal reading of Stiva Oblonsky is worlds removed from the sniveling self-doubt that plagues Konstya's inner monologue. Needless to say, Tolstoy's descriptive power throughout is seemingly effortless, and a joy to listen to. (Even so, I did think her perky Brittish twitter lacked the degree of knowingness and dark humor a Russian accent might have lent.)

If you've put off reading Anna Karenina for dread of throwing out your back, or are simply waiting for an edition to be printed sans Oprah's seal of approval, this could be the perfect solution for you. If you're the kind of person who only sees films with subtitles, however, you may want to wait for the Russian-accented reading to become available.