Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is a sweeping Russian novel about love, marriage, and the high price of following your heart, read softly by Andrew Bond to help you fall asleep.

Anna is a beautiful, married noblewoman in imperial Russia, admired everywhere she goes. When she meets the dashing young Count Vronsky, the two fall into an affair that neither can stop. Anna leaves her cold husband and their son to be with him, and for a while she is happy. But society turns its back on her, jealousy creeps in, and the life she gave up everything for slowly begins to come apart.

Running alongside Anna's story is a quieter one. Konstantin Levin, a thoughtful country landowner, works his fields, wrestles with big questions about faith and meaning, and hopes to win the hand of the gentle young Kitty. Where Anna's path grows darker, Levin's is a slow search for a simple, honest kind of happiness. Together the two stories paint a wide picture of a whole world: grand ballrooms and city gossip, farm work and family dinners, the joys and sorrows of ordinary days.

This is a classic of nineteenth-century Russian literature, a tragic romance and a rich social novel rolled into one. It's a good fit for listeners who love Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, big sweeping love stories, or slow, character-driven classics you can sink into over many nights.

Andrew Bond's even, patient voice lets the Russian winters, the long train rides, and the hushed country evenings roll by while you settle in and let go.