War and Peace?

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It's certainly not a size issue; I lapped up TLOTR, as I did The Mote in God's Eye, Dune, Lyonnesse, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (lawrence of Arabia) The Henry Morton Stanley (dubious character but a very godd writer; we were born in the same county!) account of finding Livingstone, and, this was a surprise, one from the Twilight series, which was far more engaging than I'd imagined, and very well written. Magnusen's translation of the Icelandic Sagas was good too (though the system of law described, left me nonplussed).

I've little experience of older books, but one particular favourite was a short story collection, including one called The Beetle. I was fascinated about how language changes (question marks used to appear after the relevant word, and not at the end of the sentence, a retrograde step!).

Nothing wrong with small books, either, especially if they come from Poul Anderson (his The Broken Sword, and Hrolf Kraki's Saga are astonishing) or R E Howard's Conan stories ( a quality of storytelling which, strangely, he couldn't repeat with his other characters). Someone once said that books are a poor substitute for life, but for me, life would be much poorer without hem!

I've never finished TLOTR, it wasn't as interesting as War and Peace.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy are among my favorites. They’re comforting in a way because they were very dear friends when I was growing up.

In junior high, we wrote our first research papers. The teacher did not limit the topics.

My research paper was titled "Common Diseases of the Horse's Hoof".

The results were great. The teacher knew nothing about hoof diseases so all she could grade the paper on was the grammar. Any mistake on content didn't matter.

The next year, she required the topics to be related to Literature.

From then on, I used the lesson I learned and always tried to avoid writing about anything the teacher knew. For example, we had to write a paper in freshman English in college and so I wrote mine on the formation of solar systems.

For me, big books like War and Peace, Don Quixote and LOTR offer an immersive experience that's deeper and more satisfying than any other art form.

I enjoyed Anna Karenina more than War and Peace though.

I think one of the reasons I like classic fiction is because I wasn't forced to read it at school. I opted out of literature at the first opportunity.

My mother was a librarian/teacher and forced me to read a pile of "classics", when all I wanted to read was sci-fi novels and electronics magazines.
I remember starting war and peace and giving up after the first chapter.
What an excruciating literary style.

Having become rather tired of a narrative which is supposedly from a young boy, but would be more appropriate to a retired philosophy professor, I took a plunge and bought a book on Slavic Mythology. I'll let you know how it goes.