War & Peace [30min]

If ever a book qualified for the title of being a classic or landmark work of art, then Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace surely fits the bill. his vast novel begins in St Petersburg in 1805 and goes on to describe Russia before and during the war with Napoleon. It has more chapters than there are days in the year and introduces some 500 different characters, including those much loved names -- Pierre, Natasha and Andre. This is a book not only about the lives of these people but about grand ideas of history, love, war and death. In tonight's"Night Waves; Landmarks", Philip Dodd tackles War & Peace with two of the leading exponents of the novel in Britain, the novelist and Tolstoy biographer AN Wilson and Tony Briggs, who is responsible for a highly acclaimed new translation of the work, published by Penguin. And joining them in the"Night Waves" studio to read from War & Peace is the Shakespearean actor Michael Maloney.