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I'm trying to find the best translation available on kindle as I live on an island with no bookshops or viable postal service. Any advice?

Roshan Marlon Richard Pevear Larissa Volokhonsky ( Translation Date-2007) (Vintage Classics)
Anthony Briggs ( Translation Date-2005) (Penguin Classics)
Rosemary Edmon…moreRichard Pevear Larissa Volokhonsky ( Translation Date-2007) (Vintage Classics)
Anthony Briggs ( Translation Date-2005) (Penguin Classics)
Rosemary Edmonds (Translation Date-1957)
Aylmer and Louise Maude (Translation Date-1922)
Constance Garnett (Translation Date-1904)

These are the common translations you can find. I have tried chapter comparisons and actually read the book, and found Anthony Briggs one is the excellent version when it comes to the beauty of the language. Penguin used Rosemary Edmonds translation for almost 50 years and switched to Anthony Briggs one. P&L one is alright, but I felt its kind of flat, but sentence flow is good. Aylmer and Louise one is easy to read. Constance Garnett and Aylmer Louise translations are in public domain now. Garnett one is very readable but has some minimal errors here and there.

People often talk about faithfulness to the original Russian. But if a sentence is capable of reproducing 100% of the original meaning, that's what matters. When Tolstoy was trying to make a joke, translation should give us an appropriate joke.

So if I rate these translations, number one for me is Anthony Briggs one. Second Aylmer and Louise Maude, third Richard Pevear Larissa Volokhonsky. (less)

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This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[This is how I saw it:

I think of his marriage with Lise as the first sign of potential recurrence in the literary sense. In her loyalty and admiration of social life, he found that his initial 'honeymoon period' love of her didn't match up to his grandiose preconception of what their marriage would be like; an exceptional and unique thing. At the beginning of the novel, he can't verbalise his contempt for his wife, simply remarking that their lifestyle "wasn't to his tastes".

Such is also true of his military service, and he found that while he romanticised honour, the realisation of it was underwhelming, and thus became disillusioned with that also before the battle of Borodino. Andrei truly never committed to anything, and was a constant novelty seeker. He seldom wept at Lise's death, he was a stranger to his child, and admitted that he didn't care about Maria or his father.

Natasha and Lise, in my opinion, are incredibly similar, which implied to me that, although Andrei found a great deal of enlightenment in death, he was a 'chaser', with a fragmented mind driven by desires, and could never truly be happy. Even his death was something of a chase. Natasha loved him, but in her affair with Anatole, she rightly proved that she doubted the conviction of his affections. He doesn't take his friendship with Pierre all that seriously either, and, seeing that he loves Natasha, does the opportunistic action of proposing to her so that Pierre wouldn't be able to get a look-in in his absence.

He was, however, subject to these temporary Schopenhauerian affirmations, where he suddenly appreciated nature and life simply for what it was, and found himself renouncing his desires. In doing so, he, like Pierre became pantheistic for a moment, and in touch with the Godliness (in Tolstoy's terms) of the earth itself (a lá Schopenhauer's 'the world as will'). Tolstoy writes of him as either too stuck in his ways to make theses lofty thoughts work for him in reality, which was likely, given the incredible close-mindedness and coldness of his father, of whom Andrei so desperately sought approval.

In the epilogue, his son, in his estrangement and destructive behaviour, has seemingly inherited his father's novelty seeking. The cycle is thus doomed to continue, and the December revolution would eventually be filled with those of Andrei's ilk. (hide spoiler)]

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summery of war and Peace?

Alex More wintery than summery, to be honest.

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What does this book have in content? What sexual or violent content is inside of it?

Stefania Mihai I think such a question is a bit out of place here. It's a classic, for God's sake. It's Tolstoy, not Dan Brown :) You don't read a classic for sex or…moreI think such a question is a bit out of place here. It's a classic, for God's sake. It's Tolstoy, not Dan Brown :) You don't read a classic for sex or violence. If you're looking for sex and violence, go watch an action movie. Besides, it will only take you 2 hours, not 2 months!

And if you are a parent trying to see if this is appropriate for your child, the questions you should be asking yourself are: Is my child smart/mature enough to understand Tolstoy's philosophical musings on wars between peoples? Does my child already love reading, so that he/she will not be discouraged by a 1200-page 'monster' ? Does he/she already know something about Imperial Russia and the Napoleonic Wars, in order to not feel completely lost when reading about battle descriptions and about the lives of dozens of different characters living in a society which differs quite a lot from our own?

If the answers are yes, then you should congratulate yourself for having an awesome kid and you should not censor what they read. If the answers are no, then maybe your kid is better off with an easier book.(less)

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