What to say about War and Peace? Difficult to even categorize. It is not fiction, it is not non-fiction, it is both. It is not exactly history, it is not exactly literature, it is both. It is not about romance, it is not about war, it is both. Most importantly, it is about free will or lack of free will.

Overall I found it to be a wonderful book. Even from the point of view of learning about a time when the main purpose of life for men was to go to war and the main purpose of life for women was to get married. Strange, interesting what life was about at that time. That apparently was normal at that time.

While I was reading it, it appeared to me quite long and slow. Once I finished it (and saw the overall idea), I liked it more. More than 1000 pages though, not a quick read.

I loved the passages in which it shows the stupidity of war. I also loved the discussion about free will. Long read, but definitively worth it and the best part is the end when everything makes sense.

"Everything seemed so useless and insignificant compared with that stern and majestic way of thinking called up in him by weakness from loss of blood, suffering, and the expectation of imminent death. Looking into Napoleon's eyes, Prince Andrei thought about the insignificance of grandeur, about the insignificance of life, the meaning of which no one could understand, about the still greater insignificance of death, the meaning of which no one among the living could understand or explain."

"He was so busy for whole days that he had no time to think about the fact that he was doing nothing."

"There are always so many suppositions about the outcome of every event which takes place that, however it ends, people will always be found who say 'I said back then that it would be like this', quite forgetting that among the numberless suppositions, there were some that were completely contrary."

"The military state is the most honored. But what is war, what is needed for success in military affairs, what are the morals of military society? The aim of war is killing, the instruments of war are espionage, treason and the encouragement of it, the ruin of the inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to supply the army; deception and lying are called military stratagems; the morals of the military estate are absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, depravity, and drunkeness."

"The totality of causes of phenomena is inaccessible to the human mind. But the need to seek causes has been put into the soul of man. And the human mind, without grasping in their countlessness and complexity the conditions of phenomena, of which each separately may appear as a cause, takes hold of the first, most primordial approximation appears as the will of the gods, then as the will of those people who stand in the most conspicuous historical place--the historical heroes."

In "Biblioteca Municipal del Coto", look for for the section "Lengua Inglesa". Among the English dictionaries , you will find War and Peace. It is a bookcrossing book, so you can take it with you. Enjoy the hunt within the library!