Life
How I Found My Voice and Myself in War and Peace
At a book talk I gave a few years ago, a teenage boy in the audience, intrigued by the stories I’d been telling about young characters’ tortuous journeys in War and Peace, asked me a question during the Q&A. “Did Tolstoy, like, really experience all that?” The ingenuous question got me thinking, not only about…
Read MoreTeaching Resilience Through Russian Literature
When Lisa* applied to my course, “Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature, and Leadership” in which University of Virginia students lead discussions about Russian literature with incarcerated youth at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, she and I both had high hopes for her success in the class. Her application was impressive. A highly intelligent, passionate, socially conscious…
Read MoreThis Is What Happens When Things Fall Apart
“Once we’re thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it’s only here that the new and the good begins.” — War and Peace We’ve all had moments when our world suddenly snaps. It’s as if we’ve just woken up from a troubled night’s sleep — or perhaps even a good one — to find the…
Read MoreThis is How Homemade Wisdom for Troubled Times Can Help Us Now
I can’t catch my breath or hear myself think, what with political divisiveness having reached Dostoyevskian proportions, my head spinning from the nonstop barrage of news—most of it bad, all of it “breaking”—and the general anxiety in the air. And yet, recently, out of this maelstrom there has emerged a miraculous little book by philosopher…
Read MoreCrime and Enlightenment: Important Lessons Teens Teach Me About Life
The Inmate, the Student, and Tolstoy The gate closes behind me with an iron thud. I walk down the hallway, enter the classroom, and take my seat, flanked by the prison guard on my right, and on my left the chaplain and library administrators. Fifteen pairs of male eyes—wary, curious, bemused, intense—look at me…
Read More