What a book! I have to say, I liked it very much, it was a very enjoyable experience reading it through by audio and discussing it with my favorite goodreads group Classics of the Western Canon! 
 I recently read Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie before reading W&P, and I'd definitely recommend for others to do so as well because it gave me a sense of how France and European culture overtook Russia, while W&P helps you understand how it was expelled. :-) 
 This is a very long book, the 7th largest novel (I've heard,) and it really had ample opportunity to cover just about every topic under the sun, and it did! As a goodreads friend of mine Laurel stated in her Goodreads Review "Could there be anything he left out? There's family, love, society, self-searching, politics, war, philosophy, theology, agriculture, wolf hunts, troikas, elopement, even death by abortion!" 
 There were many scenes that were thoughtfully described with ecredable vividness. Here are some that really resonated with me: 
 (view spoiler)[-The scene where Prince Andrew's father was dying and the difficult time he had expressing his desires of repentance to his daughter. 
 -Prince andrews actions in progressively going about organizing his stewardship and causing real good to come about to his serfs. 
 -Also Pierre's later actions and philosophy of loving people, actively trying to find the good in everyone, and not being surprised when he found it. 
 (hide spoiler)] 
 I enjoyed arguing with Tolstoy in my imagination about how the world really works and how history really unfolds. I didn't disagree with everything though. I liked what he had to say about "chance." Tolstoy talked about "chance" saying that it's just a word that we use to describe something that we don't comprehend. He explains there are many forces or variables that we don't know about that are included as causes. His explanation made me think of another book I read recently called Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, where Steven D. Levitt describe that many people think its because of more police officers that the crime rate has gone down recently in America, and I believe specifically in NY. The people think "we have more police officers now and that's why crime has decreased." The authors go on to explain that in reality there's something more involved. They demonstrate that it's actually because of abortion. Since abortion has been able to be more prevalent, the people who would normally be born in the societies that would raise up criminals are not being born in as great of numbers as they used to be and therefore there are fewer criminals. Hence crime rates have gone down. So it's an example of what Tolstoy is talking about that there are many more complex forces that we might not be aware of, many more variables that we might not realize that attribute to these circumstances taking place when we might be quick to ascribe them to one "genius" governor who had the "foresight," or supposed foresight, to hire more police officers thereby decreasing the crime rates. 
 I really thought I would have a lot more to write in this review. I ended up collecting and writing over 33 pages in notes! One last thought I had, is that upon finishing the epilogue I really had a sense of wanting to reread the book again because I believe the epilogue cements his ideas that are sprinkled throughout the book. It'd be enjoyable to read the epilogue first and then go through the book at some point in the future. 
 I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a good intellectual and philosophical challenge on some life's biggest questions, as well as someone who enjoys a keen focus on relationships and real life situations and characters that we can relate to and yearn for. 
 some favorite quotes: 
 "Pierre's insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and, loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was worth loving them" 
 -- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace 
 "Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all be cast away." 
 -- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace 
 "...but most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to such stories, putting in words and asking questions, all aiming at bringing out clearly the moral beauty of the action of which he was told. Attachments, friendships, love, as Pierre understood them, Karataev had none, but he loved and lived on affectionate terms with every creature with whom he was thrown in life, and especially so with man- not with any particular man, but with the men that happened to be before his eyes. 
 But his life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life. It only had meaning as part of a whole, of which he was at all times conscious." 
 -- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace 
 "Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions. 
 Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family." 
 -- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace