Episode QS75: Yiyun Li + Alexandra Schwartz (November 25, 2021)

When acclaimed author Yiyun Li and A Public Space magaine invited people to read War and Peace together at the start of the pandemic, thousands around the globe joined for an 85-day journey through Tolstoy’s epic novel. Tolstoy Together, based on this experiment, is a book about the art of reading and an invitation to the collective act of book discussion, with contributions from fellow readers and such writers as Tom Drury, Garth Greenwell, Elliott Holt, Sara Majka, and many others. In a conversation moderated by A Public Space editor Brigid Hughes, Yiyun Li and Alexandra Schwartz spoke before a robust (remote) audience of the comfort of connecting with others during lockdown, resonances between Tolstoy’s novel and the present, and the evergreen argument for the power of communal reading. (Recorded August 31, 2021)