Anna Karenina

This is not a book that I would probably ever have picked up on my own. My brother Bobby gave it to me as a birthday gift, so I was sort of obligated to read it. Plus, I keep seeing it on lists of the "greatest novels EVER" and the like, so as a lapsed English major, I was failing a little bit like a failure anyway having never even picked it up.
Tolstoy surprised me though. I haven't read much Russian literature, but it certainly compares favorably (in my opinion) to Dostoevsky. I'm sure that many of my Karamazov-loving friends would disagree with me. The characters seemed more vivid somehow. It mattered to me what happened to them, Kostya and Kitty particularly. Interestingly enough, the title character was not as significant to me. It was difficult to sympathize much with her tendency to selfishness and obsession, as though it is more noble somehow to live for yourself rather than to willingly sacrifice in order to benefit others.
I only wish that the writer of the foreword had started with a spoilers disclaimer -- he gave away some pretty significant plot points in the course of his analysis. I would have liked to see if my reactions would have differed with less awareness of the ending of the novel.