i finished reading anna karenina by leo tolstoy on the plane ride home from australia.  i wanted to read it before i saw the movie, which i now cannot wait to see!  because i really enjoyed the book.  i have to be honest though and admit that it wasn't the easiest book for me to get through.  because when i wasn't reading it, i was never really dying to read it.  but when i was actually reading it, i loved it.  it was beautifully written and tolstoy is brilliant at putting such natural, human tendencies into words.  and the things he wrote so long ago are still just as true today.  it's a story that really makes you think about your life and what drives you to do whatever it is you do.  plus it has probably the best opening line of any novel ever written...

 "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -Leo Tolstoy