The Return of the Native vs Анна Каренина: Which Should You Read?

The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy · 1878 ★★★★☆ 3.9 257 pages · ≈ 4 h 46 m · Challenging

The native of the title is Clym Yeobright, who returns to the area from the bright society of Paris and, as any reader of Hardy knows, all is not smooth. He is quickly taken by and marries the one woman he should…

Анна Каренина Лев Толстой · 1876 ★★★★☆ 4.1 651 pages · ≈ 12 h 03 m · Demanding

“KARENIN and his wife continued to live under the same roof, to meet every day, and yet to remain entire strangers to each other.”

Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count…