Nice post, I've never really had any interest in reading Anna Karenina, should I change my mind about that?
I bought Dostoevsky's The Idiot a few years back and must have started reading it about four or five times. I've probably read nearly twenty books since but still The Idiot sits there taunting me.
I really just don't have the attention span for long novels right now, I'm currently trying to read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms but only managing a couple of chapters here and there every couple of weeks. One positive is that my lack of attention span means I've started reading more poetry which is always a good thing.
Oh, and when I feel a craving for that Russian spirit I just pick up my small collection of Chekhov stories and pick one at random, highly recommended.
If you don't have the patience for long novels then I would NOT recommend Anna Karenina, it's a great book but does require some patience and is around 800 pages long. Apparently "Notes From the Underground" is shorter and also really fuckin good, maybe try that one?
I used to love long books and I'll start reading them again at some point when I'm not so distracted by my own ideas. 800 pages isn't really that long either, when I was younger I'd read a 1000 page book in a few days, haha.
Thanks for the recommendation, I might pick up a copy of it once I figure out how to buy things with steem.