Song Without Words - The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy (Leah Bendavid-Val, 2007)

This was very interesting and worthwhile, a great follow-on to books reachable by clicking here, to this valuable biography, and also to this quite entertaining movie.

It's pretty clear that Sophia Tolstoy was a pretty amazing person in her own right.

The author became aware that photos and diaries were available but not pulled together thematically or otherwise made readily accessible.  Thus the idea for the book.

Among the photos taken by Ms. Tolstoy:  many photos of Tolstoy - part of her goal of preserving his legacy.  Also numerous self-portraits and portraits of the children and grandchildren.  I particularly liked the peasant scenes around the Yasnaya Polyana estate.  This was in the very early days of photography, and even the description of the techniques and technology was interesting to me.

The diary excerpts were interesting and frank.

I liked this on quite a few levels.  Tolstoy (at least early Tolstoy, but even some of his later works) is a delightful author.  He and Sophia had quite the relationship (some of which, in the earlier stages, is a model for Anna Karenina passages).  The Russian history part is interesting.  It helps fill out one's picture of Tolstoy.

And as discussed elsewhere, it would be interesting to see if Tolstoy would have gone through the whole "Tolstoyan" schtick if he didn't know that Sophia was behind him making sure that the business side of his life was being taken care of.