Google launches site featuring online readings of Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’

New website is based on material from record reading marathon in October 2014.

Screenshot from karenina.withgoogle.com

Google has launched an online “live” version of Tolstoy’s classic novel Anna Karenina, based on an online reading marathon in October 2014 that was watched in more than 106 countries.

Based on materials from the reading marathon, the company has created a website with easy-to-use navigation that includes text, video, audio and other information about the project and the book.

The online reading, a joint initiative by Google and the Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy, took place live on Google+ and was also broadcast via YouTube. More than 700 people, including a number of Russian celebrities, read from the book one by one for 30 hours.

According to Google Russia, the reading was assessed by representatives of the Guiness Book of World Records and set a new record for “the biggest audience for an online reading aloud marathon.”

The reading marathon was held in different venues all over the world: the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Peterhof in St. Petersburg, the Google offices in London and Dublin, the YouTube studios in Tokyo and Los Angeles, Pushkin House in Seoul, the Russian Center of Science and Culture in Paris, and more.

With the help of the website’s search function, a user can locate video footage of any person that read the book during the marathon. Users can also find their favorite scene in the book or just read it from the very beginning. 

"Literary readings are getting more popular and we will be happy if new projects attract readers from all over the world,” said Svetlana Anurova, the project coordinator from Google Russia, in comments to RBTH.

“In the future we will definitely develop new projects that combine cultural and literary heritage with new technologies. Recently we've prepared such a virtual excursion with the Bolshoi Theater."

Based on materials from Lenta.ru

Read more: Literature lovers can visit Pushkin and Mayakovsky online

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