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Audiobook edition · 2 h 7 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What do you owe a freezing stranger when your own family barely has enough?
In Leo Tolstoy’s What Men Live By, and Other Tales, ordinary people face choices that test their compassion. In the title story, Simon has only one coat when he finds a stranger in the cold. At home, his wife Matryona waits with little food. In Where Love Is, There God Is, the grieving cobbler Martin Avdeich watches for a promised visitor.
Two Old Men follows Efim Tarasych and Elisha Bodrov as they set out for Jerusalem. The Three Questions brings a king’s search for wisdom; The Coffee-House of Surat explores religious tolerance. How Much Land Does a Man Need? examines greed. Drawing on Christian teachings and Russian folk stories, these tales ask what people need—and what love asks of them.
What you’ll discover
- Kindness under pressure Enter Simon’s poor household, where sheltering a stranger means sharing what is already scarce.
- A stranger at work Watch Michael at the shoemaker’s bench, quiet and skillful, with smiles nobody can explain.
- Faith in daily life Explore how Tolstoy’s tales connect Christian teaching with ordinary acts of care.
- The cost of wanting Consider the pull of greed and pride through plain stories with direct moral questions.
- Room for reflection Read a tale in one sitting, then linger over its question of how to live.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy brief stories with the warmth of folk tales will love this collection. It suits those drawn to kindness, faith and greed.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A poor shoemaker turns back on the road
- Matryona's anger gives way to pity
- The silent workman and the angry gentleman
- Two little girls arrive at the hut
- A king asks three questions and meets a hermit
- The wounded stranger is an enemy
- Believers quarrel, and a silent Chinese man listens
- Pahom wants more land and moves to get it
- A strange bargain with the Bashkirs
Who’s who
- SimonA poor shoemaker who gives his coat to a freezing stranger and brings him home, even though his own family has little.
- MatryonaSimon's wife, who counts every crust of bread, flares with anger at his choice, and then feeds the stranger from her last loaf.
- MichaelA silent, skilled stranger who becomes Simon's workman and smiles only a few times, as though he is waiting to learn something.
- The KingA ruler who wants certain answers to three questions and goes alone to a hermit's hut in the wood to find them.
- The HermitA frail old man who digs in front of his hut and answers questions by letting the king work beside him.
- The Chinese StudentA quiet follower of Confucius in a crowded coffeehouse, who answers a loud quarrel about God with a story.
- PahomA peasant who thinks more land will bring peace, and who keeps moving toward more of it.
- The Bashkir ChiefThe cheerful leader of a steppe people who sells land by the day to a guest from afar.
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What Men Live By, and Other Tales
by Leo Tolstoy
A shoemaker hands his only coat to a freezing stranger by the road, and his poor household begins to change.
Easy read2–5 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
What would you do if you met a naked, freezing man on a winter road, with your own coat worn thin and your wife at home counting the last of the bread? Simon the shoemaker walks past him.
What Men Live By, and Other Tales at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 15 min1 h fast, 1 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 17,700 words15 chapters
- Pages
- 52 pages78 in large print
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A poor shoemaker turns back on the road
The first tale begins with Simon, a shoemaker who owns no house and no land. He lives with his wife Matryona and their children in a peasant’s hut. Work is cheap and bread is dear, and the couple share one ragged sheepskin coat. Before winter Simon sets out to buy skins for a new one, with a three-rouble note and a few debts to collect.
Simon collects only twenty kopeks and spends them on vodka.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1 h 20 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Tolstoy, Leo. What Men Live By, and Other Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/what-men-live-by-and-other-tales.
Tolstoy, L. (2026). What men live by, and other tales. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/what-men-live-by-and-other-tales
Tolstoy, Leo. What Men Live By, and Other Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/what-men-live-by-and-other-tales.
@book{tolstoy2026what,
author = {Tolstoy, Leo},
title = {What Men Live By, and Other Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/what-men-live-by-and-other-tales}
}
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What is What Men Live By, and Other Tales about?
It gathers four short tales by Tolstoy: a shoemaker's household that takes in a stranger, a king seeking three answers, believers quarreling in a coffeehouse, and a peasant who wants ever more land. Each asks what matters in life.
What does the title What Men Live By mean?
It is the question God sets the angel in the title story. Tolstoy lets Michael learn the answer through three smiles, each linked to a scene in Simon's hut. The answer is best found by following the story.
When did Tolstoy write these stories?
Tolstoy’s tales emphasize love and service, using ordinary encounters to explore faith, human needs, and the dangers of greed. The Coffeehouse of Surat is adapted from a French writer, and the others are his own folk-style stories.
The author
Leo Tolstoy
1828–1910 · Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived for much of his life. He wrote novels, stories, and essays. War and Peace appeared in 1865–1869 and Anna Karenina in 1875–1877. He died in 1910 at Astapovo, Russia.
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