This collection is a little more uneven than the Ray Bradbury collection ("Fantastic Tales of Ray Bradbury"), because the stories (and opening poem) vary more in quality. There are also 1950s SF tropes that haven't dated well, such as a preoccupation with gigantic (planet-sized or larger) computers, and recurrent mention of the antagonists of World War II. There are no great surprises or changes in story interpretation (as I got from Bradbury's reading of "John Huff's Leavetaking"). Finally, Asimov's after-comments occasionally come too close to the end of the story or make it seem trite by "explaining" the story or drawing attention to side details (such as the "prediction" of hand-held calculators in "The Feeling of Power").

Given all this, why do I still think this is an outstanding collection? Because Asimov has such a warm and ingratiating reading style. You feel as if you are in the room with a good friend who wants to tell you some good stories. Asimov isn't a great voice actor, but he obviously regards these stories with genuine affection, and isn't afraid to cry at the end of "The Ugly Little Boy." (His after-remark notes that he has gotten letters from people who said the story made them cry, and he says that's perfectly all right, since he cried when writing it and cried again just now when reading it.) The affection for the stories feels like an affection for the reader as well, making this a very charming collection of stories by a late Grandmaster of Science Fiction.

CONTENTS: Introduction; I Just Make Them Up, See; Someday; The Feeling of Power; Living Space; Satisfaction Guaranteed; The Last Question; Jokester; The Immortal Bard; Spell My Name With an "S"; The Ugly Little Boy

This book, which covers SF of the decade of the 1940's, is actually one volume of a series of books on "classic" sci-fi.

The short novels in this book are fair; the volume contains some of the more popular tales (seen in SF anthologies everywhere), and some stories that don't get printed as often.

Interesting note: The Introduction (penned by Isaac Asimov) refers to the work (sci-fi) of the 1940's as "The Age of John W. Campbell", whose work is notably absent from the volume.

The short novels are:

"Time Wants a Skeleton", Ross Rocklynne; "The Weapons Shop", A.E. van Vogt; "Nerves", Lester del Rey; "Daymare", Frederic Brown; "Killdozer!", Theodore Sturgeon; "No Woman Born", C.L. Moore; "The Big and the Little", Isaac Asimov; "Giant Killer", A. Bertram Chandler; "E for Effort", T.L. Sherred; "With Folded Hands", Jack Williamson

Fans of Dr. Asimov's non-fiction might like this book, but the subject matter is a little more advanced than in his other non-fiction books. Most of his early books consist of 17 chapters. Science, Numbers and I has 8 chapters on science, 8 chapters on numbers and 1 chapter on Asimov, himself.

Asimov was still developing his voice as a non-fiction author, but it's still a good book, but readers without a science background would be advised to read some of his easier books, like Jupiter and The Planet that Wasn't.

Singer (and his translator) manages with beautiful, easy-to-read prose, to evoke a lost world. His sketches of the the people and places in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw c 1906 are memorable and convincing. While I was reading the book I was conscious that the city was flattened in the 1940s and 6/7 of Polish Jews were murdered during the Nazi occupation - i.e. a stark dark line through history cut Max's world off from from today's Poland. Max recalls the assimilated, Spanish speaking Jewish community in Argentina and the ultra-conservative village in Western Poland where he grew up - and to which he is forever planning to return. He observes the pious Warsaw families in their detailed preparations for and observation of the Sabbath - but also the other Jews, the thieves, pimps, whores who live in the same street, and the middle class Jews in their large apartments a few blocks away. This multi-layered community speaks a different language from the millions of Poles that surround them and is loathed by many of the hosts. Singer makes occasional refererence to the pogroms, anti-Semitism, the Russian occupation, but it is not an overtly political novel. It concentrates on the the street life in the ghetto and specifically on the character of Max. Manic mad Max can't help getting into trouble. He lurches from one messy encounter to the next, creating new dangers for himself even before the previous one has been resolved. He has a wife in Argentina, yet promises himself to several Warsaw women in his first few days in the city. His treatment of women is appalling, yet by highlighting his protagonist's self-awareness, self-loathing, his profound grief over his lost son, his occasional moments of kindness, his guilt and conscience, Singer will endear his extraordinary creation to many readers. Max is deeply lonely and Singer explains much of his bizarre behaviour with reference to his desperate need to avoid being alone with his despair. This is my first Singer novel and I will definitely read others - he creates both a strong multi-dimensional central character and a powerful sense of place with stark, economical prose. A glossary of religious and cultural terms would have been helpful - and a few pages of recipes would have been a treat (although I'll skip the cabbage fried in lard!)

What a pity. In finishing "Short Friday", I have now read all books in English by the author Isaac Bashevis Singer. I guess there are some children's books of his that I haven't read yet and there is always the hope of some new works of his being translated from Yiddish to English. However, I don't know what sort of literary estate he has left behind so I will have to content myself with reading everything over again.

As for "Short Friday", this was a good collection of some of the many short stories Isaac B. Singer has written over the years. I would rate it a 4.5 if there were such a choice on the scale. About half of the stories in this volumne deal with the supernatural which is a populat subject of the author's. There is a wonderful little story of spiritual devotion in "I Place my Reliance on No Man". The title story is a moving tale of love at the end of life. However, the masterpiece of this book is the story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy". I had read this story in the "Collected Short Stories of Isaac Singer" but it was well worth reading again. Many people may be familiar with the Barbara Streisand movie "Yentl" which is based on this story of a young woman who pretends to be a young man so that she can study the holy books. It is one of the author's best works.

Well, every collection of short stories by Singer is a joy to read because you never know what's coming next. This is one of the better collections and a good place to begin if you haven't read anything by the author before. On the other hand, it's not a bad one to finish with if you've already read everything else I.B. Singer has written.

A great accompanyment to a high school chemistry course. High school chemistry is so abstract, that one wonders how chemists ever thought to look at the things they studied to develop the field. Asimov explains what concrete problems and concerns led to the development of each important discovery, situating it in terms of what was understood at the time, and making the logic of the field's development clear. Easy enough for the non-scientist, but with lots of material I never learned in my science education. Asimov was a great popularizer!

This is a well written book - part of the Civil War Chronicles
series. It is based on letters written by Major Isaac N Smith
of the 22nd Virginia Infantry, who was involved in fighting the
Union forces in Western Virginia. He makes very scathing comments on General John B Floyd and suggests that the efforts of Robert E Lee to get Floyd and General Wise to co-operate
caused his (Lee's) hair to go grey!
I found all this very interesting as actions in W Virginia seem
to receive liitle mention in general histories I have read.
The final chapter deals with his work in the Confederate Secret
Service after he resigned from the army.
The book has some good photos and paintings and also detailed
maps covering the battles mentioned.

Isaac Goldberg's A Bibliography of the Poetry of Ibn Gabirol in Translation represents a great step for-ward in introducing medieval Hebrew literature into the core of Jewish studies and in opening doors to scholars of medieval literature and history in general. The bibliography is an important research aid and is especially welcome to those of us who teach medieval Hebrew literature to students with limited or no knowledge of Hebrew. At last teachers may answer a student's query whether a poem by Ibn Gabirol has been translated with a quick glance at Goldberg's impressive index. Including materials in a surprising number of languages (Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-German, Judeo-Spanish, Latin, Marathi, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, and Yiddish), the bibliography fills gaps left by bibliographical compilations as extensive as Ezra Fleischer's notes to Jefun Schinnann's The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995) and The History of Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain and Southern France (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997), which include sparse references to translations and secondary studies in languages other than Hebrew. Goldberg's bibliography also includes many citations that cannot be found through databases such as RAMBI. Goldberg's bibliography opens with a short biographical introduction on Ibn Gabirol followed by a select glossary of technical terms. The bibliography is then divided by language (Dutch, English, French, etc.); within each language are listed anthologies of poetry, books, book reviews, critical articles, essays, and dissertations. The two indices--one organized according to Latin characters, the other according to Hebrew characters are very useful and well organized. if one knows the Hebrew title of a poem, one can quickly determine whether it has been translated, in whole or in part, or discussed in any of the citations included in the bibliography. Titles of poems are also listed in the Latin character index according to non-Hebrew title, usually as designated by the translator. The indices also include names and works of modem scholars.... Goldberg's bibliography is extremely thorough and is an invaluable contribution to the field, both on the levels of research and pedagogy. As we look forward to forthcoming volumes on other poets, we wonder if there are plans for updating the bibliography or digitizing the project.

Jonathan P. Decter The Jewish Theological Seminary New York, NY 10027 Hebrew Studies 41(2000) pages 341-343

First, I feel I should list the stories included in this little gem of a book:

1)"The Spinoza of Market Street" 2)"The Black Wedding" 3)"A Tale of Two Liars" 4)"The Shadow of a Crib" 5)"Shiddah and Kuziba" 6)"Caricature" 7)"The Beggar Said So" 8)"The Man Who Came Back" 9)"A Piece of Advice" 10)"In the Poorhouse" 11)"The Destruction of Kreshev"

With the exception of "Shiddah and Kuziba", all these stories are set in the same place: the Poland of centuries past, when large Jewish communities lived in the towns near the border with Russia (sometimes Russia itself controlled Poland). These stories involve love, treason, lies, evil, philosophy, lust, sex and much more. Though some stories are not very interesting, I wasn't disappointed by any of them. I will write a little about those I liked the most. "A Tale of Two Liars" has a plot whose simplicity reminds me of the best short narrations by J.L. Borges. Nothing is left at the end for the reader to wonder about: though its written in I.B.Singer's usual style (full of sometimes unneccesary, "by-the-way", details), the plot is so well made and (what else should I say?) complete, that it is as if it were a sphere that you grasp in its entierty with just one hand. "Shadow" is philosophical, with a lot of misanthropic and misogynous ramblings. Its ending, with the ghosts of the two main character coming back to haunt the town, has the same eerie tone as that of Joyce's "The Dead". "Caricature" stands up to its title: an old writer whose self-doubt makes him unable to clear his stinking and dusty room of useless outdated 'rubbish' (old magazines and letters that he has not bothered to open or read) or publish his long-awaited manuscript pokes fun at everything, including his wife, his own life and his obscure supporters. "The Destruction of Kreshev" reminds me of García Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude". It is simply a masterpiece that has to be read, a mix of science-fiction, horror and jewish folklore, a tale of how religious, supposedly upright intellectuals can end corrupting themselves by "too much thinking" and instronspection. "The Man Who Came Back", about a man who is revived only to be possesed by an evil spirit, and "A Piece of Advice", a kind of fable about pessimist, angry people acting as if they were the opposite of that, are also worth reading. "Kreshev" and "Spinoza" are the only stories that appear in "The Collecteded Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer".

I found the book at the same time gripping and disappointing. Very well-written and readable, it contains a number of gems, such as discussions of the complicated relationship between Stalin and Lenin and its shocking conclusion between Lenin's second stroke and his death, and the effect of Alexander Blok's poem "The Scythians" on the pre-revolution Russian intelligentia. But revelations -- or even details -- concerning other critical events such as the purges of the mid-Thirties seem entirely lacking. Here, Deutscher simply lists the names of a few of the old guard who were annihilated and sparsely sums the whole episode thus: "It is not necessary to assume that he acted from sheer cruelty or lust for power. He may be given the dubious credit of the sincere conviction that what he did saved the interests of the revolution and that he alone interpreted those interests aright." (page 378) Absolutely no description of any thought process by Stalin as to who would die is given; no hint of the stories of Stalin personally going over lists of names to mark the condemned is offered. Likewise, the deaths and ruined families of these thousands are passed over and we are given this in their stead: "The real mass purges were carried out without the thunder and lightning of publicity, without confession of the victims, and often without any trial whatsoever. He sent thousands to their deaths and tens of hundreds of thousands into prisons and concentration camps." (page 380)

What the book does offer is a detailed and easily-followed history of the Russian revolutions of 1907 and 1917, the subversion and takeover of the latter by the Bolsheviks, and the major (and sometimes minor) events that followed until Stalin's death. But even here important events are left out; the murder of the Romanovs is not even mentioned in passing and the Western miltary interventions aimed at toppling the Reds are only hinted at. Trotsky's complex role and his relationship with Stalin is handled well throughout, but his murder warrants a single paragraph, as if it happens off stage, with no hint of Stalin's inner compunction or outer reactions to the death of his lifelong nemesis.

Overall, the book is a good read. But the reader who expects to pry into the personal, inner workings of Stalin is likely, as I was, to be sorely disappointed.