IT IS SO REFRESHING TO FIND THE AUTHOR SO SPIRITUALLY GROUNDED

Perhaps you have to be a Russian literature junkie like me to enjoy this book, but I think it is good literature, although not a masterpiece. It tells the story of the brothers Kuzma and Tikhon Ilich, who live in the village of Durnovka. It is a small and isolated village, where life is dull, sad and hard. Everyday is a struggle for survival in a hostile environment. As always in Russian literature, the characters are tormented people (is it the cold and the vastness, or what?), with tortured souls and a great difficulty to get along with their neighbors. Kuzma goes to Tikhon's farm, to manage it, but at some point he leaves. The best about it is Bunin's sensitiveness and beautiful wording.

After enjoying listening to Ivan Doig's autobiographical books, I was anxious to hear more and chose the "Winter Brothers" book on tape. The common theme that ties the two stories in this book together are fairly solid, but for me the two stories together were frustrating and less easy to follow than his other books. Although a major problem was the fact that the reader didn't use much of a voice change to differentiate between Doig and Swan (maybe in this case reading the book would have been better), I at times found myself wishing that the Swan entries could be less interrupted. Also, while Doig is an artist with word descriptions, they were occasionally a bit distracting. On the positive side, the descriptions of the Northwest setting and the character of Swan and his relations with the Indians were fascinating and educational. And even though I wished for the Swan story to be less interrupted, it sounds like Swan was a very prolific diarist and it was nice that Doig did the gleaning of the most interesting parts for us and filled in the background context that so enriched them.

The best thing about this dictionary is its small size.
However, it doesn't list any of the perfective verbs E-B or B-E.
Whenever I come across a Bulgarian perfective verb I simply cannot look it up in the dictionary because it's not listed.
If I want to translate from English to Bulgarian using a perfective verb, I'm out of luck if I try to use this dictionary.
In fact, the dictionary in the back of the "Intensive Bulgarian" textbook is more comprehensive than this stand-alone dictionary.
Very disappointing!!!

I found this dictionary to be very limited. Its format is primitive -- it does not group similar words together as some of the Langenscheidt dictionaries do. I did not find it to be very helpful either in travelling Bulgaria or as a reference while learning the language.

From a beginner's point of view, this is a pretty good buy. It contains pretty much all the words you need to know to develop a basic vocabulary and more. The 8000 words are more than you need if you need a working knowledge of the language.

However, if you need a comprehensive dictionary - this is probably NOT your book.

Its also the perfect size :) You can carry it with you whereever you go!

Oe lachrymosely indulges every anti-Japanese propagandist in the american media conglomerate (Ingram) with ample opportunity to smack their lips over the "moral failings" of Japan. The fact that this ineffectual moralist won the Noble prize while it was denied to Mishima speaks volumes on what supine expectations the american propaganda industry expects from Japan. Both left and right. Writer like Oe and Murakami (who deserted his own country for no nobler reason then to make more money after making a sickening porno film popular in the us) are parasites getting fat by preening all the morbid phobias of a degenerate american elite, allowing them to wallow in self-adulation. What would Mr. Oe have done during the war? Sheepishly meet the demands of an expansionist american navy? Allowed China to invade the country so as not to offend their sensitivities? ... Japan chose WAR rightfully, even with the foreknowledge that it was a lost cause. And Japan would not even exist today if Mr. Oe were around then.

Instead of Oe or Murakami or Bannana Yoshimoto's insipid writing for privileged sectors in the american market (The Nanny Diaries) feeding that markets endless appetite for peeling scabs and self-abasement try and find a video of the Shunya Ito film Pride, which angered ALL the right people in the world and was one of the most popular films in recent Japanese cinema. Or any of the great Yukio Mishima's books, who was indeed what he described himself to be "the conscience of post war Japan".

Compiled by Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe, this is a collection of stories depicting the effects on various people of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The emotional, physical, and social scars are delicately and movingly presented. Some readers might find a bit too much sentimentality for their taste, but most of the stories are very strong--especially the title story, by Masuji Ibuse, who also wrote the massive novelization of the bombing of Hiroshima, "Black Rain." Since it consists of short stories and is somewhat less harrowing than "Black Rain," it serves as a good alternative.

This book was so bad it doesn't rate a text review only to say save your money. Nothing can be learned from this book for a beginner or anyone else

It's remarkably deceptive that this 1977 book has "America" and "up-to-date" in its subtitle, for it is neither a book for or by Americans, nor is it up to date. Why isn't copyright date listed on Amazon site???

The most popular game in America is Cricket. Not covered--only the '01 games. Cricket was pretty much unheard of in Britian (home of authors) in 1977 And what of all of the innovations in darts of the last 20 years? Brass darts were the standard in 1977! Since 1977... Tungsten, retractable tip darts, electronic darts, sucken-wire dartboards, hundreds of new tournaments in US and internationally, the hundreds of web sites devoted to darts....and much, much more.

And not just lack of information, but misinformation. For instance, in 1977, at the time of their writing, official throwing distances were different around the world (they state 8' most of the time). The official international distance is 7' 9 1/4"--established in 1979 by BDO and ADO, after this "up-to-date" book was written (20 years ago!)...Valuable information, as well as virtually all names, organizations, etc. are 20 years out of date... Again, this book is certainly, and demonstrably, NOT America's most complete and up-to-date book on darts.

This book should have gone out of print years ago.

I own several books on the game of darts, and this is the best one. It is chock full of humorous comments, informative sidebars, charts, figures, hand drawings, and examples. The rules for the games were easy to follow and it lists 23 of them including Cricket. The tips on how to play well, and practice effectively were good. It included several practice routines in addition to the games. And most welcome were the frequent charts showing how an average, expert or pro darter would perform on the various games or feats.

I read the book cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed the author's writing style and frequent application of humor.

NOTE: The review that blasts the 1977 version of the book should be ignored, as the the 1986 update to the book addressed all the complaints. Cricket is listed, the 7' 9 1/4" throwing distance is clearly listed, etc.

The Yellow Peril has cleverly confused foreigners into thinking that Japan is in economic trouble. Foreign journalists, academics and diplomats are all part of this massive failure. Only the brilliant Ivan Hall has seen through their nefarious plans...

Japan has a massive government deficit, an ageing population, indecisive politicians/policy makers and had the slowest growing economy out of the G7 for the past decade. Japan is becoming less important. For serious students of Japan, the sad reality is that Japan really has been doing badly. It is also sad that there is still demand for this type of Japan bashing/ Yellow Peril books.

Not a serious study of Japan in any way. Avoid.

There must be a lot of money to be made in Japan Bashing because this sort of nonsense just keep on coming. Does anybody remember "Blindside: Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. by the Year 2000" by Eamonn Fingleton? Brilliant prediction, that one. This one is essentially the same book. Ivan Hall suggests that the "enemy" is only pretending to be in an economic recession just to fool Americans. In the context of trade tensions and bilateral battles for the public's heart and mind, he consciously inserts the specter of war atrocities into the debate; they did it once and who knows what might happen again. This is all old hat to the numerous Japan demonizers who made their fortunes telling prejudiced people what they want to hear. There is nothing new in this book. Just old accusations warmed over.

While much is overrated, Ivan Hallfs gBamboozled,h cannot be. Ivan Hallfs critical and compelling tome examines Americafs frequently misguided relationship with our greatest economic rival in the world today. gBamboozled,h is required reading for anyone seeking to understand Japan.

There is nothing medieval or Russian about the writing style, which is academic social science jargon circa 1995. Here is an example: "The approaches adopted by the young Ivan IV to regain political harmony were shaped by dynastic interests." Passive voice and two technical terms. Sure sounds like social science. I would not read this book for pleasure.

I have this text for my class in Medieval Russia, and the professor helps greatly in understanding it. It would have been nice of Martin to be kinder to Western readers who have no idea what is going on in Russia. Better to get familiar with the primary sources like "The Lay of Igor's campaign"...its a more engaging way to start Russian History. Just so you know, her main thesis seems to be that Kievan Russia did have an understandable orderly royal succession policy, not based on random violence between the princes.

This is a useful introduction to a subject which is poorly catered for in English, particularly the Kievan period. However, it starts abruptly (rather strangely) in 980, making no attempt whatever to explain the origins of Rus. Although it guides the reader well through the confusing conflicts between the Riurikid princes before the Mongol invasions, its 'traditional' view of a dynastic succession system has since been questioned (by Franklin and Shepard). The coverage of the Golden Horde and Muscovite periods presents less problems. Worth reading, especially for those who know little about the subject.

...this book is garbage, and that's exactly where the book is now. In the garbage. The author needs to go back to school and get educated in the english language. He is very knowledgable in programming, he lacks the ability to put his thoughts in english that others can understand. He stops his thought half way through sentences. He has run on sentences, typo's, combined with the fact that he NEVER explains a single piece of code in the book completely, he famous lines in the book are "we'll discuss that later" which never happens, and "do you remember this?" NO, BECAUSE YOU NEVER EXPLAINED IT!!! Very frustrating, and i'm an undergrad student that has been punching out code in Java for 3 years, and I'm totally lost, how is that possible? 2 simple words for this book, don't bother. Get this book, it's much better: ISBN# 0-13-026036-3 - Core Python Programming by Wesley J. Chun

I bought this book hoping it would be a gentle yet thoroughintroduction to the Python language which I had hoped to use for webapplications. And the book started out along that track. Easy to read and lively and with lots of examples. The big problem I have with the book (and I only made it to hour 12 before I had to quit) is that there is no way for the reader to practice and learn the concepts in the book. There aren't any practice exercises or drills. There are screen dumps of code, but I didn't find the examples useful since I was looking for web-based applications rather than more mathematical types of examples. The examples also get very big and complex early on in the book. Experienced programmers will probably be able to follow along, but then they might not be buying this book in the first place. I'm still looking for a good, step-by-step way to learn Python.

Before this book I struggled to understand Python with books like "Learning Python" with little success and a great deal of frustration. Now I'm hacking through Python code easily thanks to this book. The author's style is very informal and easy to understand. From time to time things get a bit murky but after rereading a time or two always became clear to me. I found Chapt 1 to be a bit light on content and probably could've been culled and merged with Chapt 2 but this is really quibbling. The examples are tiny, hard-to-read screenshots and are slightly bothersome. Despite all these minor complaints this book is *by far* your best bet to learn Python if you've never programmed before. Summary: A very good introduction to Python for the budding programmer.

Having lived in Bulgria for two years I have a fairly descent knowledge of Bulgarianand being an American I can speak English pretty good(albeit with a northern Utah accent) Quite simply this is a terrible dictionary. For one thing the choice of words leaves much to be desired. For example, you can in the english portion you can find armament but somehow banana is missing. I don't know about you but I use banana I lot more than I use the word armament.

The Bulgarian section isn't any better missing key words such as taka and takiva. Zero is spelled incorrectly in the Bulgarian section so that it is pronouces with a p sound instead of the correct n pronuciation. Many of the definition are impercise and would do better as secondary definition. The Bulgarian word given for pen is actually closer to quill is one example.

There are some dictionaries which are slightly better, but the truth is that you can't get a good bulgarian dictionary in America, the best are made in Bulgaria. If you really want to learn Bulgarian (and I can't imagine why you would) then your best bet is to buy a grammer book and just learn the words of the glossary or just wait until you are in Bulgaria to buy a dictionary.

Not an expert in the field, but I simply had trouble finding simple, common words in this dictionary.