as I am, then you'll learn a great deal from "Bleeding Bull". I lost money in the stock market last year and this book has begun to open my eyes to the games played on naive investors like myself. The writer's style is clear and lively, and he gives many examples of Wall Street's tricks. A real eye opener!

In Bleeding Bull: The Stock Market Bubble And The American Middle Class, Vladimir Sarkoff reveals the role of Wall Street brokerages, the Feds, the media, and the ordinary, unsophisticated investor in the creation of the stock market bubble of the 90s and the democratization of stock ownership during that turbulent decade. An insightful and sardonic writer, Sarkoff's focus on the aftermath of the stock bubble bursting is as insightful as it is revealing. Of special note is Sarkoff's warnings that the next bubble might be forming. Vladimir Sarkoff's Bleeding Bull is highly recommended reading for anyone contemplating investing in the market or who has already engaged in the development of an investment portfolio.

This work is a politcal biography, in the sense that the major focus is on Lenin's revolutionary activities - specifically in building and organizing the Bolsheivik party - in the years before the first World War. The beauty of this book is that it exposes the "sacred capitalist myth" that ascribes the Marx-Lenin-Stalin progression as one that arises naturally. In 'Building the Party' we see Lenin not as a rutheless bloodthirsty dictator but rather as a brilliant tactical organizer and one of the foremost intellectual-revolutionaries of the Twentieth Century

This is a great biography on Vladimir Lenin, focusing on his early years. It chronicles Lenin's youth and the history of the early Marxist movement in tsarist Russia. Later chapters focus on his efforts to craft an effective revolutionary party.

This book is chock full of information, but is still very engaging. It is pretty down to earth and doesn't make use of high-falutin language wherever possible. Compare reading this book to the official Stalinist biography of Lenin, or those put forward by right-wing cranks.

Overall, this is a must-read for all activists, especially socialists. I highly recommend this book to people with an interest in politics.

Dear Reader: Firstly, I thank you for taking a time to read my story and enjoy with my paintings. Without you or better say without hopping to meet you the book would be never published. Secondly, without receiving any favor or a discount from Amazom.com I would like to thanks them to gratefully listed my book on their site and support that it has provided to fulfill all required forms. A life-long events of anyone is a reason to write a book about. It is maybe pity but another, much more significant indict needed for encouragement to write a book. It can be anything a murder, a bank rubbery, a great adventure and just about anything what might stir our feelings. In my case it was my divorce. It forced me to turn on computer to record what I felt insensitive and hard to appreciate actions of my ex-wife and as well the juridical system of United State. After a short time a computer became my friend and confidant. At that time I wrote for myself and had no plan for publication. During my life I learn no other means to relief my anger and frustration but painting it out before and now to write. The communication with my computer helped to save my sanity. For good or bad but during four-years long divorce I got accustom to write and when in 1977 I reached the settlement my writing marked 2000 pages. Also I learned to value a positive effort regardless of its creator and would feel a crime to through my own work into a garbage I decided to organize all written stories and in some cases very sketchy into a trilogy -- The Fool. In 1998 the first book "Born under the Black Sun" was submitted to a publisher and though found very interesting the problem with marketing chilled the enthusiasm. I rejected a notion that the book should be market only among newcomers from Russia. The trilogy was not written about emigrant and for emigrant. The trilogy explores a male-female relationship, thoughts about government and governing, philosophical essay of a human nature, justice, love, hate, human tragedy and drama. After some thinking I decided to create an art-book. A book which should be of interest to anyone and had no nationalistic boarders. That way The Colors of Truth was born.

In 1977, Vladimir Shvartsman emigrated from Russia to America. The Colors Of Truth: A Journey from Russia to America is a compelling collection of his artwork. Each of the 49 paintings is accompanied by an informative text relating the conditions surrounding (and sometimes inspiring) the work. Shavartsman also provides a brief and engaging biography of himself, including a painful divorce, all of which impacted on his art in one way or another. There are occasions in the text where it becomes obvious that English is a second language, but that only serves to underscore the authenticity and candor of this unique, engaging, biographically oriented collection of an artist's work and vision under trying and difficult circumstances.

This landmark survey of Czech avant-garde photography is the first time we have seen how Central European experimentalists found the same mainstreams and explored many of the same byways as did their American and European cohorts. And yet, as the images in this book testify, almost every shot has a quality distinctive enough to be called Czech.

Czech photographers had a vision of modernity that resembled Bauhaus in its desire for a major houseclean of old forms, but avoided the Bauhaus's smothering insistence on theory first and reality later. The Czech vision was really many visions. We see aesthetic old friends here: pictorialism, picture poems, abstraction and its quasi-abstract variant called nonfiguration, social journalism, surrealism-and a home-grown movement named Poetism.

The text is an anthology of essays. They have a elbowy reach as they knock into each other introducing the period and movements; exploring the background of the photographers and their mutual influences on each other; and much more.

Photography came to Czechoslovakia well after film had been put onto rolls. They could spend their spare time thinking. It is tempting to compare the Czech efforts with the boundary-pushing experiments of North American and Western European photographers in the Twenties and Thirties. They were, after all, conducted almost simultaneously. Yet there is a clear difference in technique between images by Paul Strand, Minor White, Ansel Adams, and Edward Steichen, and their Czech counterparts named Jeromir Funke, Jindrich Styrsky, and Drahomir Ruzicka. The difference is largely due to the Czechs being essentially untrained, unlettered hobbyists with very little aesthetic theory to distract them, and therefore an ability to see objects and scenes on their own terms.

It shows.

Take some of the high-angle panoramic portraits of cafe terraces and outdoor restaurants of Josef Ehm, Jan Lauschmann, Arnost Pickart, and Eugen Wiskovsky. They resemble the overhead shots of Atget and Cartier-Bresson. The big difference is that Cartier-Bresson was consciously seeing a "decisive moment" to push the shutter, while the Czechs seem more preoccupied with panorama in and of itself. For example, there are almost no humans in the pictures; unoccupied cafe tables march off in rows like stamped-metal plates on a production line. From the flat, even light one knows the skies were overcast. Did the photographers go there on such days because they sought a scene without life? If so or even if not, they succeeded.

This same sense of dyspersonalization also occurs with the nudes. If ever there was a case for elan as a series of curves, the nude is it. Yet the nudes of Frantisek Drtikol are so embedded in (and mostly behind) angularities and factory-hewn curves that the figures come off as union-shop amazons fresh from the factory floor. While the text assigns terms to the various classes of imagery-Constructivism, Futurism, Functionalism, and the like-the impact on the eye is rather different: of all the catchalls one can apply to remove being from reality, industrial photography is as cold and correct as a calculus solution.

The rather smallish amount of commercial photography presented likewise is unremarkable, even the page layouts trying to be with-it in an era when Art Deco dominated almost everything a few longitudes to the west. This surprises, because the American experimentalist Man Ray, living in Paris, was a formidable esprit de l'oeil to Jaroslav Rossler and others. Ray's was is the most energizing foreign influence on Czech photo imagination of the time.

All this took an abrupt swerve when Surrealism arrived. Photographers such as Jindrich Styrzsky, Hugo Taborsky, Frantisek Vobecky, and Bohumil Nemec spared us Western Europe's metaphysics of dripping clocks and life-vacated forms to concentrate on a more local product: the magical encounters to be found on a human visage. With surrealism the Czechs utterly reversed themselves. A human-seed sensibility blossomed into a broad meadow whose subtext was poetry, imagination, creativity, and the inner model. Literature was as much a part of photography as photograph was of literature, just as complexity, too, contains its own antonym. The term "Surrealism" as defined in Paris didn't quite fit this heady mix, so it was aptly called Poetism by the locals. Antonin Dufek's chapter on the subject is arguably the most stimulating in the book.

The most striking images in the book are Surrealist. In Jeroslav Rössler's "Untitled, 1931" on page 117 (and the cover jacket), a woman's face fills the frame, tilted at 45 degrees as she looks the lens in the eye. The pictorial strength may come from her thin line of almost black lipstick and one eye encircled by a black ring, but the psychic strength comes from the translucent panes before her that divide the image into portions of clarity and bad focus. What we see isn't a reality, it is a focusscape.

The book is as complete a view as we can find of the entire Czech world between the White Carpathians and the mountain rim that barriers off Czechoslovakia from the rest of Europe. Photographers had a great old time in the years between the arrival of democracy with Jan Masaryk's government in 1918 and its end with Hitler's invasion in 1938. An astonishing number of them were hobbyists with little interest in what today would be called a career path. It is quite something to watch them trying the same experiments and making the same mistakes-finding their own metier like good artists should-with results quite different that events further westward.

They defined aesthetics, possibilities, and learned the limits of their medium. But much more. They ventured well beyond the typical hobbyist's preoccupation with technique and equipment. Their great contribution was essentially the same as that of Atget and Bressai: a vivid glimpse into the realities of their part of the world-Westernized Slavs-which no one had paid much attention to. It turned out that society and commonplaces were more relevant to them than theory and manifesto.

First published as "Ceska fotograficka avantgarda 1918-1948," this book shows how great the photographers of Czechoslovakia of the first half of the 20th century were. They did not have digital techniques, but nevertheless produced wonderful art (as suggested by the original title of the exhibition, "Modern Beauty: Czech Photographic Avant-Garde 1918-1948"). I had heard of Frantisek Drtikol, Jaromir Funke, and Josef Sudek, but I had never seen a good sampling of their images before reading this book. New to me were artists such as Jindrich Heisler, Jaroslav Rossler, Karel Teige, and Eugen Wiskovsky. The authors must have carefully chosen the photographs published in the book from collections in Prague and elsewhere. Most of the photos are in black and white, but some are in color, and all are well reproduced. The text is illuminating, with discussion of the relationship of the Czech photographers' work to that of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Man Ray, and other contemporaries. The chapters on "optical words," "hidden sources" (e.g., collages), and surrealism were the most interesting to me. Toward the back of the book, the chronologies, biographies, bibliography, and index are useful for future reference. I hope you purchase it!

Here in an elegant paperback of modest proportions is a revised edition of the correspondence of two of America's greatest writers, containing a few newly located letters. Edmund Wilson was already an established writer when Nabokov immigrated to this country around 1940, and Wilson's role in introducing Nabokov around and getting him writing assignments and teaching positions in America was crucial to Nabokov at a critical time. The two men write in fascinating manner about literature, life, writing gigs, and life. The correspondence is sad, too, because the two men seem almost willfully to misunderstand each other on such seemingly innnocuous issues as the nature of Russian and English prosody. Also Wilson as an erstwhile Communist was fascinated with Russia, attempted to learn the language, but thought he knew it better than he did, even trying to correct Nabokov who of course was a native speaker, not to mention a great writer, in Russian. Toward the end of their friendship, Wilson published a memoir that revealed his jealousy of Nabokov, and there was a break, only healed when Wilson was near death. Simon Karlinsky has written a wonderful introduction to the correspondence, that may be worth the price of the book in itself. Nabokov thought highly of Karlinsky, and Karlinsky explains the Russian background of early life behind some of the stances of Nabokov that we Americans find it hardest to understand. For example, why did Nabokov refuse any social role to the artist? For writers, for Nabokov or Wilson lovers, and I count myself both, this is an essential and irreplacable book

When two opinionated men with such different tastes as Nabokov and Wilson write letters over a twenty year period, the result is going to be exciting. Their arguing about Faulkner and Norman Douglas or the gender of French nouns gives the friendship a bite. And we also see that each got more than friendship out of the relationship--Wilson got lessons in Russian and Nabokov got a boost into the American literary world. A fascinating read.

The brutal history of the former Soviet Union is richly shared in this true story of one family's saga through revolutions and wars to their eventual emigration to America. Spanning several generations, this book describes incredible scenes of real events almost beyond imagination. It's a terrific read, and would make a great feature film.

With a dramatic and artful literary style, "Dreamers" takes you on a very personal and unimaginable journey. Starting in pre-WWII Russia, you go through the amazing twists and turns of two different people and their lives during the war and beyond. I was quickly pulled in by the story, and kept turning the pages to find out what unimaginable thing could possibly happen next. I constantly asked myself, "How in the world can these people possibly want to go on?", and was surprised to find answers, piece by piece throughout the story. I felt a wide range of emotions as I read it, at the same time feeling shock at how any person could possibly have survived the horror these people faced. This reminded me of William Craig's "Enemy At the Gates," but covered a wider range of time and history, and gave a more personalized tale of two people who were as real as my own family members. Having heard stories of my Eastern European grandparents whose lives were similar to the ones in "Dreamers", I gained great insight into how they came to be who and what they were. "Dreamers" is a compelling and dramatic account of good and evil, of lives divinely guided, and the hopes and dreams that remain through the darkest of times.

the reviewer below is right--this ISN'T your average kids' book and that is what makes it so much fun! its silly rhymes make my 2 year old laugh out loud and although he can't say all the words, he does like to try. stick with winnie-the-pooh if you like, but if you want some bright, nonsensical fun, try this book.

Vladimir Radunsky captures all the true spirit of Lear's alphabet verse by pasting up this classic into a virtual scrapbook--full of colors and images for the next milennium. The dumpiest of pumps, a goose-stepping little goose kicking off his boots, and even Edward Lear himself runs wild through the pages. But this is not just an expression of virtuosity, it's a lot of fun, too. A wonderful introduction to the alphabet and the work of two masters.

I have many personal feelings about this book, which I have read at least 3 times. I grew up with and am best friends with his youngest son and met Mr. Petrov countless times. On many occassions I had the unique priviledge of being able to discuss his book and the events which took place with the author in person. Still, had I never met Mr. Petrov, I am sure I would not have enjoyed this book any less. This book ranks with such books as 'Papillon', and 'To Live and Die in Shanghai', as one of the greatest true life prison stories ever told. Calling the ordeals that Mr. Petrov survived 'Kafkaesque' is an understatement. If you can find a copy of this book, I guarantee you will be forever satisfied.

This is the collection of tales edited by Stith Thompson, one half of the team responsible for the Stith-Thompson classification system of folktales. Thompson pulls tales mostly from European sources and includes source and classification notes in the appendix. The tales are classics or often derivatives of well-known tales. They are also suitable for all ages. I have had this book for years and still pull it off my shelf on a regular basis.

Here Comes the Cat is an exciting collaboration between an American writer and a Russian illustrator. Both Frank Asch and Vladimir Vagin play their parts distinctively. The story is filled with suspense, exciting action, and a thought-provoking reversal. The mice characters, representing humans of many ethnicities, react to the news of an approaching cat. The words, found in text balloons, repeat the exclamation, "Here comes the cat!" Yet in every case, we find them in both English and Russian. Signs on stores, also in both languages, offer a wider variety of reading opportunities. The book introduces first-grade readers to the concept of translation. All the visual elements of the book, from the calligraphic text to the full-page illustrations, have a strong and authentic Russian style. The art is excellent.

A little Mouse, aloft in his balloon, sees an ominous shadow approaching the country of his people! Fleeing homeward, he cries warning to every Mouse he meets: "Here comes the Cat! Ciuda idyot Kot!" Soon the alarm is being passed from one to the other, until the entire Mouse population awaits in dread the arrival of the Cat. What will happen when Mice and Cat come face to face? Something quite unexpected! Significantly, this lovely little book is the creation of two authors, one American and the other Russian. After meeting in 1986 at a Soviet/American childrens' book symposium, they decided to collaborate on a tale with a message of harmonious coexistence. Vladimir Vagin's exquisite, highly-detailed, colorful paintings must be seen to be appreciated. And Frank Asch's story of fear and friendship will warm the hearts of adults and children lucky enough to read "Here Comes the Cat!"

Not necessarily for students, this paperback from the Ballentine Espionage/Intelligence Library is sensational. I had already been a case officer overseas when I read it, and I read it with real admiration for the Soviet Division and the case officers who had the luxury of doing it "right." From the overseas evaluations to the discreet subway signal of interest in Moscow to the follow-up that resulted in a recruitment in place and an ultimate exfiltration across the desert of Kuwait, this is a magnificent account of "the way it is supposed to be" in the clandestine service. It has a spy's kind of happy ending-really rotten treatment by CIA security blockheads during the resettlement program, a very long drunken period, hit bottom, and finally get clean and work your way free from the system on your own.

The compelling, fast-paced and ironic memoir describes in the first person, the life of a priveliged young member of the post-World War II Soviet nomeclature--the 100 or so families who ran the USSR. Groomed as a foreign ministry official in Moscow and inevitably drawn into KGB operations he loathed, Sakarov strikes out against the Soviet elite he grows to despise for its corruption of Russia, including his own father. Assigned to the Middle East for the KG, he joins the CIA as its double agent and eventually helps in the struggle to support Anwar Sadat's rise in Egypt. Compromised and hunted, he must flee to the U.S. abandoning wife and daughter in disgrace. Sakaraov's story is filled with insights into Moscow society, why and how the Soviet Empire exploited Russia and its own. It is a psychological spy classic written with bright clarity brought by co-author Umberto Tosi.