Perhaps regrettably obscured behind Nabokov's famous novels and even his Lectures on Russian Literature and his controversial work on Eugene Onegin lies this short critical biography of Nikolai Gogol. The main thrust of the book is to portray Gogol as a masterful, if troubled and inconsistent, writer whose work is valuable not at all for its portrayal of Russia or for any seeming advocacy of social change, but rather exclusively for its artistic merit. Nabokov takes us rather briskly through Gogol's youth and his earlier works; provides detailed, quote-filled discussions of The Inspector General and the first volume of Dead Souls; summarizes the last ten years of Gogol's life, during which he attempted to write the second volume of Dead Souls but saw his artistic creativity fading; and gives a short exposition of Gogol's most famous short story, "The Overcoat."

Nabokov's essays on The Inspector General, Dead Souls, and "The Overcoat" are all quite illuminating and entertaining. He escorts us through each work, discussing the numerous ways in which each innovatively reflects Gogol's unique and charming quirks, and including, with annotations, numerous passages (each translated by Nabokov himself) which demonstrate Gogol's excellent prose. His emphasis is not at all on the plots of the works (which he only grudgingly included at the end of the book at the request of his publisher) but rather on their style, which he successfully shows to be a much more fundamental aspect of Gogol's works than any satire that one may choose to read in to them.

At times, though, it seems that Nabokov gets a little too caught up in his own dogma. Most critics nowadays would agree with Nabokov that Gogol was much more important as an artist than as a social commentator, but it's pushing it awfully far to say, as Nabokov does, that Dead Souls is no more authentically a tale about Russia than Hamlet is authentically about Denmark. Also, Nabokov confines almost all of his attention to just three works, which put together, if memory serves, wouldn't come to much more than 300 pages. He dismisses Gogol's numerous Ukrainian tales (the last of which were written when Gogol was 25; The Inspector General, by contrast, was written at the ripe old age of 26) as "juvenilia" which are emphatically not "the real Gogol," and pays little more than lip service to any of Gogol's other acclaimed short stories. The one other slightly irritating aspect of Nabokov's book that I can think of is that in the long passages that he quotes he insists on interjecting his own comments [in brackets] mid-sentence, thus ruining the flow of the prose that he took the trouble of translating so very well.

But these are all minor quibbles, and I hope you won't let them discourage you. Nabokov makes his point very entertainingly and very well, and although it might have been nice if he'd broadened his study to more of Gogol's work, his discussions of Gogol's three most important works are really excellent. Since it would be hard for me to think of a 20th-century author more suited to writing about Gogol than Nabokov, I had high expectations for this book, and I was not at all disappointed.

In this short, witty book about Nikolai Gogol, Nabokov captures perfectly the most important aspect of his writing: the dreamlike, irrational, surrealistic absurdity. My favorite book of all time is Gogol's "Dead Souls" (translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew, Signet Classics). Nabokov's book is a perfect tribute to Gogol. I haven't even read "The Inspector-General"- now I'm going to. At the time Nabokov wrote this book, there apparently weren't good English translations of "Dead Souls" so there is a somewhat pessimistic or despondent feeling that an English-speaker wouldn't be able to access Gogol. I don't speak Russian, so I can't vouch for this translation, but I have a feeling it would be all right with Nabokov. Anyway, this is a wonderful book.

It can be a bit discouraging to open The Other Side of the Moon and find a page devoted to the Cast of Characters that reads like a family tree. But don't let it divert your attention from this book.

Every character plays an important role in the way the story comes together. It is an adventure through many mysterious and exotic lands. Croydon Bates sets off to discover the secrets of his past and, along the way, discovers the secrets his family has hidden.

Croydon is haunted by visions of his dead mother. His great grandfather helps him understand these mysteries and helps him locate Croydon's estranged father.

As more characters are introduced, the narration changes points of view but the storylines continue to play off each other well like pieces of a puzzle coming together. The Cast of Characters list in the beginning of the book can come in handy when jumps in narration are made because the story flashes back from past to present so much and the characters take on new names from their reincarnations and past lives as these dimensional travels take place.

This novel themes around Christianity, reincarnation and the links between the teachings of Christianity and other religious beliefs. It also demonstrates how when one evil is expelled another evil will spawn in the world's cycle. Croydon tries to break the cycle and save them all from destruction and restore the world order.

The Other Side of the Moon is likely to break your aversion to the sci-fi genre so dip a toe into a distinctive piece of fiction with this novel.

Deftly written by Vladimir Chernozenmsky, the Bulgarian-American author of "The Lion of the Balkans", The Other Side of the Moon is a fascinating and imaginative novel about the transmigration of human souls throughout history, from the Pharaohs who ruled Egypt in days of yore, to the rise of Christianity and the tumult of the new millennium. An emotional, forceful, sometimes disturbing tale of the best and worst of human nature through the ages, The Other Side of The Moon is a unique and attention engaging read from first page to last.

Vapnik and Chernovenkis extended the Glivenko-Cantelli Theorem in their work on classification and statistical learning. Vapnik in recent texts has described a form of nonparametric statistical inference based on approximating functions and the Vapnik-Chernovenkis dimension.

In an earlier book published by Springer-Verlag he develops the basics of the theory. However to keep the mathematical level excessible to computer scientists and engineers he avoided the mathematical proofs needed for mathematical rigor. This text is an advanced text that provides the rigorous development. Although the preface and chapter 0 give the reader a idea of what is to come the rest of the text is difficult reading.

The theory has been quite successful at attacking the pattern recognition/ classification problem and provides a basis for understanding support vector machines. However Vapnik sees a much broader application to statistical inference in general when the classical parametric approach fails.

If you have a strong background in probability theory you should be able to wade through the book and get something out of it. If not I recommend reading section 7.9 of "The Elements of Statistical Learning" by Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman. That will give you an easily understandable view of the VC dimension. Also sections 12.2 and 12.3 of their text will give you some appreciation for support vector machines and the error rate bounds obtainable for them based on the VC dimension.

This book aims at rigorours and deep treatment of statistical learning and is divided into three parts :

(I)THEORY OF LEARNING AND GENERALIZATION;

(II)SUPPORT VECTOR ESTIMATION OF FUNCTIONS;

(III)STATISTICAL FOUNDATION OF LEARNING THEORY'

For anyone intending to dive into this topic intriguing readers shull find their task rather not simple when exploring this mathematical exposition.This is because of the mature nature behind the basic theory .In order to gain most of the benefit ,interested and even involved researchers are urged and should assume all the requirements for a vast and solid mathematical background.

I Think the book constitutes a respectful and organized 'exhibition' that you will not find in any other place. Althought there are excellent books discussing SVMs and Machine-Learning/ Intelligence,eventually all emenate from the theory.Regarding the book rating it is was not rated upon how much you retrieve as concepts, but how well the propositions offer a precious appreciation of the substantial theory.In otherwords, this book is not the place for a first time learning, but it is serves as a bridge between interrelated elements of such incredibly growing area.

For the book: "The Nature of Statistical learning Theory" also by Vapnik you can find a review by Vladimir Cherkassky in The IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL NETWORKS VOL. 8, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1997 .

While mostly confined to the movie posters that the Stenberg Brothers produced in the early years of the Soviet Union, this book still includes enough general history to help the reader view them in the context in which they were produced. Well-illustrated (most illustrations are in full color) with easy to comprehend text, this would be a valuable volume for anyone interested in graphic design. It will also appeal to students of the Constructivist movement.

There have been many great graphic artists in the past several decades. In my opinion, The Stenberg Brothers produced some of the finest graphical works of art in this Century. The Stenberg Brothers lived and produced their Art in 1920's...and 1930's. Fueling the Soviet propaganda machine. Look beyond the thorns of the Soviet era propaganda machine. If you are a true graphic artist, you will definately appreciate the fantastic talents of the Stenberg Brothers and Soviet-era art. The Stenbergs were Masters of the Graphic Arts. This book should not be listed as a "book". Rather, it should be listed as an artists' portfolio. This "portfolio" of Soviet artwork is a MUST for everyone with an interest in appreciating the graphic arts. The Stenberg Brothers were truly MASTERS of their medium. This BOOK is packed FULL of high quality, premium-paper-stock reproductions of the best works these brothers have ever produced. I recommend it wholley!

Nabokov has written novels with better plots, better word-play and puzzles, more acute looks into single characters, but Ada brings it all together in an attenuated amalgam of all things Nabokov. The overall impression is as of watching an epic movie through a gauze curtain on a breezy day. Hints of vivid scenes and characters show through occasionally, but are obscured by a veil of history, language, and diversions. This book belongs in another era, but still challenges the concepts with which we define modernity.
This was easily the most difficult of his books that I've read, and is second in my mind only to Pale Fire. But where Pale Fire only hints at alternate reality and history, Ada plunges in. Where Lolita ultimately exposes the sticky-sweet banality of the nymphette obsession, Ada's poignant and heart-breaking love story challenges our assumptions of propriety. Nabokov seamlessly blends intellectual depth and playfulness with the pure physicality of the human body and its needs and desires.

Speak, Memory was Nabokov's arcane and perhaps irreverent foray into the field of autobiography. That book I assume got Nabokov thinking in depth about the imaginative nature of memory. Nabokovs autobio. disregards the obvious choice of chronology as the organizing principle(too obvious), instead he groups selected memories together according to his various interests. Its a one of a kind collage of an autobio. and after that he wrote Ada which reads like an even more imaginative version of his fictively "remembered" life...perhaps more accurately it is his life as it might(could) have been. Ada is a beautiful book about young love,with romantic and mystical musings about that subject( and insight into the true nature of it), but it is also a meditation on time(perhaps parodic at Proust's expense)as the story takes place in an alternative world, one thats history is similar to ours up to a point but one that took a distinctly different course than our own. Nabokov has said regarding his fiction, "I am not sincere," so chances are if you think he is kidding , well ... Still there is a very high beauty in this book as well as stabs of sorrow. It gives off a very rare light, a beautiful mandarin twilight perhaps as this is Nabokov's last major work. It really is not a book that lends itself to summary, it is perhaps among many other things Nabokovs chance to let all of his literary fetishes(lots of play with literal allusions) have their frolic in his literary never never land in the Russian woods and at sea. A fairy tale for very literate adults with a taste for highbrow and poignant laughter in the dark. A book lovers book.

After Nabokov, no one can do erudition, old-world mannerisms and overwhelming off-kilter passion. Nabokov's taut, precise style, intricate wordplays, and absorbing characters keep the pages turning. However, the real treat to this book is the elucidation of yet another (thanks, V.) fascinating, flawed facet of the human experience. We love Van and Ada, not because they represent ubermenschen, but rather because, in them, a pure form of human weakness is starkly contrasted against the pinnacle of finely-honed humanity.

And - yes - I can see the point of the previous post that suggests that moralists will eventually find A. and V. reprehensible. Especially after we vicariously experience their thwarted passion upon thwarted passion and physical decay, our dashing protagonists begin to lose their sheen a bit.

These caveats aside, Ada is a beautiful book. Nabokov's finest, I believe. And, looking back at it, I start to wonder if there isn't more than a grain of truth in Nabokov's habit of forcing us to admire human frailty.

Its well written but its a waste of money if you know about the site verion of All Music Guide which really is one of the best sites on the internet.Not only does the site version have everything the book does and has pictures but also the lists of artists,albums,music styles and reviews are seemingly endless and gloriously delightful.

I wish the word "comprehensive" wasn't used on the cover of this book because it isn't comprehensive. Some groups, that weren't obscure in their time at least, aren't here. And many of the groups that are here don't have all their albums reviewed. They may have a review of a group's "Greatest Hits CD" and that's it. This book has 5 star reviews of music I think sounds awful and 2 star reviews of music I think sounds good, so it's all in the ear of the listener. As a guide it's good, but I'll bet you haven't heard of half the groups here, so if you buy something by one of these groups based on the review, don't be shocked if it doesn't sound as good as you were led to believe. Also, if you hear something by a group you like but aren't familiar with and want to buy some of their music you may not see it all listed here. They could at least tell you all album titles a group had. Still, it's one of the best guides I've seen, I'm not sorry I got it, and actually recommend it.

The All Music Guide to Rock is exactly what it claims to be. The sheer breadth of artists covered is staggering for one volume; though that may be the book's downfall. Some reviews, for space reasons, are too short to gain a clear insight into the album/artist, and often albums are skipped over because the editors deem them insignificant. However, this is a minor oversight. Nearly every artist you could possibly think of is in this book, complete with reviews of their albums, bios, and other extremely useful info. Once you start reading, you'll want to explore all 1000-plus pages. Buy this book - you'll still be reading it years from now.

It would only seem natural that given the interest Nabokov had with games and puzzles that he would write a story about chess. Originally written in Russian and published in 1930, Nabokov's third novel deals with paranoid obsession and how the game of chess becomes hopelessly confused with reality.

The novel is a "biography" of Luzhin, an alienated and morose child who, in an attempt to deal with his daily life, turns to chess. He soon becomes a child prodigy and rises to rank of grand master; however, he is emotionally devastated when he is unable to complete a championship match as his elaborately contrived defense fails him. The aftermath of his breakdown is a confused period of time in which therapy, the devotion of his new wife, and the mundane combinations of his everyday life becomes confused with the combination of moves in a chess match. His only defense against this perceived attack is to stop the clock on the game: to commit suicide, or as Nabokov sardonically puts it, "sui-mate."

Although Luzhin is one of Nabokov's most sympathethic characters, he is also one of the most boring. After the pivotal chess match, the novel tends to drag to its anti-climatic conclusion, and if it was not for the author's masterful prose (Nabokov could describe a proctology examination and make it sublime) I would have been hard pressed to finish the novel.

This early Nabokov book was written during his Kafka influenced phase. Also in this group I would put Invitation To a Beheading. I described this book to a group of friends one day as "a book about a chess master who slowly loses his identity to the game until the final page when he imagines the open bathroom window is one of the white spaces on the chess board and it is his move." Its not a novel for everyone but if you like Kafka and his peculiar worlds this will appeal to you. Also recommended to the perhaps new to Nabokov reader are his short stories, especially one called "Cloud, Castle Lake" written in 1937 about a sensitive youth Vasili who does not much care for the world the Nazis are trying to create and decides he does not have "the strength to belong to mankind any longer." And so Nabokov the author says,"Of course, I let him go." Nabokov's fictions are strange but appealing. Using chess as an analogy for life in the Defense Nabokov creates a claustrophobic environment as there are only so many possible moves and that number is diminished with each move. The Defense's Luzhin is a very sensitive youth like Vasily in the short story and like so many of Nabokov's creations they are trapped in a world of someone elses devising, trying to get out. Like Kafka's heroes Nabokov's early heroes are victims of something too big for them to come to grips with. A sad theme with perhaps very few solutions but even in the trap very interesting human qualities abound.

The back cover of this book proclaims that it is "a chilling tale of obsession and madness." After I had finished the book, I thought this a laughable statement. There had been almost nothing frightening or chilling about it. A few seconds later, I stepped back and reevaluated what had actually happened in the book. A certain sentence in (I believe, though I could be wrong) the third-to-last paragraph hit me with a strong retroactive spook.

I consider that moment one of the finest moments of literary appreciation I have recently experienced. The reason it happened is that I had effectively become Luzhin. What he was thinking made perfect sense. The plot was in no way disturbing. Luzhin was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. Except, of course, he wasn't. Nabokov leads the reader into Luzhin's head remarkably smoothly and successfilly.

This book was the first I read by Nabokov. Since I have not yet completed another, I can't say how it compares with his other books, but I can recommend it. One caveat: don't read Nabokov's introduction until after you finish the novel. there are a couple of reasons for this, which will become apparent when you do read it.

Vladimir Putin's "First Person" is a biography in question and answer format. It gives a great insight into the man who is the leader of the largest country in the world. There are questions and answers from not only Putin himself, but also his old school teachers, KGB collegues and his wife and two daughters. Even so, this biography does not give a 'full picture' of the president as a person and much of his past (for example KGB) is not mentioned in great detail (that's why I took off a star) and does not give a deep insight as the book implies. This aside, and all considered, this is a good read and a good introduction to Pres. Putin.

First Person is a transcription of a series of interviews conducted by three Russian journalists with Vladimir Putin, his wife and daughters, friends, teachers, and colleagues. The book is written in a question-answer format which is usually effective but occasionally leaves the reader in doubt as to who is answering a particular question: Putin or one of the other interviewees.

Don't read this book expecting deep insight into Putin's political philosophy or details of his experience in the KGB. With that said, First Person is a useful and interesting account of Putin's life, family, and experiences. An occasional bit of insight either slips or is inserted into the conversations. (It's hard to believe that someone as in-control as Putin would really let something slip. I don't mean to be suspicious or derogatory, I'm just recognizing that Putin is a successful politician who climbed one of the most difficult -and dangerous- ladders in the world.) One bit of possible insight is the fact that Putin was KGB station chief in Dresden, East Germany, at the time that the Berlin wall was pulled down. He shared a facility with the Stasi, his East German counterparts. When mobs approached the Stasi facility. Putin cabled Moscow for help and direction. He received neither and left active duty with the KGB soon after his (premature?) return from that assignment. I'm sure he was a bit disillusioned by this experience, but the degree and nature of the disillusionment is not developed. No surprise here; successful politicians don't intentionally walk into mine fields.

Overall, the book was an interesting and light read. Putin describes himself as a hooligan in his youth who mended his ways primarily to achieve his goal of going to law school in preparation for a career in the KGB. He chose that career path after seeing a movie entitled the Sword and the Shield (the KGB logo) which prompted him to walk uninvited into the local KGB office in Leningrad to seek employment. The officer who met him advised him that the KGB seldom considered walk-in applicants and that he should attend university and study law as a means of preparing himself. Rather amazingly, he did exactly that and was recruited immediately upon graduation.

The book also contains numerous details about Putin's early political life in the administration of Anatoly Sobchak, the reform-minded mayor of Leningrad, and his subsequent steady rise in the national government as well as numerous anecdotes from his family life.

Once upon a time, there was a belief in America that anyone could rise from the humblest of beginnings -- such as Abraham Lincoln, born in a cabin he built with his own hands -- to become President.

In Russia, without political opinion polls, focus groups or special interest funding, Vladimir Putin rose from a rat-infested cold water apartment to become President of his nation. This book is about a man who spent his professional life assessing people and situations, and thus is not afraid to make tough decisions. In Russia, for the immediate future, tough decisions are needed.

Putin's hero, Czar Peter the Great, used his regal power to make Russia a great, rich and powerful nation. Putin intends to provide similar dynamic leadership with democratic principles. An example may be Singapore, a mix of authority, discipline and prosperity.

The question-and-answer format of this book is based on six four-hour interviews by three journalists. Putin admits he was, ". . . a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education." He was smart, dedicated, hard-working and very good in his chosen career with the KGB. He wasn't a old cloak-and-dagger "sneak and peek" spy; he spent his time reading reports, assessing East German officials and skillfully pushing paper.

Trained as a lawyer, he was appalled at how Communist officials assumed they were the law simply because they were Party members. Putin was never a dissident, he was the ultimate Organization Man whose goal was a richer, happier, stronger and freer Russia. He worked hard to become an insider, and as such saw the total incompetence of the Party.

His wife says, "He always lived for the sake of something. There are some people who work hard for money, but he works hard for ideas." When first married, they had a 10-foot by 12-foot room in his parents' 275-square foot apartment. Try and think of any American president since Lincoln -- another idea man -- who lived in any similar conditions.

Like Lincoln, whose greatest idea was "to preserve the Union," the prime challenge for Putin is to preserve Russia. His practical experience taught him that a free market economy is far superior to the chaos, conniving and cronyism of communism. He says the Soviets failed because they ". . . had a terminal disease without a cure -- a paralysis of power."

Two things are clear; Putin is not afraid to act, and he will never betray Russia. He learned from his father's World War II experience, ". . . there are always a lot of mistakes made in war. That's inevitable. But when you are fighting, if you keep thinking that everybody around you is always making mistakes, you'll never win. You have to take a pragmatic attitude." He approaches life in that fashion.

His political heroes also rebuilt shattered nations. Charles DeGaulle saved France from itself; while in Germany, Ludwig Erhard succeeded because ". . . his entire conception for the reconstruction of the country began with the creation of new moral values for society." The Soviet collapse created a similar challenge for Putin. This book explains what his "effective authority" is all about. It's the best book available this year about a politician with new ideas.

This is a refreshingly candid portrait of the soul of the new President of Russia, a fascinating contrast to "personality politics" that mask any inner feelings of American politicians. Putin trusts the Russian people enough to be honest; our politicians hire spin doctors to create "centrist" or "moving to the right" or "compassionate conservative" images. The contrast is ominous.

Then, stop and think. Does America really need tough, effective authority? Or are we better off with superficial candidates and trivial issues? If Putin succeeds, he will outdo Peter the Great. In America, do we need a great crusade? or merely to be left alone? Another Lincoln? or a Shrub?

I needed the annotated version of this short novel by Nabokov, because I'm sure that I missed many of the things that were happening here. Basically the story of a Russian exile who teaches at an American university (something Nabokov was quite familiar with, in the grand "write what you know" tradition), the top story is quaint and humorous, the title character being a likeable, if somewhat eccentric, man. He's close to the "born loser" in his relationship with his University and his ex-wife, but he's not just a simple sad sack. There's meat on his bones, and while he seems oblivious to the tumult of his life, he remains fairly proud and retains a reassuring naivete.

The story under this is what I could not quite catch. I'm sure that Nabokov was making some sly comments on University life and ex-patriots, but every time I thought the dawn was about to break, the sun slipped behind another mountain. The prose is enjoyable, and, had I not read two other books by Nabokov, I might not have felt a loss.

My favorite part here is a party that Pnin throws as a house warming, inviting over his supervisor as well as friends (ex-landlords) and acquaintances (including one fellow that he merely says hello to daily on his walk across campus). Following the party, his supervisor has to tell him that Pnin's job is not very secure, as the supervisor is taking a position at another university and his replacement may not be as open to keeping Pnin in his current position. After the joy of his party, this deflates Pnin, and he verges on becoming angry. Picking up the party debris and cleaning dishes, he is washing a prized gift from his son when it slips out of his hand and drops into the suds-filled sink.

He almost caught it--his fingertips actually came into contact with it in mid-air, but this only helped to propel it into the treasure-concealing foam of the sink, where an excruciating crack of broken glass followed upon the plunge'.Then, with a moan of anguished anticipation, he went back to the sink and, bracing himself, dipped his hand deep into the foam. A jagger of glass stung him. Gently he removed a broken goblet. The beautiful bowl was intact. He took a fresh dish towel and went on with his household work.

Here is Pnin's strength, I thought. His life is that bowl, occasionally being dropped, but, strangely, he never breaks.

With Pnin, Nabokov does what he has done elsewhere -- he spoofs middle-class, middle-century America, exploding its pretensions quite handily. But the subject matter here is a bit closer to home, as Pnin deals with the plight of Russian expatriates adrift in exile after the Revolution. One imagines Nabokov identified more than a little with his lovable, excitable protagonist, and at times the satire parts to reveal aching sadness.

The last two pages of Chapter Five, in which Pnin ruminates on the memory of a lost love who died in World War II, contain some of my favorite writing in the English language. I will quote here an exquisite paragraph:

"Pnin slowly walked under the solemn pines. The sky was dying. He did not believe in an autocratic God. He did believe, dimly, in a democracy of ghosts. The souls of the dead, perhaps, formed committees, and these, in continuous session, attended to the destinies of the quick."

In passages such as this, Nabokov walks an astonishing tightrope between caustic comedy and heartbreaking tragedy.

Widely recognized as the most atypical of Nabokov's novels, "Pnin" is the story of a Russian immigrant professor who cannot quite fit in. Initially conceived as a series of short stories, "Pnin" appears to be just that; there is little to link each chapter and any of the chapters could work as a self-contained story. A deeper look, though, presents the reader with several themes which meander from chapter to chapter, creating a coherent book, albeit one that is less up front about its continuity than most readers are used to.

The first chapter of "Pnin" brings us the misadventure of Professor Pnin as he tries to ride the bus to a speaking engagement in a nearby city. This story serves as an excellent and hilarious introduction to the Pnin's personality. Although this personality can at times seem like a neurotic caricature, there is something of Pnin in each of us, some familiar form of human frailty over which we form an immediate bond. We laugh at him and his oddities, but it is a reserved laugh for we see a little of ourselves in him.

After this introduction, Nabokov proceeds to construct a carefully drawn character, bringing to light different aspects of Professor Pnin's past and showing us how they work to create the character we see before us. One pervasive element through the book is Pnin's status as a Russian immigrant and the effect it has on him as an American citizen. Pnin's Russian upbringing, the life in Russia he left behind, his travels in Europe, his experiences in World War II, his choice to immigrate, his difficulty with new languages; all these and more work together to forever alienate Pnin from his adopted nation. Pnin's life in America is not a difficult one, but it is awkward, and through this awkwardness and the barriers Pnin erects to mitigate it Nabokov appears to have captured an interesting aspect of the immigrant's experience.

Reading Pnin is not an earthshaking experience. Some books have the power to open up new realms, to train your mind on faraway, previously ignored, vistas of thought. Pnin does not. What is does do is provide the reader with a fun, entertaining story with enough interesting plot points and ideas thrown in to distinguish itself from all the other fun stories out there. Additionally Nabokov's writing is, as always, startling beautiful. Pick up Pnin for a fun time, but save your thinking cap for some of Nabokov's other works.

"Ten Days That Shook The World" is the account by John Reed of what he saw during the Russian Revolution. Reed was an American Communist and journalist who is the only American known to be buried in the Kremlin. Throughout this book we read a series of observations and dialogues reported by Reed, virtually without comment, although his bias is apparent. We read his reports of political meetings, encounters with minor officials and his observations of events occurring during those turbulent revolutionary days in Petrograd.

This book is a classic case of missing the forest for the trees. The view is too up close to permit the reader to see the big picture. One does not look here for the history of the Revolution. We look here for its spirit. Here we see the swirling chaos, hear the repeated buzz words and get a feeling for the competing factions which fashioned the Communist tyranny which emerged from the Revolution.

In writing this book, Reed gives the reader a view of himself and other American Communists who saw in the Revolution the future that worked. His view can best be summarized in his comment that, while watching a funeral, he realized that the Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven because they were building a world brighter than any which heaven promised. This hope is in stark contrast to the now known Communist record.

Overall I enjoyed this book as it taught me some more about the Russian Revolution than I had learned from other books which I had read. (See my Amazon review of "The Russian Revolution" by Alan Moorehead.) For that it was worth reading.

Although Ten Days That Shook the World is clearly totally biased towards the Bolsheviks, it is still an interesting read. It does an excellent job of revealing the dramatic side of the Russian Revolution, and it gives the events of the revolution the sort of immediacy that can only be achieved by on-the-spot reporting. There are also many facinating quotes and interviews with leaders, like Trotsky. It is an engaging and exciting book, and it is very well written.

However, it is not really ideal (never mind ideal, it is pretty useless) for a research project or for real information. Unless you are pretty familiar with the events of the revolution, it would probably be confusing (he uses many terms without really explaining them and is VERY detailed). Furthermore, the book was written by a dedicated believer in the regime right after the event occured. Reed did not have the benefit of hindsight in writing his book - and he was blinded by his faith in socialism. Some of the events in the book are somewhat inaccurate, and Lenin and Trotsky are totally idealized! One thing that shows how biased Reed was towards the Bolsheviks is that Lenin himself states that the book is an accurate depiction of the revolution. This would seem like a good thing, but actually, when the revolution is depicted in way that is favorable to Lenin, one thing is for sure: it is completely inaccurate! For instance, the book leaves the reader with the impression that the Bolsheviks had planned the revolution much more carefully than they did in reality (it was more a lucky break than anything else).

Nevertheless, this book is irreplaceable as a first-hand illustration of what the revolution was like. Even though some of the information cannot be trusted completely, it is still a facinating book!

This is a most powerfully written American radical journalist's eyewitness account of the Bolshevik seizure of power--recording the excitement of the October days and the beginnings of John Reed's own revolutionary disillusionment.

Ten Days That Shook the World is the classic account of the Russian Revolution of November 1917 by a western journalist and has been admired worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Lenin endorsed it as "a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution."

Already based in Europe and sympathetic to the cause of the Russian Revolution, Reed was able to observe dispassionately exactly what was going on and to find out not only what the Bolshevik leaders were doing, but to move among those on the streets and note experiences of the masses of ordinary people. Witnessing first-hand the day-to-day events of the Revolution, he captures in vivid and graphic detail the atmosphere of that time.

An extraordinary document of history in the making, this newer edition is the first with contemporary photographs, while a new introduction by Harold Shukman, University Lecturer in Modern Russian History at Oxford University, sets the work in context. Published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, this illustrated edition will appeal to anyone interested in modern history. And quite possibly re-ignite a political polemic.

Warren Beatty dared to make the film Reds, which gives us a poignantly epic visual view of John Reed, his life, his loves and his fierce beliefs as read in Ten Days That Shook The World.