GM Lev Alburt wants to introduce you to a system of assessing a given position, quantifing this assessment and plotting these values on a graph. This in itself is nothing new, so to make it a book, Mr. Alburt introduces his own invention: A "system of predicted results", which is basically the claim that a pattern exists for all chess positions, and if you can learn to recognize this pattern, you should be on your way to mastery.
"The ability to judge a position accurately is at the heart of good chess", as it says on the back cover. Problem is, the book doesn't teach you to do that. It assumes you are able to identify the relative strength (good or bad and how much so) of a given move and the resulting position - which Mr. Alburt then teaches you to evaulate numerically (a half-point advantage, say). For this reason alone, the back cover's "Whether you are a beginner or a master" should qualify as false declaration!
It is certainly not for beginners.
One cannot escape the feeling that this book was published more for the benefit of the bank accounts of the author and the editor than for any budding chess master.
Supporting this view is the downright silly placement on p.37 of a half-page ad(!) for the US Chess Federation, urging you to sign up a member.
A biography of Mr. Alburt is on p.199 and the editor, Mr.Lawrence, is presented on p.297. Why?
To round things off, an ad for Mr. Alburt's services as a tutor has been placed on p.347.
Together with Mr. Alburt's constant references to other works written by himself and the not so subtle pitching of Mr.Lawrence's marketing and publishing firm, leaves you wondering what this book is actually meant to be.
A book very smartly packaged and promoted but also a book very unable to live up to it's own hype.
I recommend you don't buy this book to avoid feeling cheated.

This is basically a reissue of Test and Improve Your Chess originally written in 1989. This book and Alburt's book on tactics are worthwhile, the rest of the series is junk.

While it is true that there is nothing revolutionary here, it is also true that this is another in a series of beautifully produced chess books that are designed to improve the chess of intermediate players. This book gives you many good tools, including methods of studying typical positions. Taken together with Alburt's other books, this is a worthy addition. It is a little xpensive, perhaps, but so are the rest of them. Anyway, I never paid near list for any of them. Check this out at a bookstore. it is a good book.

I had the pleasure of listening to the author of "Many Gods, One Idol," Lev Tsitrin, be interviewed on the radio just the other day (June 14th, 2003), and, I must say, I was disappointed in his stance on many things - in the book as well as in person. One item for example, is when he stated that, "it is impossible for finite man to 'know' truth." Well, is this a true statement?

You see... Aristotle codified many of the "rules" (or laws) of logic. One of the most important being the law-of-noncontradiction. This law simply states that "A" cannot be both "A," and "Non-A" at the same time. It would be analogous to me saying, "I cannot type a single word in English." This is a logical contradiction, being that I just typed many words in English.

Similarly, when Lev Tsitrin says, "it is impossible for finite man to 'know' truth," he is committing a logical error. If his statement is "true," then why should I trust him on his particular stance of truth, e.g., that it [truth] is unknowable. And if his statement is false, then it is just that. Sorta' the damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.

Another important law is the law-of-excluded-middle, which refutes Lev Tsitrin's main thesis as well. The law-of-excluded-middle simply states that for every proposition "A," either "A" is true, or "Not A" is true. There is no middle ground. In other words, either there is a God, or it is the case that there is no God.

To put this into terms used in "Many Gods, One Idol," either Buddhism is true, or Christianity is true (*you can substitute any religion here*), both cannot be correct at the same time. Both can be wrong at the same time, but both cannot be right at the same time.

These two rules of logic are an "Achilles Heal" in Lev Tsitrin's premise. And in hearing him on the radio just the other day, he is merely another example of sloppy thought.

In Many Gods, One Idol: A Study Of The Nature Of Religion, Lev Tsitrin provides the reader with a close, challenging, and informative examination of how the most fervent religious zeal often culminates in terrible hatred and violence among humankind. Surveying the history of religious strife among a wide variety of religions and offering ways to purge the most vile of human behaviors from conduct among the faithful, Many Gods, One Idol is a most thought-provoking, timely read featuring the ideals necessary in order to change the present destructive course of human contemporary history.

I never even knew such a book exhisted. This book is laugh out loud funny. A great way to pass the time in the bathroom. Jokes For Your John has something for everyone. A definate favorite.

Mr. Shakhmundes has written this book in order to explicate and explore some of his theories about society. The work, as I point out, is not a completed affair - the writing needs work, for instance. Nonetheless, Mr. Shakhmundes is intelligent and generally expresses his ideas with clarity. At times he will also directly address the reader with 'homework' assignments and challenges.

Shakhmundes spends a great deal of time discussing his views on human intelligence, its variance amongst individuals and its limits. Using simplified mathematical modes of expression, he argues that these differences and limitations are an obstacle to any sort of Utopia that can be dreamed of.

Personally, I feel Shakhmundes concentrates too much on the negatives of our differences. Little is said about the similarities that bind us together in the first place. Most distressing about the work is how it raises the question "Is There a Better Organization?" [for society], and subsequently fails to answer the question in any detailed manner.

However, don't let my criticisms deter you from reading. Here is the chance to communicate with a budding author. In fact, that is exactly what Mr. Shakhmundes desires - feedback. And the more the merrier.

I found "Warp" to be unreadably trite. The main character is extremely self-absorbed and the narration suffers from the author's arch media references. The novel has no plot, its characterization is weak, and its general tone is facile and somewhat sophomoric. I do not strongly recommend this book.

I'm not Lev Grossman and I liked the book. Actually I liked it a lot. It's sad and elegic and not very funny, but some of the scenes were honestly moving. Another thing was that the book had exactly the right length for what it was about. There's too many writers who fill too many pages with too little content. I'll definitely look out for more books by this guy. The episode with the punk girl sounded more like the author daydreaming though.

I thought the best thing about this book were two lines in it. One of them is, "a pack of cards is the devil's prayerbook." The other one, with much more interesting implications than the rest of the text, is this:

"A lie is a blow to the tyranny of fact."

With that line in mind, let me emphatically state that this is a good book. You should read it.

p.s. how in heck did Xanthe get into that house? And who would really want to be sleeping with chicks they've only known for forty-five minutes, anyway?

Misrepresentation of learning theories contrary to the authors' biases make this book useful to readers who already know better. I received it as a gift but wouldn't buy it for myself. This book does little to round out a library in psychology, educational psychology or developmental psychology.

An author would have to work awfully hard to make the history of the USSR and the aggressive aspects of its foreign policy dull. But these two authors manage to pull it off. This snoozer reads like a bad military manual, with authors that seem utterly unable to tell a story, preferring instead to dwell on the incredibly uninteresting minutae of military logistics. Even when it tries to be interesting by giving you insider information on the thought processes of Soviet officialdom, whether through insider information, official correspondence or newly declassified Kremlin documents, it still manages to underwhelm the reader. The writers should have focused on writing this as a history rather than as a textbook for a military academy which is how it reads.

As if the narrative isn't bad enough, the writing style is at best amateurish. This book reads like a rough draft. Thus it is difficult to decide which is worse, the writing of the book or the total lack of editing done by the publisher.

Anyway, I normally keep the books I have read in my book collection. This one will be donated to my local library's used book fundraiser before it can stink up my house any further. Come to think of it, I hate to cause yet another individual to waste their hard-earned money on this coma-inducer. But hey, it's for a good cause!

This book is awful. Do not buy it under any circumstances. Sarin and Dvoretsky have no understanding of history or strategy. They simply fulminate against the Soviet regime. They claim to have used new documents from the Russian archives, but none of the documents they cite is of any great significance (they are largely anecdotal). There are many better books on the Soviet military and Soviet foreign policy, so don't waste your time with this gibberish

Not a bad book, although at times it was quite tendious to read. It gives a basic overview of Soviet involvement in major world coflicts (Spanish civil War, WW2, Vietanam, Arab-Israeli wars etc). It is quite heavy on militaristic elements, which would be interesting to anyone interested in how wars are fought and funded. The historical backgrounds of the wars are briefly discussed, as fell as the fallout created by conflict. Interesting chapter about Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, which gives a detailed look into the geo-political reasons for the invasion. All in all, not a bad book, but lacking in historical depth.