The whole book is created as a dialog of couple kids from XXI century. We are all very curious what's going to happen in XXI century... XX century is known as a technology progress century... So what's going to happen? Two very smart kids are discussing this at their bedtime... Both of them are definitely extremely smart and talking in a very diffirent "smart" way, not like kids of XX century. Is it a fairy tale... or is it going to happen?! It is for you to decide! If you can read Russian - this is definitely a book for you!

Fantastic illustrations for this classic fable about a man who catches a magic fish. The man releases the fish when it speaks to him and asks him to spare its life. In gratitude, the fish grants him a wish, but the man's greedy wife demands more and more.... Children love this magical tale, and adults will appreciate the detailed decorations in this rendition.

Don't get me wrong, Gulag Archipelago is one of my favorite all-time works. It's place in world history is secure. But the Oak and the Calf is a personal history of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (arguably the greatest living writer in the world).

At a time when the punishment for owning a copy of Gulag was DEATH, Solzhenitsyn was not afraid to stand up to the Soviet system ALONE AND UNARMED (He has a lot in common with Mahatma Ghandi).

When you are armed with truth and you stand firm, it is Evil itself that must eventually back down.

How did Solzhenitsyn gain so much courage? How did he handle the Soviet system without becoming a corpse? How was he able to write his first several books while still a prisoner in the prison camps? What kept him going when things looked the most bleak?

We can learn much about commitment, will-power, and dedication to principles of truth by seeing how Solzhenitsyn did it. By reading this book, Solzhenitsyn can be your mentor and teach you through his example.

--George Stancliffe

I love the plot, but it is written by a normal person not a writer. So there are obvious gaps in the plotline. Additionally the translation has points where it obviously falls apart due to poor translation. Nevertheless I will never sell my copy, even if it is signed by the translator.

(This review is based on the second Russian edition printed in 1986. The contents of English edition seems to be a bit extended version of the Russian one.)

This is a very good exposition to probability theory at the professional level. I like it much more than I do Billingsley's "Probability and Measure" (which is a collection of essays on probability theory, sometimes only vaguely related a few chapters apart from each other, while Borovkov is a very consistent course which has the same level of rigor as Billingsley does, and which also proves some subtle but appreciable things not mentioned in Billingsley). It has a bit different flavor of tending to prove things via characteristic functions rather than directly with the cesnored random variables as in Billinsley's book. It does not cover as much measure theory as Billingsley does, and I suspect that the book implicitly assumes the student to be familiar with a standard Russian reference on functional analysis by Kolmogorov and Fomin that has an extensive treatment of Lebesgue integration. It is also nice that it has a lot of examples discussed in the text (rather than given as exercises) that help to cement the concepts. They make the text quite lively, too. Sometimes I had to spend a minute or two thinking why they believe a statement in a proof is self-evident, though.

The book starts with with the introduction of probability spaces, goes on to random variables, then to the laws of large numbers, convergence notions, and the CLTs. It also discusses renewal theory, factorization identities, Markov chains, information and entropy, martingales, continuous time stocastic processes, functional limit theorems, and Markov processes, with some measure theory stuff and a couple of more difficult theorems (extension of a measure, Kolmogorov theorem on consistent distributions, theorems of Helly and Arcela--Ascoli) given in appendices. Thus it covers more than a semester of probability theory, giving some initial reading for some four or so advanced courses. The author suggests to use the bulk of the material in the first ten or twelve chapters for a required semester course, with the rest of the book viewed as the material for shorter elective courses. The book helped me greatly in my probability theory comprehensive exam, as well as in my stochastic calculus and stochastic processes courses.

It is a pity that the book is rather expensive -- I am happy to have it in the original language on which this review is actually based.

Of historical interest it is that A.Borovkov is Kolmogorov's student.

Only Russian reader can understand how exactly precise W.Arndt has understood the spirit ,rhythm,and the melody of russian poetry -when one reads the translations on English-every Russian (not knowing a word in English) can easely hear that it is Pushkin's writing !

This volume is a valuable literature on international relations with regard to understanding the complicated nature of arms control bargaining process. Authors examined growing threats of missile proliferation during 1980s and the emergence of the Missile Technology Control Regimes (MTCR) as well as Russia's missile export policy and its reluctance to involve the MTCR. This study well shows the U.S. efforts for preventing missile proliferation and how it persuaded Russia to participate and embrace the MTCR

Whether a listener or performer of Scriabin's music, this book is by far the best and most detailed account of his life AND times. Faubion Bowers has left no fact uncovered

The following intriguing description appears on the back cover of this book: THE GREAT DISCOVERY IN I9th-CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE. The famous Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), fatally wounded in a duel by his brother-in-law and rival, left behind his secret ciphered journal, which was recently discovered and smuggled out of the U.S.S.R. There has been much speculation and mystery surrounding this journal. According to legend, Pushkin's will stipulated that the journal not be published until one hundred years after his death. Some people claimed that the journal did not exist at all.

The journal does exist and consists of explicit confessions about intimate relationships that Pushkin had with his wife, her two sisters, and other women, which brought him to his tragic end. These astonishing events and reflections reveal unknown details of Pushkin's life - the life a nineteenth-century Russian Don Juan. If all this is factual, then it is truly a great discovery in nineteenth-century Russian literature. I would add that the same would be true for world literature as well.

Despite the suspicious circumstances related by Armalinsky, we must be fair and at least admit the possibility that these were actual events. The hint that the journal is indeed authentic is the reaction of the Soviet press. The specific nature of the official Soviet literary criticism is very different from that in the free world. If an official critic in a Soviet magazine is furious about a particular literary work and vigorously disclaims it, the ordinary people understand that this is worth reading. If an official critic praises a book, people do not pay attention to it. In other words, that which the Soviet government hates, the Soviet people like. It is worth noticing that the books attacked are usually not available to Soviet readers, so a critic can impose "his" (meaning government) opinion on the readers, who are intentionally deprived of an opportunity to establish their own opinions!

Something similar occurred this time, too. Major Soviet magazines (Ogonek, Voprosi Literaturi) published screaming articles denouncing and threatening to castrate Mikhail Armalinsky for smuggling the manuscript out of the Soviet Union. Soviets challenged Armalinsky to a duel! Why? Because Pushkin holds a place of highest honor in Russia, second only to Lenin. And the Soviet government tolerates nothing erotic to be related to their "saints." What is interesting is that, as usually happens in the Soviet Union, the article offered no literary proof of its outstanding dismay and based its accusations solely on critics disturbed emotions.

But what is all the fuss about? The journal is truly an erotic piece of literature. It is beautifully crafted. It can be described in a few words as a hymn to female genitalia. The author (whether Pushkin or Armalinsky or someone else remains to be seen) reveals his position toward life, which has only two values: literature and women (not necessarily in that order!).

A woman, for Pushkin, is the carrier, keeper, and custodian of the God, who appears on earth in the shape of her genitals and in the state of emotions that they produce. Because genitals are a physical form of God, their influence and force wears out, as does anything physical. Therefore, the only way to maintain the strength of the sacred feelings produced by female genitalia was, for Pushkin, to change women and, consequently, their genitals in order to refresh God's appearance with constant renewal. This task clashed with his marriage in the last years of his life, and reflections of that create the content of Secret Journal.

The footnotes by Armalinsky in the English edition explain the references to the names of people mentioned by Pushkin.

The journal contains many erotic observations of human nature that are poignant and clever; some are funny, many are controversial and even objectionable to some. But are not these qualities of a good piece of literature that is enjoyed and recommended to others?

It would be interesting to see a detailed analysis that would prove me wrong, but I have not yet seen one. According to U.S. law but not Soviet law, one is innocent until proven guilty. Thus, meanwhile, let us enjoy Pushkin's Secret Journal. As Armalinsky says in the preface, "Pushkin's literary reputation is so strong that his personal reputation could not shake it, but on the contrary promises us a remarkable study of human nature, which, because of its immutability, makes us all one with the past as well as the future."

Grin loved the sea, and his stories reflect that love, mixed with a romanticism born out of an era that was the complete opposite of the world he created in his books. He writes with a lyricism that is as addictive as it is painfully beautiful.