When Dover decided to publish Modest Mussorgsky's toweringmusic drama, Boris Godunov, they made a rather unfortunatedecision. Rather than publishing Mussorgsky's own rough hewn, brilliantly emotional orchestration of the work, they opted for the sanitized re-orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. I tend to believe they chose Rimsky for two reasons: first, most reliable editions of Mussorgsky's version were edited relatively recently, and, therefore, still under editorial copyright. The finest edition they could find within public domain was the Soviet run State Music Publisher's edition of the Rimsky score, the edition they eventually published. In any event, it is a shame that music lovers cannot enjoy a reasonably priced Boris, written as Mussorgsky intended; a score that includes, for example, the Kromy Cathedral scene, injudiciously excised by Rimsky. Still, with all it's faults, the Rimsky Boris does not completely mute Mussorgsky's unique voice. Dover's edition, as usual, is nearly indestructable. The size of the score and size of the book would probably make this edition unsuitable for the podium. However, for the average Opera fan, this Boris is decidedly better than none.

While the book was very informative, it was hard to follow. The authors seemed to jump from one topic to another. Also they would discuss topics like perestroika without explaining them at all. In another instance, a speech Yeltsin gave was discussed but the topic of the speech was never revealed. Despite these downfalls, the biography was very informative and covered all of Yelstin's life, from childhood to becoming the President.

The economic perspectives of this book's essays see globalization as consisting of capital investment, FDI, oil politics, manipulation of resources into exports, and macroeconomic stimulation. Hence, it is a lot of 'old economy' mentalities that appear new because of the relatively new autonomy of Central Asian countries. Import and export policies are not necessarily indicative of a "new global economy," having been an essential aspect of economics for millenia. Although economic liberalization is paid a lot of attention and lip-service, statist policies are presented as the primary approaches to economic development. There is little discussion of microeconomic phenomena and the importance of domestic economic stimulation. Environmental issues don't merit a single reference in the index. Political liberalization is also dutifully ignored.

Investment in the oil infrastructure is heavily emphasized, but the viability of real and substantial amounts of oil in the ground has yet to be proven in Central Asia. Access to viable markets is also dubious for that reason.

Real economic vitality in Central Asia will ultimately hinge less on building airports and pipelines than on stimulating open and viable economic activity among the domestic populations there. Economic interaction of a self-sustaining nature is a far better path to political reform, political stability, viable tax bases (rather than dependencies on FDI), and satisfaction of demographic conflicts.

That is the essence of the new, global economy. A sense entirely missed by this book.

While there can be no question as to the veracity of my cousin Boris' account of his Holocaust expereince, I found it curious that he makes no mention of my father, Julius Dalkoff. Boris' wife, Tamara, has gone on at great length as to how Julius helped bring them to the states after the liberation. Jacob is mentioned--even his wife Ethel. But not Julius.

No, the Holocaust should never be forgotten. One would like to believe though, that those who helped should not be forgotten either.--Seymour Dalkoff

My rating above is not indicate. Please provide information re the Volume #, Edition #, and/or the publication date, so that I can decide to buy or not. thanks.

This is the second volume of the pulp-style fantasy/adventure series known as the World of Tiers. This time around, Wolff's evil father has kidnapped his beautiful wife Chryseis. To find her, he sets off through a series of hexacular gates, each of which takes him and his fractious siblings to a new and more challenging world where an endless series of traps, dangers, and
difficulties await. Will Wolff be able to rescue his wife from the horrible fate that awaits her? Was there ever any doubt?

The specific ploy Wolff comes up with to defeat the villain is pretty clever, and is probably the best part of the book, which overall is just the same old same old. Instead of displaced societies, this volume's worlds feature geographic problems that the group has to overcome in order to get through the next gate. The result is a lot less swordplay and a lot more death trekking, not really Farmer's forte. The excitement level is pretty low, and the suspense level is almost non-existent, since many will guess the kidnapper's secret well before it is revealed, and many more will have stopped caring long before then. Farmer's characters are painfully flat; some of the siblings are no more than cannon fodder, while even the more important characters just strike the same single note over and over. As a result, the reader never cares whether the party succeeds in their venture or not. (This reader was even tempted to start hoping the villain would just kill them all off and spare us all any more unpleasantness). Wolff is a capable leader and combatant, but he has few other human qualities of any interest, and his siblings are plain irritating. So even though this book starts much faster and has a stronger ending than its predecessor, there still isn't much to like about it. Younger readers who can handle brutal, pointless violence may find this book a welcome diversion, but so far, this is the weakest series Farmer has written. Will A Private Cosmos be any better? This reviewer is disinclined to even bother to find out.

Pasternak's novella is more of an extended prose poem - its movement is not through narrative or character, but the flux of imagery, both observational and metaphorical. An invalided Russian soldier arrives in 1916 at a remote factory town near the Urals to stay with his married sister; he rests after the long train journey, and reminisces, or dreams, about the months preceding the outbreak of World War One, his graduation from college, his job as a tutor with a wealthy, unhappily married family, his relations with various women (his sister, his mistress, her paid companion, prostitutes).

This slight story is merely a frame on which is hung the overpowering expression of a developing artistic sensibility, as it transforms the world around it - the sights, sounds and smells; the description of storms, city streets, parks, dust-winds, snows. The language is continually, fluidly metamorphosing, in keeping with the artist's mind, so that the reader is continually jolted and carried away from thought to evocation to feeling. In this world, the human beings are passive, phantom-like, while things, objects, nature, have an active, conscious power.

Like Joyce's similar 'Portrait of the artist as a young man', this dense poetry of autobiography and bildungsroman strives towards the creation of a work of art, in this case a rather portentous drama (which is apparently devastatingly beautiful in the Russian); while the reader is always conscious of the shadows of war and Revolution (the book was published in 1934).

According to Lydia Slater in the introduction, George Reavey's translation came out at a time (1959; revised 1960) when hundreds of inferior, rushed translations were cashing in on the success of 'Doctor Zhivago' and the author's Nobel Prize refusal - she says 'it is surprising to find that some translations from Pasternak really do have something in common with the original text'. Reavey captures the density of Pasternak's language and his jarring stylistic effects, but he rarely captures that 'pure and undiluted poetry', that 'drama and lyricism' Slater finds in the original. In any case, Pasternak's illumination of the mundane and of awakening consciousness seem, to me, to lack the magic or humour of Nabokov's contemporary Russian work.

I am reading "Pilgrim Among the Shadows" by Boris Pahor (Orlando, FL, 1995, Harcourt Brace & Co.), a translation by Michael Biggins from the Slovenian of "Nekropola." It appears to be the only work by Pahor to have been translated into English.

Pahor's experience was in Natzweiler -- and later in Dachau. He tells the
grisly tale of how Italy persecuted the speakers of Slovenian and
Serbo-Croatian in the areas it annaxed after World War I and expanded into after the outbreak of World War II. For Pahor, a Triestino Jew barred from speaking his own language and whose main memories are of gravestones on which the names were italianized and of the main Slovenian library in Trieste being burned to the ground by blackshirted fascists, Natzweiler (he does not explain why he ended in that camp high in the Vosges mountains of France) proved that the ties among "Yugoslavs" were strong despite the signs of breakup after the death of Tito.

This is a literary memoir -- awfully hard to read with constant flashbacks
from present to past and back again -- that does flesh out some horrors.
For example, the hot water in the showers at Natzweiler came from boilers placed above the crematorium ovens (something I did not find in
Buchenwald).

Peculiarly, Pahor hardly mentions his own Jewishness.

This book (which is actually "The Wondersmith and His Son"), which is a collection of old Irish folk-tales about a man, known as the Gubbaun Saor, who could do wonderous things, and his daughter and adopted son, was a 1926 Newbery Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best contribution to American children's literature.

This book reads like something out of a freshman creative writing class. The dialogue is stilted, the plot is predictable, and the characters are utterly flat.

Skip it - there are plenty of other good books by these authors.

This story follows a young athlete as she trains for the new Olympics, which include intellectual competition and a de facto death sentence for the those who fail to take the gold. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Ah, well. I have read of number of Larry Niven novels, and I understand the premise that maybe a book can be just a ripping good adventure, and not a contribution to world lit. But, ack, this was horrible. You will find the characters cliched, the plot "twists" too easy to figure out, and the ending is either a cop out because the author had filled the requisit number of pages, or a cheap way to prep for a sequel.

This novel is about love, life and sport. Based on a future Olympics where not only physical perfection is required but also extreme intelligence. It is a story where the nobel prize is inspired by elite athletes, and practical meets theoretical. It is a story of choices. Choose wrong and you may die. Either way you need to be fully committed to your descisions. If you are going to aim high in life then this is where you would be.

Achilles Choice was a light but enjoyable read. I am looking forward to a sequel.

I would recommend this novel for the age group 8-22 years of age. If you are an older reader the predictability of the storyline may be discouraging.