Because copyright laws have changed since this Dover edition came out in 1991 - originally these pieces were not covered by copyright due to Russian law - it it has now gone out of print. To get these wonderful preludes and fugues, republished from the original Moscow editions from 1956 and 1966, at the original price of $12.95, seems incredible now. The volume includes the 24 Preludes, Op.34 from 1932-3 and five early preludes dating from 1920-21, but also the masterly, 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op.87, a 20th-century Well-Tempered Clavier, written between October 1950 and March 1951. Wilfred Mellers, in his essay for Keith Jarrett's recording on ECM, says the cycle "need fear no comparision with its model." It's rarely seen second-hand, so the library may be the only option.

This is a very interesting book. It traces Alexyev's story from childhood through about 1977. It also briefly touches upon the careers of John Davis, Doug Hepburn, Norbert Schemansky, Paul Anderson, Alexis Medvedyev, Yuri Vlasov, and Leonid Zhabotinsky.It covers 1970-1977 fairly thoroughly, and even has a list of the world superheavyweight records from 1954-1977 for the press, snatch, clean and jerk,and total. It has approx. 45 black and white pictures in the back. The reasons I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 are these:1. It says nothing of the year 1978, when the world championships were Alexeyev's to take but he injured himself on the winning clean and jerk. 2. It says nothing of his year of rehab(1979). 3. It says nothing of his bombout, and end of his competitive career in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. 4. It was written in Russian, and however translated it into English left it in a very stilted style. A good proofreader with a sensitivity for modern English would have been nice. 5. All of the pictures are in black and white and separated into one back section, instead of interspersed throughout the book, like we would do here in America.
All of this said this still is the best book I have ever found on Alexeyev! It is readable and tells alot of his meets attempt by attempt.

THIS BOOK WAS ALL I HOPED IT WOULD BE , IT PORTAYS THE RISE TO WORLD CHAMPION OF ONE OF THE GREATEST LIFTERS IN HISTORY. THE BOOK STARTS BY GIVING SOME DETAILS OF ALEXEYEVS CHILDHOOD AND UPBRINGING THEN GOES STRAIGHT INTO HIS EARLY CONTESTS, THE AUTHOR A NOTED LIFTER HIMSELF REALLY SEEMS TO CAPTURE THE AUORA THAT SURROUNDED THE GREAT MAN IN HIS HEYDAY ,AND YOU CAN UNDERSTAND WHY OTHER GREAT COMPETETORS ALLWAYS SEEMED TO LIFT BELOW THEIR BEST WHEN UP AGAINST ALEXEYEV. THE BOOK PLOTS HIS CONTESTS UP TO THE TIME OF PUBLICATION AND HAS A VERY GOOD PHOTO SECTION AT THE BACK, ALL IN ALL THE BOOK IS ONE I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A WEIGHTLIFTER OR SPORTSMAN , EVEN THE FORWARD BY ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER IS INTERESTING READING, A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE FACTUAL INSIGHT INTO A GREAT ATHLETES LIFE.

Shostakovich's letters to Glikman show the personal side of the composer -- a man of humor, wit, intelligence, and an overall powerful mind. While keeping in mind his highly negative attitudes towards the Soviet government, the reader sees clearly Shostakovich's use of codified language, forms of reverse psychology, irony, parody, all of which he uses to keep the offical government censors off his (and Glikman's) back, and yet to deliver his true message, idea, opinion in a singularly and brilliantly effective way.
My only reservation about the book is the one-sidedness of it. Glikman's letters, or simply more extensive commentary (although it is remarkably thorough, and an outstanding job for an old man 30 years later!). Shostakovich destroyed all the letters he received, so remedying this problem, alas, is virtually impossible.
Highly, highly recommended despite this.

Readers who read about the legendary American portraitist John Singer Sargent will certainly see the similarity in style from this Russian artist.

I wish I could write a great deal about this book to help other readers. The problem is, for well-known artists such as Rembrandt, Degas, Sargent (to name a few), their collection (and style) speaks for itself; any subjective opinion will sound inadequate. On the other hand, as much as I admire and enjoy Sargent's painting style (so as a majority of the art-lovers and artists alike), his collection is NOT the one I am crazily going after. Imagine wearing a fashionable shirt to work, just to find out about 90-95% of your co-workers wearing the same style of shirt to work. (Excuse the analogy.)

Anyhow, to be of any help, here goes:
1) This book is a rather complete collection of portrait paintings by Valentin Serov. If one happens to be Serov's big fan, this is the one to own. Nicely presented and well-organized.

2) If one is a portraitist, it is also a good book to own. The reader can see how bold and decisive Serov's brushstrokes are in his paintings. (Did I mention Sargent's style?) An interesting difference between Serov's and Sargent's choice of colors (at least from what I noticed) is that Serov's paintings seem to have more low-key (dark) and cooler colors than those by Sargent. I ponder this perhaps may have been because of the difference in clothing in two different societies at the time.

To sum it up, this is a good book to own in your art collection, for pleasure or inspiration.

This is an odd book, and a poor history of chemistry. It is not a history of the elements (as the book jacket states) nor a description of Mendeleyev's work. In fact, the author devoted only 13% of the book to Mendeleyev and the periodic table, and over twice that heaping scorn upon ancient Greek philosophers. His description of the Arab alchemists and alchemy philosophy is excellent. After that, he loses his way, and, by the end of the book, Strathern has made it plain he is not a chemist and has little appreciation of the struggle to make a new and unknown reaction proceed down a desired pathway. Scientists noted for theories receive much more attention than specific advances. No mention is made the development of the balance and a definition of mass units or standard volumes to allow chemists to communicate. Lavoisier is grandly proclaimed as, "the Newton of chemistry," and Dalton, whose work on atomic weights and stoichiometery, -- providing chemistry the basic structure needed to advance and is still used by every practicing chemist -- is given the short shift on p. 261 when it is declared that "possessor of the finest chemical mind since Lavoisier" is Mendeleyev. This is a staggering statement, considering that Berzelius, Faraday, Davy, Thompson, Guy-Lussac, Kekule, Perkins, Avogardo, Liebig, Pasteur and many other fine chemists were active during that period.
How Mendeleyev used his table is not covered, and that the table's true value lay in the future in developing chemical bonding and valance theories is only hinted at. The reader is left with an unflattering picture of Mendeleyev (Rumpelstiltskin is mentioned more times than Dalton), and the book ends as it started, talking about dairy farmers.

Who among us can't recall, at least in a general way, the first day of high school chemistry when we were first confronted with that mysterious Periodic Table of the Elements hanging on the wall? Now, as ignorant novices in Chem 1A, we were at last to be initiated into its arcane symbolism.

MENDELEYEV'S DREAM is the story of chemistry, from the ancient Greek, Anaximenes, with his theory of air as the fundamental element compressible to water and stone, to the gnomic Russian genius, Mendeleyev, who conceived the Periodic Table in the mid-19th century. Conceived it in a dream during an exhausted sleep brought on by overwork and frustrated creativity. Sleeping, when he should have been on his way to address a meeting of local cheese-makers.

The author, Paul Strathern, has written a fine narrative overview of the evolution of the scientific method and the chemist's art, from the philosophical musings of the ancients on the nature of the universe, through the long centuries when alchemy held sway, to chemistry's current place in the Pantheon of Sciences. Along the way, Strathern introduces us to the greatest scientific minds and gifted eccentrics of their respective ages: Empedocles, Aristotle, Zosimus, Jabir ibn-Hayyan, Avicenna, Paracelsus, Nicholas of Cusa, Galileo, Descartes, Francis Bacon, van Helmont, Robert Boyle, Hennig Brand, Karl Scheele, Johann Becher, Henry Cavendish, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier, John Dalton, Jöns Berzelius, and a host of others. And, finally, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev.

The nature of the book's subject could easily lend itself to tedium, but the author's style is light - only once does he "balance" a chemical formula, and his intermittent dry wit was much appreciated. What, for instance, was Hennig Brand doing with those fifty buckets of putrefying human urine? His neighbors were undoubtedly not thrilled. And why might the Dutch Assembly have been justified in tacking-up "wanted-posters" around town for Johann Becher, who had just absconded on a fast boat for London?

A scientist himself, Paul has not penned a great technical piece. Rather, he's written an uncomplicated, engaging work of popular science likely to appeal to those of us who ... well, let's just say, didn't learn to transmute lead into gold, much less ace Chem 1A. Now, if someone could just do the same for differential calculus.

While -Mendeleyev's Dream- leaves somthing to be desired as history, it is the most entertaining review of the development of alchemy, and later chemistry, from Thales and and Empedecles who postulated the basic Elements to Mendeleyev. His review of emerging science during the Dark Ages, Middle Ages and the Renaissance introduce us to a wild cast of characters. Nicolas of Cusa, Giordono Bruno, who almost aced Galileo out of the job of teaching mathematics at Padua to Hook, Newton, Priestley and LaVoissier.

His description of how Joseph Priestley invented seltzer water and discovered that pure dephlogistated air (aka Oxygen) gave a cheap harmless high is worth the price of the book.

As a History 3 stars, as entertainment 10!

I do not think this book is good for self study. The computer tutorial was slow and the text was not clear on several critical areas like using tables. The only reason to get the book is for the compiler which is pretty good. Get the book for the compiler then get one of the better books written by English speakers. The teaching style of the book is better suited to Eastern Bloc students than Americans. I write this as a former cobol instructor.

The book contains a lot of information on the features of the COBOL language. Being a novice COBOL programmer, I found the book difficult to follow at times. It discussed in depth many features that are either obsolete or not implemented in the included compiler. Also, I would have liked to seen a discussion on how the compiler handles the SCREEN SECTION and trapping of function keys. However, the included compiler is great tool to use to learn the language and is worth the cost of the book alone.

I think that this book is good for anyone who knows Cobol. This book is a great refresher for what you have previously learned. Great Syntax Help.

Good overall book for finishing off the studying for the CCIE written. I passed the written on the first go. However, there are quite a few typos, some misc fact errors and the sample test/questions don't reflect what is actually on the test (way to easy). Would definitely review the CCIE TCP/IP Vol. I&II and CCIE Switching books, especially focusing on the review questions - not multiple choice but fill in the blank. The bottom line ... Don't expect to pass the written exam if this is your only source of knowledge/experience.

The book is a guick read as the title suggests (EXAM CRAM). I gave it a 3 because it forces one to cross reference (not because of the content per se) since it contains unfortunate errors in a number of places. And this is a good thing. If one has studied this text (in a negative-postive twist) keeps you on your toes. As a cram it is fine. If this is your sole text you will get hosed. Cross-reference much and see if you can spot the errors. I'm sure this is more a publishing thing than the oversight of the authors.

I found this book to be an outstanding guide through the quagmire that is the CCIE written exam. An important fact to remember- the Exam Cram book series in general is not intended to make you an expert in any subject in which you don't already have experience. The structure of this book is consistent with other Exam Cram books: to give you a solid foundation if you don't have much experience, and to act as the glue to tie it altogether if you do have experience. (There are references at the end of every chapter on "Need to Know More" to get detailed information where the coverage is thin in the book.) The fact is, to pass the CCIE written, you need to do more that just read books. Practical experience and hands on are just as important, which is why the author gives configuration examples for every Cisco technology required to pass the exam.

Not only did this book help me to pass my written exam, but I could not have done it without it. I found the text easy to read and quick to sink in, which is critical when study-time is at a premium. I finished the book in a week, and then passed my exam. I highly recommend this book.