This is a fantastic collection of stories that have been a part of the Russian culture for centuries. Anyone growing up in Russia has heard these stories, and now so can you! Kids will appreciate the characters and adventures. Parents will appreciate the values and lessons. Everyone will appreciate the timeless tales of fantasy, magic, and talking animals.

This is a fine introduction to popular Russian fairy tales, including the story of the little snow girl (a childless couple builds a daughter out of snow) and "Frost" (cruel stepmother sends girl out to freeze in the snow, but Frost sees her kindness and spares her-- the nasty stepsisters are not so lucky). The similarity between some of the Russian tales and our own English fairy tales is interesting (why is the stepmother always the evil one?). This introductory collection leaves one wanting to learn more Russian tales.

Ageing interns at Cahners Business Associates who will outlive any opinions they give need not be condescending by pushing the entire product line of conglomerate media franchises.

Written in the late19th century, these stories show their age. They abound with high-class officers and lowly maidens. But in their careful search for thoughts and meanings, they presage Freudian analysis.

In ?Night Games?, Lieutenant Willi Kasda has to come up with 1?000 gulden within 24 hours. Seeing no other way, he joins a card game. But the devil in disguise is dealing the cards and the night spirals toward a disastrous ending. The description of the all-night game alone is an unforgettable piece of literature. Willi?s descent into hell is described in minute and gripping detail.

?The Dead are Silent?: Franz and Emma go for a night ride to the outskirts of town. There is an accident. leaving Emma to her own devices. How does she get home before her husband? A cliffhanger.

?Blind Geronimo and his Brother?: Geronimo and his brother Carlo are panhandlers. Geronimo plays the guitar and sings, while Carlo collects the offerings. When they were children, an accident caused by Carlo resulted in his brother?s blindness. Now Carlo sees the sole purpose of his life in caring for Geronimo. But can a blind man trust Carlo? Slowly but surely things fall apart.

?A Farewell?: Albert waits for his beloved Anna, who is closely watched by her husband. And he waits, getting more desperate by the hour and the day. What could possibly have happened? The story goes from bad to worse, carefully analyzing Albert?s frame of mind.

?The Second?: It shows us the idiocy of dueling and its code. The narrator is an almost professional second on such occasions. At the present one, Eduard Loiberger gets killed - who is to bring the news of this senseless death to Agatha, his widow? The narrator, who feels an attachment to Agatha, tries to accomplish this task.

?Baron von Leisenbogh?s Destiny?: The baron is deeply in love with Clara Hell, a singer. For ten years he follows her throughout Europe, without coming close to his goal. Will he be rewarded in the end? That is where the surprise comes in, deftly maneuvered by the author.

?The Widower?: Richard?s wife suddenly dies and he is devastated. But was she really the saint he imagined her to be? What about his best friend Hugo? And how to handle him? The solution is not exactly Freudian.

?Death of a Bachelor?: Three friends are called to the bedside of the bachelor who, however, just had died. He has left them a confession concerning the wives of each one. How do they deal with the letter? Three situations - can there be just one solution? Each friend has to examine his relation to his wife.

?Dream Story?: Fridolin and Albertine have an open marriage, telling each other what normally would be kept secret. But there is a difference. Fridolin has a nightly adventure that is quite real but sounds like a dream. He decides not to tell his wife about it. Albertine has a dream involving an unknown man and she tells her husband about it. Can Fridolin take it? Will the dream, to him, have some basis in fact?

The stories and novellas are old fashioned and may not be to everybody?s taste. They are superbly written, though, and a document to the times. Kudos also to the translator.

Arthur Simon has written a masterpiece. Being insightful but not judging, Simon describes why our culture keeps us from focusing on what is truly important and gently instructs us how to live a life of purpose and integrity. This easy to read book leaves us with a haunting feeling that there is so much more that we can do to make the world a better place. It forces us to leave our self-centered being to reach out and serve others. How Much Is Enough also demonstrates how adopting this framework for living will in turn benefit you as well as those you serve.

This book is an invaluable source of perspective on understanding the subtle linkage between driving world class manufacturing and human relations. Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld is clearly one of the pre-eminent scholars in the field of labor relations today and this book demonstrates his ability to diagnose and explain complex scenarios and relationships with ease and clarity.

As the second full-length story of Doyle's Holmes series, this book is a classic. It lacks the landmark status of A Study in Scarlet and the overall drama of The Hound of the Baskervilles, but nevertheless is a must-read for all Holmes fans and is strongly recommended to fans of detective fiction. The crime scene is a classic -- "Watson, when you have eliminated all other possibilities, the remaining possibility, no matter how seemingly improbable, is nevertheless likely".... or something like that.

While A Study in Scarlet deals rather unmercifully with the Mormon colony in Utah, A Sign of Four presents what would now be considered a strikingly politically incorrect perspective on India. It's an historically interesting British viewpoint from late in the last century.

Whether you read a public copy or get it from the University of Virginia on-line archive, I strongly recommend A Sign of Four. It's a quick read, and certainly a better option for spare time than Holmes' seven percent solution.

A fabulous treasure dogged by murder. A trans-racial oath of loyalty. A greedy major, a cannibal pigmy, and a peg-legged convict. Mix in a pig-headed police investigator and a brilliant-but-flawed amateur detective, and you have the makings of a first-class mystery.

Miss Mary Morstan, the recipient of yearly gifts of pearls from an anonymous benefactor, receives a summons declaring her a wronged woman and promising riches if she replies. She enlists the aid of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, and finds herself in the middle of a locked-room murder mystery. If the mystery can only be solved, she will become the richest woman in England.

Holmes, in a virtuoso performance, solves the murder, finds the missing treasure, brings the killer to justice, and learns the strange tale of "The Four." Did I mention that Dr. Watson winds up married to Miss Morstan?

The format of this sequel to "A Study in Scarlet" follows basically the same pattern as the original Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes visits the scene of a baffling murder, draws amazing conclusions from his inspection of the scene, and relentlessly tracks down the villian, who then tells his story and turns out to be not such a bad guy after all.

I first read "Scarlet" and "Sign" as a pre-teenager, and they made an indelible impression on me. In my job I frequently visit murder scenes, and I believe that these two books are what have influenced me to perform inspections outside the crimescene tape.

An earlier reviewer remarked on Doyle's "politically incorrect" view of India. "The Sign of the Four" was written at the turn of the 19th century. We live in the 21st. We probably won't measure up to the 23rd century's yardstick for "political correctness" either.

In this second novel of Sherlock Holmes's Dr John Watson continues introducing the world to the singular methods of his strange friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

He starts the book with a study in deduction, looses his temper, and then cools down at Holmes's explanations. Then a singular customer appears in the stage with a strange case. This case leads to a terrific murder with outlandish murderers.

As usual, Watson, as dumb as a frog, cannot see a thing that his friend Holmes, as cleaver as a fox, can spot so easily.

The story here is a bit slow, especially in the capture of the villains, but it ends in a thrilling manhunt, and then in an unearthly account of the major villain.

This novel, in my opinion, is the best Sherlock Holmes's ever written by Doyle. I think any Holmes's fan must read it.

While it can get a bit technical at times, overall, this book is very good at explaining why we should care about poor and hungry people in our country and around the world. It also gives people the tools they need to be citizen advocates on hunger -- going beyond helping at soup kitchens or donating money to good causes. It shows how we can use our power as citizens to affect the root causes of hunger and poverty, and not just put a Band-Aid on the problem. A great book for anyone who cares about this issue, but especially for Christians who understand the teachings of Jesus to mean that we are obligated to care for all of God's children.

If you are not put off by all the god-talk, this is a wonderful book, filled with important information and clear analysis. Ever wondered how much money it would take to feed, clothe, educate, and provide running water for all the world's people? About 40 million a year, or one-sixth of what America alone spends on National Defense annually. Ever wonder how the national budget breaks down: how much money is spent on international aid, or how the US compares to other industrial countries on these issues? It's in there. Ever wonder what practical steps you can take to alleviate national and global hunger? It's in there, along with many other important facts. My only complaint about this book: The authors of are too Christian and rather biased about the IMF and the World Bank, one of them having worked within the WB for many years. Even with its flaws, though, this book has a very important message. Check it out.

The insightful authors, both Lutheran ministers active with Bread for the World, start with a careful overview of the biblical teachings related to hunger and poverty and then examine the state of the hungry in the USA and throughout God's world. There is plenty in the book to celebrate: the percentage of those living in poverty in the USA has dropped in the last forty years, child mortality in developing countries is one half of what it was in 1960, world grain production per acre has doubled in the same time period, the global population's rate of growth is slowing, the proportion of hungry people in developing countries has fallen sharply, and the number of people who die in famines has also decreased in the last few decades. There is still far too much bad news: the percentage of U.S. children living in poverty (one in five) is triple that of other industrialized nations; thousands of children are dying daily in developing nations because of hunger (one child is dying for every breath we take); and less than one percent of our national budget goes for foreign assistance. The book's question and answer format makes for easy reading while its content can be troubling, but also inspiring for people of faith who can make a difference.

Follow Sherlock Holmes and his trusty colleague, Watson, in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's best murder mystery ever, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Watch while Sherlock Holmes uncovers the mysteries of the Baskerville Hall of London.

You and Sherlock Holmes get to discover all the clues of Charles Baskerville's mysterious death and protect Henry Baskerville from being murdered. You listen to stories of the notorious hound. Finally, before its too late, decide who is behind the murder of Charles Baskerville. Was it the baronet, Mr. And Mrs. Stapleton, or was it possibly Laura Lynes? Find out in the end.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle keeps you in suspense throughout the book. He keeps bringing in more leads to the story. The author also provides an interesting and intriguing topic with a tall tale creature tied in.

This book is wonderful and would be best appreciated by all readers 10 and up.

Familiar with his stories for years, I finally decided to buckle down and read one of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories of Sherlock Holmes, and "The Hound of the Baskervilles," the most famous of the novels, was the one I decided to pick up. To my surprise, I tore through it. It was a simple read, yet a complicated and satisfying mystery.

As with all the Holmes stories, his assistant Dr. Watson is charged with telling the tale of the bloody Baskerville curse. Sir Charles Baskerville, who was the charge of the family estate, has recently been gored to death by some sort of animal, and Sir Henry, the new heir to the household and the family fortune, fears that the mythic curse of a hellhound stalking the family grounds is true.

A strange twist occurs in this investigation, though, for it's not Holmes who goes to investigate the house. It's Watson, who studies the suspicious neighbors and staff, keeps close watch over Sir Henry and begins to notice that some very odd things are lurking about the moor.

Is the curse behind this killing, or is it a villain of flesh and blood?

The lead characters are defined well, and, though this is my first Holmes story, I understood the basics and the rhythm almost immediately. The narrative structure that Doyle is famous for is, as expected, charming, and the characters are well-defined. The mystery is properly twisted, and I didn't really guess the middle or the ending.

The best twist, to me, wasn't the reveal of any villain or method. It was the twist involving the shadowy figure on the moor. I didn't see it coming at all, and, when I read it, I realized that this old novel still had the narrative tools to surprise me.

It's a classic for a reason.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was an excellent book, and one of the best mysteries I have ever read. Holmes, the superhuman detective, is asked to investigate the death of Charles Baskerville, which many believe to be the work of the ferocious hound, a curse brought about by the misdeeds of Hugo Baskerville. When Sir Henry inherits the estate, Holmes must solve the mystery before another Baskerville meets his end!

This novel has one of the most complex plots of any mystery, with many unexpected twists, and is one that will keep you reading until its suspenseful, engrossing climax. The setting is also well put together, and the danger of the foggy moor only adds to the drama.

This story had huge appeal for me, largely because of the believability of the characters. Holmes, Watson, and Henry are very realistic - and people that I would want to know. Holmes was so real to many readers, that they actually wrote to 221 Baker Street, his fictional address!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not only a great mystery writer, but a wonderful novelist as well. This novel is proof that he really deserved the title of knight!

The French title for this book is translated "Saint-Simon and the Court System." Neither title is correct. Le Roy Ladurie has written two books. The first six chapters is a discussion of social hierarchy as interpreted by the duc de Saint-Simon looking at the court of Louis XIV. The last two chapters are a history of the Regency (1715-23). The first chapters contain no narrative history except for a biography of Saint-Simon and the last two contain no social analysis but are a discussion of the political history of the Regency.

To understand much of Le Roy Ladurie's books, the reader should know that the French education system for potential university students emphasizes on exams something called "explication de texte." The student is given a quote by someone (a politician or writer) and maybe a date. The student is expected in an essay to identify the person making the quote and that person's importance, the importance of the quote, and how it relates to history or literature or philosophy or whatever in order to demonstrate the student's knowledge and education. This book like many of Le Roy Ladurie's books is an extended explication de texte. The text in this case is thousands of pages of the memoirs of Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755).

Saint-Simon lived at the court of Louis XIV centering on Versailles starting in 1691 until the king's death in 1715. Then, when his friend the duc d'Orléans became Regent for the five-year-old Louis XV, Saint-Simon had an insider's view of court politics until his friend's death in 1723. Shortly thereafter Saint-Simon was told to leave the court. He was a has-been at age 48 or, more precisely, a never-was. His most important job had been as Ambassador to Spain to negotiate a marriage between Louis XV and a Spanish princess, a marriage that never took place. Some fifteen years after leaving court Saint-Simon began writing his memoirs.

Saint-Simon was an aristocratic prig, a puritanical gossip who believed that, as a duke and a peer of Frence, his class of people deserved the highest honors and positions within French politics after the royal family and its relatives. He described people of lesser social origin as vile nobodies, people from nowhere, and people who did not deserve their positions. He refused to believe that talent could or should allow people to rise in society. He dismissed immorality and corruption, believed illegitimate children were immoral because they were the products of immorality, detested the Jesuits, and despised Louis XIV because the king never granted Saint-Simon his due. The king in one of only three conversations he had with the little duke told Saint-Simon that he had to learn to hold his tongue. Louis XIV could not abide people who chattered incessantly, criticized others openly, or talked about people behind their backs. The king would never pick someone for a position who had so little self-control. Le Roy Ladurie does not mention this story.

Nor does Le Roy Ladurie mention that there exists another source for the end of Louis XIV's reign, the Journal of the Marquis de Dangeau who kept a daily record of events at court from 1684 until his death in 1719. Saint-Simon began his preparations for writing his memoirs by annotating Dangeau's journal, especially anytime the marquis mentions someone. The little duke would then write out as much as he could remember about that person. Although Dangeau has never been published in English, Saint-Simon has had several editions, all of them abridged. The best French editions of his work are thousands of pages long with annotations to explain events and identify people or Saint-Simon's unusual vocabulary. The little duke's style is said to have influenced Proust with its niggling details and loving idiosyncratic descriptions.

Saint-Simon's memoirs are filled with the names of over 10,000 people. They are like an extended phone book with long descriptions of this person or that while the plot takes a back seat. Saint-Simon was an intellectual aristocrat who knew lots of people and, like the Bourbons, he learned nothing and forgot nothing. His memoirs are his revenge for every slight, real or imagined. Yet, in some ways they are the only published source for a lot of the history of this forgotten period of French history. Le Roy Ladurie, however, ignores the history of France from 1691 until 1715 and then gives us eighty pages of political history for the Regency.

Le Roy Ladurie is mesmerized by Saint-Simon's discussion of cabals at court in 1709. He wrote an article on this section of the memoirs over 25 years ago. He repeated his analysis in a series of lectures at Johns Hopkins twenty years ago. Simply stated by 1709 according to Saint-Simon, Louis XIV's court had three groupings: the king's courtiers, his son's courtiers, and his adult grandson's courtiers. Yet, like Saint-Simon, Le Roy Ladurie goes into overtime explaining this person's relation to that one, and how the whole mess worked. The fact that people gathered around the heir to the throne or the heir's heir is not news. It was normal behavior in a monarchical system. Le Roy Ladurie's mistake is to think that the snapshot given in 1709 has an existence that extended into the Regency. Thus, these groups seem like political parties with a life of their own.

Louis XIV had the misfortune to survive both his son who died in 1711 and his grandson who died in 1712. In addition, some of the major personalities in these factions also died. Yet, Le Roy Ladurie goes on about this cabal and that having to be placated by the Regent with no evidence from Saint-Simon to support the claim that these groups maintained any cohesion after 1709 much less sfter the deaths of their leaders.

This book is filled with typos as well as mistakes by the author. For example, he discusses the first known writing of Saint-Simon coming from the death of Louis XIV's daughter-in-law in 1689, except that she died in 1690. He has people living for years after they had died, repeats in the text what he has said in the footnotes previously. I gave this book three stars because it has some value but it is not an exciting read except for those of us who have an interest in this period of French history, one that was recently called "The Black Hole of French History" because so little research or writing has been done on it. In that sense, Le Roy Ladurie has made a significant contribution.

Gossip and intrigue abound in this brilliant new book on the Court of Louis XIV. Leroy Ladurie is simply one of the smartest historians around. He looks at the Sun King's multi-layered and busy court through the lens of the Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755), a courtier and phenomenal chronicler of court life who left thousands of pages describing the intrigues, personalities, activities and gossip of life at Versailles. The result is a fascinating portrait of life under Louis XIV, a life driven by hierarchy, rank, and blood. Great book about obsessive, ruthless social climbing at its worst and best.

The author certainly knows his stuff, citing some truly obscure passages from one of the most prolific writers in the Western canon. His overall conclusion is that Erasmus was not at all anti-Semitic in the modern meaning of the word. Erasmus was certainly unsympathetic to Jewish religion, and often used it as an example of egregious formalism that should be avoided in Christianity. One of his favorite phrases was "a more than Jewish ceremonialism". One converted Jew, a vitriolic critic and unrelenting persecutor one of Erasmus' associates, so angered Erasmus that, in one letter, he lashed out against the fellow in terms that would embarass us. Yet this is counterbalanced by a great many statements spread over many years insisting that the Jews should be treated fairly and as humans, that the only Christian course of action was to tolerate and preach to them. The book is badly marred by an afterward contributed by Arthur A Cohen, who disregards the mass of data that Markish presents and flatly declares that "Erasmus is no street anti-Semite...but he is surely within a great tradition of contempt... that leads straight to the death camps." Given the massive and carefully documented evidence that Markish presents, Cohen's undocumented diatribe adds only an ugly chunk of posturing political correctness to an otherwise scholarly book. And yes, Markish is Jewish.

The book is very detailed and comprehensive, but it is not easy to read and probably not suitable for beginners. Specifically, it does not provide complete examples with inputs, code, and output. There are also plenty of typos and small errors.

Still, in all fairness, this is a very comprehensive book with lots of topics not covered in other books. Also the paper is of good quality. Probably every advanced user should go through the book to pick up on things other books leave out.

This is a very good Perl book! For beginners, intermediates or even advanced programmers in Perl. The book takes you from the basics to advanced applied Perl programming concepts.
The book manages what many others fail to do: It might be the only Perl book you ever need. If you worked through this book, additional information is readily available on the Internet. This book is comprehensive enough to cover everything you need to know about the Perl language to write large scale 'mission critical' applications.
Admitted, if you already own the O'Reillys 'Learning Perl', 'Perl' and 'Perl Cookbook' this book will not contain many news. However, it is written very well and it is understandable, something I cannot always say about the 'original' Perl books or documentation.
If you do web programming, a logical addition to this book is 'Professional Perl Development' which offers lots of good information on how to design sophisiticated web applications.

This is an excellent, thorough, fairly advanced book.

Until now, I was an o'reilly zealot, clinging to my camel book and my CD bookshelf as the Only True Word.

Finally, here is the first real competitor to that series of books, with a fresh approach to the language that shows that the authors really know what they are doing.

So far, the book has done a great job covering all my industrial-strength perl questions with _examples that work_ and clear, concise explanations of the methods and the context. I find that the examples are really applicable to my professional needs as a contract perl programmer.

There's a great section on object-oriented perl, as well as a good debugging section.

IMHO, This is the best perl book out in a while.