Virtually anybody who prepares a list of the five greatest writers in world history will include at least one Russian on the list. If there is only one, that one should be Pushkin.

Unfortunately, Pushkin is given short shrift outside of his homeland. The reason is not hard to explain - most of his work is poetry, which translates badly. What's worse, even in translation his poetry wouldn't read any better than, say, Lermontov, whereas the difference would be obvious to a Russian, just as the difference between Shakespeare and Marlowe would be to an English speaker.

Pushkin's prose works provide a basis for remedying the situation. His stories are disarmingly simple and readable, just like his poetry. Yet practically every major Russian novelist of the nineteenth century acknowledged his debt to Pushkin as a model and crafter of prose, as well as a source of themes. This includes Gogol, Goncharov, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

My personal favorites are "The Captain's Daughter", "The Moor of Peter the Great", which is about Pushkin's own great grandfather, who was Ethiopian, and most of all "The Queen of Spades", which practically singlehandedly created the genre of stories of the supernatural. Any one of the stories can be done in one sitting (well, maybe one long sitting for a few of them). Do yourself a favor and make the acquaintance of one of the best writers that ever lived.

Given the crowded field of the 19th century writers of the Russian Empire, Pushkin is not appreciated enough. And it's understandable - with Gogol, Dostoievski, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Goncharov and Chekhov around, Pushkin gets squeezed out. His prose and his plays are wonderful to read even in translation, and if you're lucky enough to be able to read Russian, his poetry is simply unsurpassed among the Slavic poets, even the Polish Mickiewicz and the Ukrainian Shevchenko. Pushkin the poet belongs with Shakespeare, Goethe and Byron. Pushkin's stories are fun to read, and are a good introduction to the big league Russian Empire writers that follow him.

Pushkin is a master of the short story form. His stories are written in the clear, taut, concise form that he has become famous for. The Aiken translation is considered by many Russians to be the best. Especially recommended are the TALES OF BELKIN, The Postmaster. Have fun!

It was frightening to live through the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was a little kid but still recall how scared and tense my parents and teachers were: an all-pervasive feeling of dread. I'm sure today's children feel the same about 9-11-01, and in future years they may have memories about this September's tragedy similar to mine about those 13 days in 1962.

Fursenko and Naftali have done an admirable and thorough job detailing the rise of Castro and Cuban-American-Soviet relations during that period. It was overdue, since classics such as Graham Allison's Essence of Decision did not have the benefit of access to Soviet archives. The one criticism I have is that the authors almost overwhelm you with facts at the expense of interpretation. I didn't, for example, get a good sense of exactly why Fidel threw his lot in with the Soviets back in '60 when it was clear Moscow intended to keep Cuba going as a sugar colony--only at less than world prices!

(...)

Naftali and Fursenko have done a fascinating job in this tremendously engrossing book about the prelude, climax, and aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A complete revelation of the personalites of the three players, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro is compelling and informative. The reader will walk away with a new found appreciation for the back-channel diplomacy utilized at the height of the crisis, Overall, just a fine scholarly work, a must for all interested in international relations.

In One Hell of a Gamble, Fursenko and Naftali cut to the heart of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the surrounding politics. Due to the end of the Cold War, they were able to obtain many first-hand accounts of the superpower rivalry from the participants themselves. Using this newfound knowledge, they craft a timeless account of the behind-the-scenes politics that formed the backbone of US-Soviet relations during the Kennedy era. A chilling perspective is offered on how close the world really came to nuclear annihilation in the fall of 1962. Congrats to Fursenko and Naftali for producing a gripping work that I highly recommend to all students of the Cold War or politics in general.

I found this book to be very usefull to me and very informative. It's detail and ease of understanding is highly rated. I am impressed by the author's unique ways of explaining the subjects, something I always found myself unable to do. I definately recommend this book to anybody in this proffesion and think it's an essential addition to ones library.

I read the book "The Intermediate Electron Bond and Half-Reactions" written by Alexandr Chernomorskii with a great interest. Based on the theory and experimental study of a subject the author suggested a model of atomic structure of elements. His method for calculation of the first ionization potential for all elements of the Periodic System represents a new fundamental approach to the elements atomic structure. The suggestion that the electron bonds may be calculated as a sum of the intermediate coulomb bond and specific bond is a bright idea that could be applied in electrochemistry and other sciences. I recommend this book for researchers and specialists in natural science. The theory deserves to be noted and commended by those researchers. Leonid Pevzner, PhD"

The entirety of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" takes place on a winter day in 1951 in a Siberian labor camp. The title character, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, has been a prisoner there for the past eight years and has two more to go, provided his sentence isn't extended even longer for no reason at all. As a Soviet soldier in World War II, he was imprisoned after being accused of spying for the Germans, but the novel is concerned more with his daily routine at the camp than with the politics behind his imprisonment.

Like anybody who's been in a highly structured and disciplined environment for a long time, Shukhov has developed his own individualized way of living day to day, bending the rules, avoiding punishment, and making life a little more bearable under the circumstances. Temperatures are commonly well below zero and the food is barely nutritional enough to keep the prisoners alive, but Shukhov has adapted well enough to know how to stay warm and make the most out of his meals. On this particular day, Shukhov's squad is forced to work construction; the novel describes how well Shukhov has honed his masonry skills as he expertly lays blocks and mortar building a wall for a building that will be used to hold future prisoners. Life at the camp has made him tough and independent; his only weakness is tobacco, for which he will beg, borrow, or steal.

The novel is based on Solzhenitsyn's own experience as a labor camp prisoner under Stalin's reign, and therefore it has a sincere, natural, brutal quality that not even someone like Orwell could imitate. More than anything, though, it portrays a man whose spirit is strong enough to triumph over the most extreme adversity. Case in point: There is another prisoner named Fetiukov, a sniveling weasel who cries about his harsh treatment. Shukhov observes that Fetuikov won't survive his imprisonment because he has the wrong attitude, which is why he can't help but feel a little sorry for the guy. This work is not only an indictment of the machinations of one of the twentieth century's most oppressive political systems; it also succeeds as a concise study in humanism.

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is just that - a detailed description of one day in the gulag: the humiliation, the struggle to survive the elements, the mindless labour, the petty indignities one suffers and the mistrust one has for your fellow inmates. It is a quick read - it really only takes an hour or two, but the mental and psychological toll it takes is tremendous - especially after you realize that what you have read is only one day of many, one day of perhaps years that will be spent in an identical manner. After reading the book, you are literally drained emotionally; this above anything else makes it a masterpiece. There are no riveting characters, the plot is simply survival. Yet you empathize with Ivan and his fellows, as you empathize with Solzhenitsyn, who wrote this book largly based on personal experience. While I heartily recommend this book, I caution you not to read it if you are in a sunny disposition.

This book is an excellent example of the horrors of the Stalinist work camps (Gulag) that were in existence for most of Russia's modern history. Alexander Solzhenitsyn masterfully weaves descriptions of minute details, which, surprisingly, do not become tedious, but provide a better understanding of the task or action that the main character performs, with a universal theme that all people can relate to - survival. The title accurately describes the setting of the book; its entirety occurs in one day of the life of Ivan Denisovich, a prisoner. This may confuse some in that everyday tasks and unique events around this main character provoke flashbacks more often than not, and provide a complete picture of this man's life before he was imprisoned and since he has been serving his ten-year sentence. All in all, this book has a superior edge to most other books on this same subject in that its author, ALexander Solzhenitsyn, went through the same struggles as the main character of the novel, providing valuable insights, thoughts, and emotions that tie the novel together. An excellent read - one that I would recommend to anyone.

At least not in beleaguered central Europe, at any rate ("where Prague Central used to be called Masaryk Station. Formerly known as Ferdinand Station"). Yes, the map of eastern Europe has been redrawn how many times in the last century alone?? "But why get worked up over it?" shrugs Mikulas Svoboda, our anti-hero in Alexander Kliment's Living Parallel. Mikulas repeats this same refrain at least 15 times throughout the story, reflecting his helplessness living under the communist regime in 1960s Czechoslovakia. Like other people living in police states, he has learned to survive by living a double life. Who wouldn't feel a little schizophrenic getting schooled as a youngster first under the fascist regime in the 1930s, only to be later followed by the Soviet brand of brainwashing? Mikulas has forged an uneasy truce with his guilt in comlying with his Marxist bosses in designing prefab "ugly, gray kitsch(y) housing cells" for which the Soviets are now infamous; an architect by profession, he "can't cross the border of drudgery to creation." The crux of Living Parallel, though, is Mikulas' dilemma whether to take up the opportunity to emigrate West with a friend or to remain in his native Prague. His story then takes us through the convolutions of his thoughts and feelings as he debates the pro's and con's of leaving home. Yes, living under an oppressive regime is difficult (to say the least) but can Mikulas' finely honed talent of living a successful, parallel life be sufficient for him after all? This book is a complex one, difficult to summarize in a short review; questions of religious faith and politics are woven throughout the narrative. Originally published in 1977, Living Parallel was written by Alexander Kliment, a dissident whose work was banned in his native Czechoslovakia while under communist rule. It was translated by Robert Wechsler, who must be commended for painstaking work. Some of the most beautiful descriptions of the Prague landscape can be found within the pages of Living Parallel.