Book Review: The Russian's World: Life and Language (Genevra Gerhart)

If I wanted to give someone a thorough introduction to the Russian language and culture using only one book, I would most likely choose The Russian's World: Life and Language, by Genevra Gerhart.  This book, at 418 pages (that is, including indices and appendices -- the pages of actual content amounts to around 380), gives you an overview on what you need to know to get around if you were to begin studying/traveling/living in Russia.  Topics like superstitions, popular Russian names, wedding traditions, politeness and formality are all addressed in this book, and in fine detail.  That's not to say, however, that this book is only useful to beginners.  I've been studying Russian for 6-7 years now and have spent two academic years in Russia, but just from perusing this book I picked up a lot of information that I didn't previously know. 

The book deals with practical topics that most travelers should have a background in, such as the names of different types of clothing in Russian, but it also delves into areas that are highly specific, such as being able to read aloud complex mathematical formulas and equations (on the level of calculus, for example), in Russian.  The format of this review will be a bit different than my others -- the main reason is that I can't really think of anything negative to say about this book, so I will mostly talk about the structure of the book and the way the topics are introduced.  To answer the question of "Who should buy this book", I would say "everyone", because I think that no matter how extensive your background in Russian (language and culture) may be, there is something to be gained from reading this book.  I don't think you could go wrong with bringing a copy of this book to Russia -- it could serve very useful along with the most updated version of the Lonely Planet guide to Russia.

Overview of the Book

The book is divided into five general "parts", consisting of 2-5 sections each (which are, in turn, divided into subsections -- each section has on average 7 sections, and all of this is indicated neatly in the Table of Contents).  The names of all of the sections and subsections are given in both English and Russian (with stress marks!)

Each section is devoted to a general topic in Russia (some examples:  Food, Education, Transportation, Medicine).  Since this is by no means a textbook on the Russian language or culture, it is not necessary to read the book sequentially from beginning to end -- it makes much more sense to skip around and read what interests you most.  That said, if you are completely new to Russian and just want to get the basic phrases down, then it's worth starting with the first chapter, because that's the chapter where the basic phrases like "hello", "excuse me", etc. are covered. 

The bulk of the text for each section is written in English, but there are many Russian words interspersed within the English texts.  In some places they take the forms of separate "vocabulary lists", where key Russian words are listed next to their English translations, and in other places they are simply talked about within the text.  There are also places where quotes and aphorisms are given in Russian, with their rough English translations included immediately afterward.  Occasionally longer texts in Russian will be presented (usually about a paragraph in length), and for these the translations are given at the Translations subsection (each section has a separate 'Translations' subsection at the very end).  There are a lot of pictures and diagrams to go along with the text -- the diagrams range from acute and obtuse angles to the layout of typical Russian houses to different cuts of meat (with the Russian names of each cut indicated) to pictures of different animals, flowers, and mushrooms (with their Russian names, of course, included). There are even guides on how to read braille and morse code in Russian, as well as a complete Periodic Table of the Elements in Russian.

If you can't read Cyrillic yet, you should probably just look at a basic Russian textbook (such as Golosa or The New Penguin Russian Course -- though the latter does not come with audio) to get acquainted with the alphabet.  The Russian's World has a guide to Cyrillic transliteration on the very last page, and Chapter 13 deals with the history of the Russian alphabet and different dialects of Russian, but this book isn't the best place to learn the letters and their sounds (in addition, there aren't any audio cassettes or CDs that come with this book, so it's best to consult a Russian if you need to hear how something sounds but don't yet know how to read it).  This book does not use any type of transliteration or Romanization.

One other thing I want to mention is that this book does a good job of listing references to other sources of information.  One of the appendices is called "Some References From The Beginning To The End of Russian", and it mentions some useful resources for both intermediate learners and students on the graduate level (I saw some references to publications by Розенталь, Даль, Зализняк in the list).  References are also credited within the chapters themselves -- Даль's etymological dictionary in particular is mentioned often.

Finally, I want to mention again -- this is not a textbook, but it is a comprehensive guide to Russian culture with great opportunities to expand your language skills as well.  Even if you don't plan to talk about differential equations in Russian anytime soon, I think it's still great to see what kinds of words and roots are being used to talk about such things, and it is rare to see any Russian-learning resources to delve so deeply into these topics.

Book Review - Streetwise Russian (Jack Franke, Ph.D)

No one can claim to have a complete knowledge of Russian slang.  Experts believe that every hour 50 new slang terms appear in the Russian language, just like in English.  Nevertheless, it is important to study slang because it is organic and, most likely, a necessary part of the language.  — Streetwise Russian

I have mentioned in previous blog posts that slang is an important part of any language, and becoming highly proficient in a foreign language involves not only being able to understand formal speech, but also being able to work your way through situations where informal language is more prevalent - such as dealing with younger generations.  

It has been difficult to find high-quality English-language resources for Russian slang - some are simply outdated, while others devote too much attention to русский мат (the most offensive Russian obscenities).  Streetwise Russian, by Jack Franke, Ph.D., is an exception - it is full of dialogues, cultural notes, commentary on word formation, practice exercises, and even a CD full of .mp3 files so that the reader can listen to all of the dialogues and vocabulary words from the glossary.  I would say that this is the best English-language resource I've seen so far for Russian slang.

Book Structure

 

The book starts off with a short introduction and then proceeds to the main section of the book.  There are 11 chapters in total, and they are divided into the following sections:

Section I:  Guy Talk - "Guy Talk", "Military Service", "Drinking"
Section II: Girl Talk - "Girl Talk", "The New Russians", "At the Club", "In the Groove", "Boutique Shopping"
Section III: Teenager Talk - "Don't Play Dumb", "Hot Bodies", "Stay Cool"

Each chapter contains 1-3 dialogues.  The conversation in Russian is given first, then its translation in English.  Following that is a vocabulary section (each slang Russian word is provided in the left column, while the English translation and equivalent literary Russian words are provided in the right column).  After that are exercises to practice your knowledge (matching columns, sentence translations, crossword puzzles) and a page or two of cultural notes regarding whatever topic the dialogues focus on. 

Following this section is the answer key to all of the exercises and crossword puzzles, and then an English/Russian and Russian/English index for all of the vocabulary words.

Audio Material

There is a large amount of audio material for this course.  For each chapter, separate audio files in .mp3 format are given for each of the conversations, the vocabulary words introduced in each chapter, and any Russian words or sentences that appear in the "Cultural Notes" section.  A separate .mp3 file is also given for each individual Russian word/phrase in the glossary.  All of this can be accessed by browsing the folders on the CD.

Positive Aspects

This book was released in 2010, which automatically gives this book an edge over other slang-related materials I've used which were released in the 1990s and 2000s.  As I have mentioned in other posts, the year of publication carries a lot of weight when it comes to slang-related materials, since slang expressions tend to change at a faster rate than standard forms of speech.  When looking through other books of slang expressions, such as Topol's Dermo! or even the Dirty Russian book (which Viktoriya of FunRussian.com gave a great review of), I noticed that there were many phrases in those books that I had never heard, despite having spent a lot of time around young people in Russia.  As I looked through Streetwise Russian, on the other hand, I constantly saw phrases that I remembered hearing on a day-to-day basis in Russia. 

The intro to the book was well-written.  It was very brief and only lasted a couple of pages, but it gave a clear indication of who should and shouldn't use this book, and how the book should be used.

Going a little deeper, I saw that the "Vocabulary" section included not only English translations of each of the slang words, but also synonyms in standard literary Russian for each word.  I think that this is very important.  Ideally, when one learns a foreign language, one should have a strong foundation in standard expressions that can be used with all audiences before delving into slang words that are only acceptable when you are having a very informal conversation with friends.  This book does a good job of providing different ways, both slang and literary, to express a given situation.  The only thing that bothers me about that section is that sometimes other slang terms are given along with the "neutral" literary forms, though according to the intro, the book is geared more towards those who already know the standard forms.

Another thing that stood out - and I'm going to consider this a positive aspect - is that there is no мат at all (despite having a fair share of words that are very rude nevertheless).  There are some euphemisms here and there, but most of the slang words in this book have no connection to мат.  It is nice to see a comprehensive book on slang that shows that there is more to colloquial Russian speech than spouting obscenities, especially considering that мат tends to get a disproportionate amount of coverage.

Last but not least, I want to mention how great it is that this course came with audio.  Many books, especially those dealing with slang, lack audio, so this is a big plus!

Negative Aspects

I want to preface this by saying that this is an extremely good book - the things I am pointing out are for the most part just nitpicks and probably shouldn't dissuade you from getting this book.

The first negative thing that stood out to me was that none of the Russian dialogues or vocabulary words have stress marks.  Now, the presence of audio material does partially make up for this flaw, but it would still be good to have the stress marks in case one loses the CD or mp3 files.  Given the amount of hard work that went into making this book, I can't imagine that it would ahve been that difficult to put stress marks above all of the Russian words.

Now for some specifics.  The lesson discussing the Russian army hazing (дедовщина) contains a short list of links to Internet videos on the subject.  I have a number problems with this.  First, whether you own the hard copy of the book or the .PDF file, you are going to have to type in the URLs yourself (one is a YouTube URL, one is to a video hosted on comcast.com, and one is a RuTube URL that was shortened with Tinyurl).  I don't think most people would have the patience to meticulously type in each URL, especially given the fact that the book doesn't tell what each video is about (other than the fact that they all are related to Russian army hazing).  The second problem is that these videos are all hosted on public video hosting sites.  I checked them out and the links do work, but it is a well-known fact that videos on YouTube and other places have a habit of disappearing; the channel owner may close his channel, YouTube may shut down the channel, or the owner might decide he doesn't want the videos up anymore.  Lastly, I think URL shorteners like Tinyurl should be avoided in all professional publications.  You can't tell what address a Tinyurl will lead you to, and URL shorteners have been used in the past to direct unsuspecting users to sites that have viruses.  Now, how could this problem have been solved?  I think that this book should have included all video material on the CD itself (with acknowledgments as to where the videos originally came from).  The тусовка chapter also suffers from this problem - some of the URLs contain long sequences of letters and numbers - most people wouldn't have the patience to type all that out. 

There is a sentence that reads "Whereas in English there are usually feminine names for weapons and military equipment, Russian uses both male and female names."  There are two things wrong with this statement - first, "male" and "female" refer to biological sex, never to the gender of a word.  "Masculine and feminine" should be used instead.  Also, Russian not only uses masculine and feminine names, but neuter ones too (the word бревно is given as one of the examples.)

I mentioned that the lack of мат is a positive aspect, but since this book contains euphemisms for the мат expressions, I think an asterisk or some other symbol should have been included to indicate that it is a мат-derived euphemism, just to be safe. 

Who should use this book?

This book has a lot of practical value and it would be a good idea to look through it before going on a trip to Russia (or any Russian-speaking country).  Aside from the slang, there is some good information in the cultural notes of each chapter, such as a list of toasts for men and women on different occasions, common Russian superstitions, rules on forming Russian words with prefixes and suffixes (actually pretty thorough!).

There is also a nice discussion of Russian slang in general, how it is used, how certain words have shifted in and out of slang over time, etc.

Because this book contains exercises, it could probably be used in a classroom too if they wanted to do a unit on Russian slang.

So if you're interested in Russian slang, definitely pick up this book along with Barron's Dictionary of Russian Slang!

Book Review - Barron's Dictionary of Russian Slang and Colloquial Expressions (Vladimir Shlyakhov and Eve Adler)

In my recent review where I criticized the contents of Edward Topol's book, Dermo!, I mentioned that people interested in Russian slang should instead look at Barron's Dictionary of Russian Slang and Colloquial Expressions, by Vladimir Shlyakhov and Eve Adler.  I want to expand a bit on what I like about this book and add a few words on how this book could be improved.

Book Structure

The first section of this book contains a couple of prefaces - if you have a serious interest in this subject, it is worth it to look at these prefaces.  The first preface talks about how Russian slang had not been documented very well during the Soviet era, and that significant interest in Russian slang manifested itself only after the fall of the Soviet Union.  The titles and authors of some publications from the 1990s about Russian slang (all in Russian) are listed, as well as some American publications about Russian slang (some of these date back to the 1970s). This section also talks about the book's relevance in linguistics and sociolinguistics, and gives instructions on how to use the book when searching for idioms.

Following this section is a page with the prefixes to the second and third editions of the dictionary.  The most recently-released edition, and the one that I am currently using, is the third edition, published in 2006.  The preface mentions that new words and expressions have been added since its last publication in 1999, which is a good thing.  I would expect that some time during this decade, a fourth edition will be made with even more recent words.

Unlike Topol's book which was filled with anecdotes and tangents, this book is clearly a dictionary and it doesn't pretend to be anything other than that.  After the prefaces is the main section, containing more than 5,000 words on 329 pages.  The book goes from only Russian to English, not the other way around.

Positive Aspects

My overall impression of this book is a positive one.  The entries for each Russian word are bolded, and an acute accent is placed over the vowel that should be stressed.  The only thing I don't understand is why the stress marks aren't included in the example Russian sentences.

This book also does a good job at providing the necessary forms/endings so that whoever uses this book will be able to accurately use these words, provided that they already have some background in Russian grammar.  For nouns, the gender and genitive forms are included (since knowing those two things allows you to make accurate predictions about what the noun's other endings will be).  Verbs contain both the imperfective and perfective forms (this is a huge plus), and adjectives contain the feminine and neuter endings next to the default (masculine) ending.  Literary translations are sometimes given for certain words/expressions, and example sentences are provided as a context for most of the words.

Negative Aspects

Besides the fact that the example Russian sentences didn't contain stress marks, there was one other thing that bothered me.  It wasn't made clear in this book where the example sentences were coming from - were they invented by the authors themselves, or were they from some outside sources?  Either way, it would have been useful to know the relative time frame in which each word was used.  I would suspect that the vast majority of words in this book are words that were discovered during the 1990s and 2000s, but it would still be nice to see a year or several years attached to each word (or at least have a special marker identifying which words are new to the 2006 edition). 

Also, even though many words from русский мат are included in this book, they are only marked as rude.  The problem is that many Russian words and expressions are rude, but not all of them are мат.  This could have been differentiated with a simple abbreviation.

Who should use this book?

I recommend this book for anyone who has some knowledge of Russian and wants to start learning about slang.  Those who want to go even further can check out the Russian-language materials mentioned in the preface.

Book Review - Dermo! The Real Russian Tolstoy Never Used (Edward Topol)

When people decide to learn foreign languages, they often take an interest in learning obscene expressions and other fun, colorful phrases.  I don't blame them!  I, too, find these phrases fascinating, even though I try to avoid using them in speech.  My stance on all this is as follows:  no matter how much you may dislike offensive language, it's better to learn these words and be able to recognize them, than to ignore them and pretend they don't exist. 

In fact, if you really don't like using foul language, and you want to make sure that nothing you say will offend the wrong person, then you should definitely study the lexical units that make up the body of русский мат.  Without this knowledge, you may get into an awkward situation. 

Let's say a close Russian friend of yours who likes teach you a new way of saying "Awesome!".  That word for awesome happens to contain one of the four lexical units that make up the body of русский мат.  This means that even though it's a phrase meant to express positive emotions, the root makes the word automatically offensive.  This basically means that if you don't take a closer look at the words people (especially your younger friends) teach you, you risk unknowingly using rude language and potentially offending someone. 

In this blog post I will refrain from typing out any explicit examples of мат, but for those who want to acquaint themselves with the necessary lexical units, look at this page and make note of the first four major bulleted entries.  The other words on the page are also fair game in terms of rudeness, but the first four are the ones to focus on. 

Now, why am I talking so much about мат?  It's because I'm reviewing Edward Topol's book on Russian slang, titled Dermo! 

In short, I wasn't impressed by this book.  From the style of writing, it seems like more of a fluff-filled book intended to humor people rather than a legitimate reference on Russian slang.  What's disappointing is that the book could have been a lot better if certain things about the transliteration system were improved (more on that in the Negative Aspects section), but without those things being fixed, the contents are basically useless as far as language-related information.  Topol touches a bit on various cultural nuances, but I found his "advice" dubious.  Now, it's very possible that Topol wrote most of this book in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but not every Russian learner who buys this book will pick up on that.

If you're seriously interested in Russian slang and want to buy a book on it (one that is written in English), get a copy of Barron's Dictionary of Russian Slang, by Vladimir Shlyakhov and Eve Adler.  The latest version is from 2006, and you'll get more out of the Barron's book than Topol's book. 

Publishing Information

The full title of this book is Dermo!  The Real Russian Tolstoy Never Used, and it was written by Edward Topol.  Topol is a Russian novelist who primarily writes in Russian, and this book is one of the few (or perhaps the only one) that he's written in English.  

Looking at the inside cover, one can see that this book was published in 1997.  That is, 16 years before the time of this post. 

In most cases, I wouldn't consider this to be a big deal, but we're dealing with slang and colloquial expressions.  16 years can make a huge difference.  There are, of course, many expressions that survive the test of time very well, but I wouldn't be surprised if many of the words and phrases in this book now sound quite dated. 

Book Structure

The book contains an introduction, ten chapters, a 15-page glossary (Russian to English), and a brief 2-page glossary (English to Russian).  The chapters are arranged by theme (insults, business, sex, general phrases, etc), and all contain word lists (the Russian word, its transliteration, and an English translation).  Some chapters have examples of Russian poetry, commentary about Russians by Topol, personal anecdotes, or other musings on Russian culture.  The Russian-to-English glossary is in alphabetical order and covers most of the Russian words mentioned in the book.  The English-to-Russian glossary is far shorter (only two pages) and is more like a "cheat-sheet" for quickly translating English swearwords into Russian. 

Positive Aspects

I criticize this book pretty heavily in this post (partly so that future writers of such books can learn from these errors!), but I do think it's good that people write more about Russian slang, especially in English.  The informal, almost silly tone of this book has the potential to kindle interest in slang among casual learners, and they may delve into more serious resources afterwards. 

Another redeeming quality of this book is that Topol does in some cases include literal translations of certain phrases, which I think is important.  Not all books do this, so it is a plus!

Negative Aspects

The transliteration system leaves much to be desired.  This book includes a "Translator's Note" at the beginning, including a sentence that reads: Russian words presented in the Roman alphabet have not been transliterated according to any of the standard transliteration systems; priority has been placed on ease of pronunciation.

I'm not sure what to make of this.  Ease of pronunciation?  I notice that the first page of the book contains the word *трехэтажным. It's supposed to be трёхэтажным, but the ё somehow got omitted even in the transliteration.  (In the book, it reads *trekhetazhnim rather than tryokhetazhnym.  If the person reading this book didn't already know this word, he might have never thought there was supposed to be a yo sound).  Let's look at this word again... uh-oh! It looks like the ы was also not properly transliterated.  This is just from looking at the first page, but it gives you an idea of how inconsistent this book is about showing how things should be pronounced.  Not to mention that there are also some places where the transliteration is just plain wrong - разэдакий is transliterated in the book as *razyedakiy.  The letter э is never transliterated as ye, and there is no ye sound in the word, so why is there a ye in the transliteration?

Now, one could say that I'm making too big of a deal here.  One could say that these flaws are not all that serious - anyone who's studied Russian for a couple of years would know the basic sounds of all the letters, would know about о and е reduction, and probably wouldn't need the transliteration at all.  BUT, there is one enormous pet peeve that I haven't mentioned yet.  There is a complete absence of stress marks.  That is, there are no signs whatsoever, neither in the Cyrillic, nor in the transliterations.  This is, hands down, the biggest problem I have with this book.  I mean, let's say that you do want to use offensive language for some reason and you decide to  write down phrases from this book and pronounce them as you think they should be pronounced.  Unless you're already near-native, you'll probably make a load of mistakes.  (Though, even if you manage to pronounce them all the way they were meant to be pronounced, you'll probably end up sounding like you're from 1997.)

Another problem with this book is that Topol does not always show which words are мат and which are not.  Sometimes it's already obvious, like when the English translation also contains harsh language.   But, as I mentioned in the intro, it's not so obvious when the word has been translated into English as something not explicitly obscene.  The book also happens to have sections containing ordinary, non-slang phrases like доброе утро, спасибо, and the like, and мат-based words and other rude expressions are mixed in with these benign phrases.  So, if I were Topol, I would have included a system of symbols to go with each word (for example, (!!!) means мат, (!!) means rude language that isn't considered мат, (!) means informal/colloquial language that isn't considered rude, etc.)

The last thing I want to mention are Topol's commentary on Russians, life in Russia, doing business in Russia, etc.  Some of Topol's personal anecdotes might be amusing for some, but I would take any of his cultural marks about Russians with a grain of salt.  If you want a good reference on Russian culture and traditions, get The Russian's World: Life and Language by Genevra Gerhart - it's a very informative book. 

Who should use this book?

I can't strongly recommend this book to any type of person in particular.  An advanced learner of Russian who's curious about Russian slang that may be outdated may get something out of this book, but I say if you're already at an advanced level and want a serious look, get the Barron's book and/or find some Russian-language publications on the subject.

Book Review: Roots of the Russian Language - An Elementary Guide of Wordbuilding (George Z. Patrick, Ph.D)

Expanding your vocabulary in any foreign language is a challenging task.  Fortunately, there are many materials out there that makes this task a lot easier for those who study Russian.  George Z. Patrick's Roots of the Russian Language is one book that I consider valuable to any learner of the Russian language who wants to examine the morphology of Russian words.

Publishing Information

 

The original publication of this book took place in 1959.  This review will deal with the 1989 version of the book, published by Passport Books (part of the NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group).  Mentions of specific pages are in reference to the 1989 version with the dark red cover as seen in this picture.  

Book Structure 

 

The first thirteen pages of the book are devoted to morphology.  In this section you will find a brief explanation of stems, roots, prefixes, and suffixes, as well as a list of the most commonly used prefixes and suffixes.  There is also some discussion of consonant changes within roots (such as к/ч, г/ж, х/ш, ск/щ, etc.) in this section.  

After this is the second section, which is the main focus of the book.  The roots are presented as a header - the Russian root (and any of its variations) are underlined, and its main English translations are written next to the root.  Below this header are two columns.  The left-hand column contains vocabulary words and their English translations.  The right-hand column contains an example sentence (one per vocabulary word), and a rough translation of the sentence.  The sentences are translated more for their meaning as a whole rather than a literal breakdown of the words, though a literal translation is included in a few places.  Some of the roots have only three or four word-sentence pairs listed underneath, while others have as many as fifteen (generally, roots that appear in a large amount of frequently used words will have more pairs listed underneath them). 

The third section, only five pages long, contains practice exercises very much like those found in morphology textbooks in Russia.

The fourth and final section is the index, divided into an index of words and an index of roots, so that both can be looked up according to page number.

Positive Aspects

 

Whenever a Russian word is used in this book, the correct stress is marked with an acute accent, ensuring that those who learn new words from this book will pronounce them correctly.

Some of the example sentences used are pretty interesting.  Occasionally a popular phrase will be used, such as Бедность не порок (Poverty is not a crime).  It's good to know such phrases if you plan on learning about Russian culture as well as the language.

Negative Aspects

 

­This book contains a few minor orthographical errors.  On page 65, there are two example sentences where the particle ли is incorrectly attached to the preceding word with a hyphen (two sentences at the bottom of the page begin with *читали-ли and *видели-ли).  The rules of Russian orthography state that the particle ли is to be written separately from the preceding word and without a hyphen. 

Also, the short "practice exercise" section in the third part of the book is unnecessary.  No answer key is provided, so it's not possible for a person doing the exercises to quickly "check" his or her answers afterwards.  The book is more of a reference book than a textbook, so it is strange that the author even decided to include exercises.

Who should use this book?

 

I recommend Roots of the Russian Language to intermediate or advanced learners of Russian.  If you already have a sizable vocabulary under your belt, you'll get the most from browsing the lists.  For example, you may be at the point in your Russian studies where the words иметь, приятный, and снимок may already be second nature to you.  But would you have guessed on your own that these three words all share the root ем-/им-/я-, meaning "possess, have"?  Probably not.  That's where this book comes in - it allows you to examine what you already know, and then make educated guesses about the roots of words you don't know.  The morphological breakdown of each listed word (e.g. при-н-им-ать) helps a great deal with this process. 

That said, if you are at the level where you are writing academic papers on the topic of Russian roots, this book will probably be too oversimplified for you.  While the list of roots is a fairly extensive list, it is still just that - a list.  There is no discussion of the etymology or additional commentary within the lists.  If you want an in-depth source for the etymology of Russian words, go look at Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary.  The Yandex online dictionary is also not a bad alternative, since it draws from reputable sources such as the works of N. M. Shanskiy.  The site is in Russian, but I would expect that people interested in the specifics of Russian etymology would already have a high reading proficiency.

If you are a complete beginner to the language and aren't interested in taking a precursory glance at the morphology, save this book for later and pick up The New Penguin Russian Course in the meantime.  Roots of the Russian Language is not a textbook for learning the language, and it is not meant to be perused from cover to cover.  If you aren't very familiar with Russian, browsing the lists in this book will not be much more interesting than browsing the entries in a Russian-English dictionary.  Of course, if you are proficient in another Slavic language and can read Cyrillic, you may enjoy this book even at a beginner's level in Russian.  Same goes for those who can read Cyrillic and just like examining Slavic languages from a linguistic point of view.

All in all, I think that this book is something fun to look through from time to time.  If you like thumbing through dictionaries from time to time, or if you tend to be curious about how words are linked together in Russian,  go ahead and buy this book.