Question About the Quality of a Book

[Leigh Kimmel]

Greetings to everybody:

I've got a bit of a problem, and any input would be helpful.

While I was looking up another book to create a link in an essay, Amazon gave me a page for a new book on Nikolai Yezhov: _Nikolai Yezhov: NKVD, Great Purge, Maxim Gorky, Pseudonym, Bolshevik Revolution, Tsarist_ by Lambert M. Surhone (Editor), Mariam T. Tennoe (Editor), Susan F. Henssonow (Editor), published by Betascript Publishing.

Does anybody know anything about this book, these authors, or this publisher? The fact that it is already out of stock a month after it came out makes me think it may be a Print on Demand book. This isn't necessarily a danger sign (there are some very good small presses and micropresses that use POD technology), but in combination with the product description that seems to be the first part of a much longer summary arbitrarily cut off at Amazon's word limit and the subtitle that looks more like a collection of keywords to draw search engines, I have to admit I'm seeing an awful lot of red flags.

If this should somehow turn out to be a work that draws upon primary sources that haven't been used in previous English-language works, and its chief flaw is poor quality translation into English (or being written by non-native speakers without a thorough editing by a native speaker for idiomatic usage), then I'll consider trying to add it to my personal library, since it makes some interesting claims. However, if it's something tossed together from existing materials without any proper editing, I'd just as soon save my scarce funds for better quality works and stick with the biographies by Jansen and Getty.

Thanks in advance.
--
Leigh Kimmel -- writer, artist, historian and bookseller
leighkimmel at yahoo.com     http://www.leighkimmel.com/
http://www.billionlightyearbookshelf.com/
http://www.amazon.com/shops/starshipcat/


      

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