This collection includes two books of memoirs by the outstanding Russian composer Nikolai Nikolaevich Karetnikov (1930–1994): “Themes with Variations” (1990) and “Readiness for Being” (1992). According to the author, “the variety of people with whom I had to communicate and the events in which I had to participate seemed to me extremely interesting, important and even necessary for the phenomenology of time.” The heroes of N. N. Karetnikov’s autobiographical short stories were M. V. Yudina, V. Ya. Shebalin, G. G. Neugauz, Ya. B. Zeldovich, A. A. Galich, A. G. Gabrichevsky, D. D. Shostakovich , A.D. Sakharov, Father Alexander Men and many, many others.