This is a translation of the second Czech edition of a book whose title translates as Methods for Solving Mathematical Problems, vol. II. It is a rich compendium of problems (310 worked examples, plus 650 exercises having hints or solutions at the back of the book), covering a wide range of topics in enumeration: binomial coefficients, inclusion/exclusion, the pigeon-hole principle, the orbit-counting formula, permutations, the combinatorics of elementary number theory (including M\"{o}bius inversion), the use of mathematical induction and of recursion relations, etc. Combinatorial problems in plane geometry are also considered, including some involving the coloring of points or regions, and some involving tilings. Despite the title Counting and Configurations, there is no discussion of combinatorial designs.

This book is aimed at the level of bright high school students or beginning college students. The problems were taken from a multiplicity of sources, including Mathematical Olympiads and other competitions, especially from Eastern Europe. The sources of individual problems are not acknowledged. For example, this reviewer's book Polyominoes is "Reference 1", and is specially recommended to those interested in further study of certain types of tiling questions; but individual results and problems taken from it are not identified as such. The translation is generally excellent, although "fields" is not the best word to refer to the cells, or squares, of a chessboard or other rectangular array.

This book would be ideal for preparing high school students for competitions such as the Mathematical Olympiads, and is an outstanding source of classroom and homework problems for college students taking a course in combinatorics. This book could be used as an auxiliary text, but probably not as the main text, in such a course.

Reviewed by S. W. Golomb