The Night of the First Billion
The Night of the First Billion

Author: Ghada Samman

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 2005-02-01

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 9780815608295

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Set in Geneva, Switzerland, around the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this intricately plotted novel probes the emotional misfortunes of Arab men and women fleeing the horror of war only to find their ways of life constantly challenged by their foreign surroundings. The author's scalding critique of the Lebanese situation resonates with strong sociopolitical issues. Here are telling portraits of class oppression and the role of women in Arab society, the treatments of war and sexuality, of immigration, of cultural assimilation and nationalism. With supreme artistry and insight—and in modern Arab literary fashion—Ghada Samman skillfully blends realism with fantasy into a highly stylized, thematically multilayered tale. It is at once a Gothic romance and a suspenseful whodunit with engaging characters. At the same time it is a gripping study of social injustice and the consequences of wartime upheaval. Far from home and out of harm's way, Samman's Lebanese exiles repeat and replay the very same conflicts that torment them in their own land even as it is under siege. The Night of the First Billion is an eloquent reminder that the only genuine security in the most profound and human sense of the word is to be found in the courageous willingness to confront, challenge, and finally to ease suffering.

The First Billion Is the Hardest
The First Billion Is the Hardest

Author: T. Boone Pickens

Publisher: Crown Currency

Published: 2009-09-08

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0307396010

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It’s Never Too Late to Top Your Personal Best. Both a riveting account of a life spent pulling off improbable triumphs and a report back from the front of the global-energy and natural-resource wars, The First Billion Is the Hardest tells the story of the remarkable late-life comeback that brought the famed oilman and maverick back from bankruptcy and clinical depression. Along the way, the man often called the “Oracle of Oil” shares the insights that have made him a legend–and describes the billion-dollar bets he is now making in hopes of securing America’s energy independence. “Sassy...breezes along...salted with earthy aphorisms.”—Bloomberg Businessweek “Boone’s analysis of America’ s energy situation is 100 percent on the money....The country should listen to him– now!” —Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway “Self-deprecating and audacious...overall, it’s decidedly informative about the machinations of business.” –Dallas Morning News “A fascinating, eye-opening book by one of America’s greatest iconoclasts and entrepreneurs. Boone Pickens’ sense of daring and innovation has never been sharper.”–Steve Forbes, president and CEO, Forbes Inc., and editor in chief of Forbes magazine

The First Billion
The First Billion

Author: Christopher Reich

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Published: 2002-08-20

Total Pages: 646

ISBN-13: 0440334322

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Christopher Reich electrified readers with Numbered Account and The Runner, his first two international thrillers. Now the New York Times bestselling author whose work has been called “gripping” (Chicago Tribune), “chilling” (The Denver Post), “wonderful” (The New York Times Book Review), ratchets up the stakes in an ingeniously plotted story of nerve-jangling intrigue and hot-wired suspense. Using today’s cutthroat global economy as a backdrop, The First Billion explodes into a breakneck tale of betrayal, revenge, and redemption... John “Jett” Gavallan is a former fighter pilot, now the high-flying CEO of Black Jet Securities, an investment firm that earned its first billion before the techno dream crashed and burned. Poised for an offering crucial to his company’s survival, Gavallan is banking on the riskiest gamble of his dazzling career. In exactly six days, he will take Mercury Broadband, Russia’s leading media company, public on the New York Stock Exchange. But rumors of fraud have suddenly surfaced that could send the deal south. Gavallan makes a preemptive strike by dispatching his number-two man--fellow Desert Storm fighter pilot Grafton Byrnes--to Moscow to penetrate the shadowy Russian multinational. When Byrnes fails to return, Gavallan fears the worst. But the truth is even more diabolical than he can imagine. Plunging into a desperate search for his best friend, the renegade top gun is suddenly fighting a different kind of war, where there is no safe harbor and no one he can trust. Not Konstantin Kirov, the elusive head of Mercury Broadband who may not be what he seems. Not the bankers and traders Gavallan does business with every day. Not the exotic beauty who has told him all her deepest secrets--except one. Suddenly Jett finds himself trapped in a conspiracy that could shatter the delicate balance between nations--and plunge the global economy into chaos. Hunted by the F.B.I. and a band of elite killers, Jett races from Palm Beach to Zurich to Moscow in a desperate search for answers. But for this brave ex-commando haunted by visions of war, the truth comes at a terrible price. With Mercury rising and the hours ticking down, he is moving closer to a place where murder and revenge are the currency of choice...and where the first billion is the ultimate insider secret--and the deadliest obsession of all. With breakneck plotting, stunning realism, and a sense of danger that keeps the heart racing, The First Billion is a knockout of a novel that will linger long after the final shocking twist is revealed. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Christopher Reich's The Prince of Risk.

Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted with the Night

Author: Christopher Dewdney

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2008-12-06

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1596917687

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Weaving together science and storytelling, art and anthropology, Dewdney takes readers on a fascinating journey through the nocturnal realm. In twelve chapters corresponding to the twelve hours of night, he illuminates night's central themes, including sunsets, nocturnal animals, bedtime stories, festivals of the night, fireworks, astronomy, nightclubs, sleep and dreams, the graveyard shift, the art of darkness, and endless nights. With infectious curiosity, a lyrical, intimate tone, and an eye for nighttime beauties both natural and man-made, Christopher Dewdney paints a captivating portrait of our hours in darkness. Christopher Dewdney is the author of three books of nonfiction-Last Flesh, The Secular Grail, and The Immaculate Perception-as well as eleven books of poetry. A three-time nominee for Governor General's Awards and a first-prize winner of the CBC Literary Competition, Dewdney lives in Toronto, Ontario. "As you read these pages, your life will change, because the way you see half of it will change. The night we're all familiar with will emerge as a fresh thing, deeper, fuller, older, younger, more evocative, more intimate, larger, more spectacular and, yes, more magical, and much more thrilling."-Margaret Atwood, Globe and Mail "[A] felicitous literary gambol from dusk till dawn...Dewdney throws himself headlong into the deep pool of his subject."-Sue Halpern, Newsday "An enjoyable and instructive read."-Sven Birkerts, Boston Globe Also available: HC 1-58234-396-9 $24.95

Inside the Night
Inside the Night

Author: Ibrāhīm Naṣr Allāh

Publisher: American Univ in Cairo Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9789774160974

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"I could not believe that human beings could forget so easily . . .." Love and life, sex and death, childhood and oppression are Inside the Night. Vivid moments of remembrance, disparate yet interconnected, come together to form the body-torn but not broken-of this novel. Beginning with a scene of departure, the two nameless narrators roam back and forth in time, veering from childhood mischief to a Palestinian refugee camp massacre; from ardent first love to necessary migration to an Arab oil country for employment; from spirited adolescent fantasies to the grim reality of life in an Arab country whose claims to progress are mounted on the bent backs of its people. The narrators' trials, tragedies, and rare but blinding moments of joy are shared with, among others, a mother and a father, an old Jewish woman who married a Palestinian, and an abandoned child living in a hut by himself who dissipates, through his innocence, the enveloping atmosphere of terror. A forest of interwoven tales and strange destinies, Ibrahim Nasrallah's novel carves the history of a people over half a century into fragments that are poetic, multi-sensory, and richly evocative. Inside the Night's self-contained freedom is a refreshing development in the corpus of Palestinian, and human, literature.

Feminism and Avant-Garde Aesthetics in the Levantine Novel
Feminism and Avant-Garde Aesthetics in the Levantine Novel

Author: K. Hanna

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1137545917

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Writing in response to war and national crisis, al-Samm?n, Khal?feh, Barak?t, and others introduced into the Arabic literary canon aesthetic forms capable of carrying Levantine women's experiences. By assessing their feminism in such a way, this book aims to revive a critical emphasis on aesthetics in Arab women's writing.

Life
Life

Author: Richard Fortey

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-03-23

Total Pages: 567

ISBN-13: 0307761185

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By one of Britain's most gifted scientists: a magnificently daring and compulsively readable account of life on Earth (from the "big bang" to the advent of man), based entirely on the most original of all sources--the evidence of fossils. With excitement and driving intelligence, Richard Fortey guides us from the barren globe spinning in space, through the very earliest signs of life in the sulphurous hot springs and volcanic vents of the young planet, the appearance of cells, the slow creation of an atmosphere and the evolution of myriad forms of plants and animals that could then be sustained, including the magnificent era of the dinosaurs, and on to the last moment before the debut of Homo sapiens. Ranging across multiple scientific disciplines, explicating in wonderfully clear and refreshing prose their findings and arguments--about the origins of life, the causes of species extinctions and the first appearance of man--Fortey weaves this history out of the most delicate traceries left in rock, stone and earth. He also explains how, on each aspect of nature and life, scientists have reached the understanding we have today, who made the key discoveries, who their opponents were and why certain ideas won. Brimful of wit, fascinating personal experience and high scholarship, this book may well be our best introduction yet to the complex history of life on Earth. A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection With 32 pages of photographs

Capturing Freedom’s Cry
Capturing Freedom’s Cry

Author: Ghada Samman

Publisher: Balboa Press

Published: 2019-03-27

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1982217790

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Capturing Freedom’s Cry—a translation of I’tikal Lahzah Haribah (Capturing a Fleeting Moment), 1979—is a poetry collection written in Beirut by Ghada Samman during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). The poems are set in the violent and destructive environment of this time. They are voiced by female narrators who, in addition to living amid the dangers and horrors of the War itself, engage in a necessary and deeply personal cultural struggle for freedom in a society where patriarchy and oppressive gender roles are the norm. In particular, the female narrators assert their personal power and right to sexual freedom and love. Samman’s advocacy for women’s autonomy and sexual equality, particularly in traditional Arab cultures, is courageous. In exposing the socio-political strife and cultural disparity that oppresses women, Samman demonstrates her conviction that the freedom of the nation and women’s liberation from patriarchal oppression are inseparable.