A Very Private Plot

A Very Private Plot
Author: William F. Buckley
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2015-08-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504018583

Dangerous Cold War secrets come to light in the age of glasnost in this “smooth and skillful” spy thriller from the New York Times–bestselling author (Publishers Weekly). In the bleakest hours of the Cold War, the CIA did terrible things. The agency arranged coups, assassinations, and wars, but no matter how dark their methods, they did it for America. Senator Hugh Blanton does not understand this. A bleeding-heart liberal with an impeccable academic pedigree, he came to Washington with one goal in mind: neutering the CIA. His prime target is Blackford Oakes—the agency’s most elegant cold warrior—whose shadowy past Blanton wants to expose to the world. But Oakes will not testify, lest he be forced to divulge the secrets of Operation Cyclops. In the last days of the Cold War, as the USSR moved toward glasnost, the CIA became aware of a Russian plot to assassinate Premier Gorbachev. The only person Oakes told was President Reagan, with whom he was forced to decide if the leader of the evil empire would live or die. A Very Private Plot is the 10th book in the Blackford Oakes Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A Very Private Gentleman

A Very Private Gentleman
Author: Martin Booth
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2005-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429971037

The locals in the southern Italian town where he lives call him Signor Farfalla--Mr. Butterfly: for he is a discreet gentleman who paints rare butterflies. His life is inconspicuous--mornings spent brushing at a canvas, afternoons idling in the cafes, and evening talks with his friend the town priest over a glass of brandy. Yet there are other sides to this gentleman's life: Clara: the young student who moonlights in the town bordello. And another woman who arrives with $100,000 and a commission, but not for a painting of butterflies. With this assignment returns the dark fear that has dogged Signor Farfalla's mysterious life. Almost instantly, he senses a deadly circle closing in on him, one which he may or may not elude. Part thriller, part character study, part drama of deceit and self-betrayal, A Very Private Gentleman shows Martin Booth at the very height of his powers

A Very Private Eye

A Very Private Eye
Author: Barbara Pym
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2013-11-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1447265408

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure.' Jilly Cooper ‘Could one write a book based on one’s diaries over thirty years? I certainly have enough material,’ wrote Barbara Pym. This book, selected from the diaries, notebooks and letters of this much loved novelist to form a continuous narrative, is indeed a unique autobiography, providing a privileged insight into a writer’s mind. Philip Larkin wrote that Barbara Pym had ‘a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies of everyday life’. Her autobiography amply demonstrates this, as it traces her life from exuberant times at Oxford in the thirties, through the war when, scarred by an unhappy love affair, she joined the WRNS, to the published novelist of the fifties. It also deals with the long period when her novels were out of fashion and no one would publish them, her rediscovering in 1977, and the triumphant success of her last few years. It is now possible to describe a place, situation or person as ‘very Barbara Pym’. A Very Private Eye, at once funny and moving, shows the variety and depth of her own story.

Private Agriculture in the Soviet Union

Private Agriculture in the Soviet Union
Author: Stefan Hedlund
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000682226

First published in 1989. Perestroika, it was widely believed, must succeed in agriculture before permanent change could be affected elsewhere in the Soviet economy. But Soviet agriculture had so far remained stubbornly inefficient and resistant to change. In this book Stefan Hedlund investigates the reasons for this state of affairs. The author gives an account of the emergence, development and performance of private agriculture in the Soviet Union. In particular he describes the essentials of the peculiarly Soviet hybrid of private and socialized agriculture. He places the private sector within the broader framework of Soviet agriculture. He saw Soviet agriculture as a ‘Black Hole’, ready to absorb any resources that came near, be they private plots, urban gardens, factory workshops or military units. Hedlund also examines the impact on the peasants as producers of decades of negative ideological pronouncements in Party propaganda, and of discrimination and at times outright harassment by local officials. He points out that this background makes the prospect of any positive response from the peasants to Gorbachev’s call for perestroika in agriculture extremely unlikely.

National Review's Literary Network

National Review's Literary Network
Author: Stephen Schryer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2024-01-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0198886225

National Review's Literary Network traces the careers of novelists, journalists, and literary critics who wrote for William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review. In the 1950s, the magazine sought to establish itself as a conservative alternative to liberal journals like Partisan Review. To do so, it needed a robust book review section, featuring nationally recognized writers. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, Whittaker Chambers, John Dos Passos, Hugh Kenner, Guy Davenport, Joan Didion, Garry Wills, and D. Keith Mano wrote for the magazine. The magazine boosted their careers and they, in turn, helped make Buckley's version of conservatism respectable. In the pages of National Review and elsewhere, these writers fashioned a body of literary work that takes up and refracts right-wing concerns about tradition, religion, and personal liberty. Uncovering a neglected part of post-World War II American literary history, Stephen Schryer highlights these writers' enduring impact on movement conservatism. Believing in the power of intellectuals, Buckley and his fellow editors argued that the academy, the media, and other institutions had been taken over by a liberal establishment that sought to impose its ideas on the nation. They wanted to establish a network of institutional counter-circuits staffed by conservatives. The magazine's literary intellectuals contributed to this effort, helping conservatives present themselves as a counter-elite sheltering traditional, humanities-based knowledge within a technocratic welfare state. In so doing, they facilitated the magazine's assault on the very possibility of expertise, ushering in the fragmented epistemological landscape that has characterized the United States since the late 1960s.

A Very Private Woman

A Very Private Woman
Author: Nina Burleigh
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2009-10-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307574172

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil meets Camelot.”—Washington Post Book World In 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the beautiful, rebellious, and intelligent ex-wife of a top CIA official, was killed on a quiet Georgetown towpath near her home. Mary Meyer was a secret mistress of President John F. Kennedy, whom she had known since private school days, and after her death, reports that she had kept a diary set off a tense search by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. But the only suspect in her murder was acquitted, and today her life and death are still a source of intense speculation, as Nina Burleigh reveals in her widely praised book, the first to examine this haunting story. Praise for A Very Private Woman “Power is so utterly fascinating. Sometimes it’s used for evil purposes, like the kind of power that has silenced the telling of Mary Pinchot Meyer’s mysterious murder for over three decades. In A Very Private Woman, Nina Burleigh has finally told this tragic tale of a privileged beauty with friends in high places.”—Dominick Dunne “A superbly crafted, evocative glimpse of an adventurous spirit whose grisly murder remains a mystery.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review “Proves that every Washington sex scandal is juicy in its own way.”—Glamour “Nina Burleigh has dissected Washington’s most intriguing murder mystery and produced a captivating biography, a thriller, and an insightful portrait of Georgetown in its golden presidential age.”—Christopher Ogden, bestselling author of Life of the Party: The Life of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman “Provocative, erudite . . . pure Georgetown noir.”—New York Observer “A rich array of real-life characters.”—New York Times Book Review

Farm Restructuring and Land Tenure in Reforming Socialist Economies

Farm Restructuring and Land Tenure in Reforming Socialist Economies
Author:
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 172
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780821331033

The transition: conditions and legislation; Survey design: the demographic and physical setting; Processes of land reform; Crop production; Livestock production; Markets for inputs and products; Capitalization and assets; Finance and banking; Labour, housing and social services.

Village and Family in Contemporary China

Village and Family in Contemporary China
Author: William L. Parish
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 1980-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226645919

After 1949 the Chinese Communists carried out land reform, the collectivization of agriculture, and the formation of people's communes. The new economic and political organizations that emerged have made peasant life more comfortable and secure, but many economic and status differentials and traditional customs remain resistant to change. Focusing on rural Kwangtung province, William L. Parish and Martin King Whyte examine the rural work-incentive system, village equality and inequality, rural health care and education, marriage customs, and the position of women, among other topics, to determine what and how much of the traditional Chinese ways of life is left in Communist China.

Health Care and Traditional Medicine in China 1800-1982

Health Care and Traditional Medicine in China 1800-1982
Author: S. M. Hillier
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2013-11-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113657168X

First published in 1983. Beginning with the period of the early expansion of Western missionary medicine, this account covers the chaotic years of Nationalist rule to the foundations of the People's Republic in 1949. It trances the major influences on health care since then and describes the conflicts of State bureaucracy, Party and medical profession in their attempts to match political objectives in health care to resources available. An outline of the theory of Chinese traditional medicine, together with detailed accounts of acupuncture and plant drugs are also discussed, as are specific features of the health care system, such as population control, medical education, nutrition and psychiatry.

A Very Private Murder

A Very Private Murder
Author: Stuart Pawson
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2011-03-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0749010665

DI Charlie Priest is on holiday, or meant to be at least, when he gets a call from his colleagues at Heckley about the opening of a local shopping and conference centre. Amid the paparazzi flash bulbs, minor royalty and preening local officials, someone by-passed security and have succeeded in making the Heckley force look stupid. But all too soon, that seemingly trivial incident leads Charlie into a murder investigation.