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Until its destruction in 1975, the luxurious St George Hotel was the cosmopolitan centre of Beirut, a meeting place for spies, including Kim Philby, CIA men such as Miles Copeland, diplomats, journalists, politicians and oil sheikhs. The author examines the plots and counterplots, stretching over a quarter of a century, which were formulated at the hotel. Incidents which helped to shape Middle Eastern history are related, such as an attempt to overthrow King Hussein and the assassination of a Syrian president.
An insider's account of espionage, intrigue and conspiracy in the post-war Middle East, which reads like a thriller. It is peopled with real-life spies, politicians, journalists and diplomats, featuring such famous names as Kim Philby, Miles Copeland, Wilbur Crane and James Russell Barracks.
"Myles speaks with one of the essential voices in American poetry." —New York Times A collection of new and selected past work from one of America’s most celebrated poets Eileen Myles's poetry and prose are known for their blend of reality and fiction, the sublime and the ephemeral, in which readers can peer into existent places, like the East Village of Myles's iconic Chelsea Girls. But they are also lifted into dreams, through writing that has the vividness and energy of fantasy. I Must Be Living Twice brings selections from the poet’s previous work together with a set of bold new poems, through which Myles continues to refine their sardonic, unapologetic, and fiercely intellectual literary voice. Steeped in the culture of New York City, Myles's stomping grounds and the home of their most well-known work, they provide a wide-open lens into radical life.
When the Manhattan came along, it changed everything. As Gotham’s finest watering holes embraced the new concoction, the original cocktail soon became old hat and known as the Old-Fashioned. Cocktail historian Philip Greene expertly traces the evolution of this new drink from its competing origin stories through its continuing influence and extensive progeny, including the almighty Martini itself. Richly illustrated with vintage ads and artwork and luxe photographs, this definitive, illustrated story of the Manhattan also offers 65 easy-to-follow recipes. Classic variations and contemporary updates range from the Brooklyn and the Vesper to the Little Italy and Red Hook. If you’re thirsty for a good story, you’ve come to the right place.
The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history – a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West. On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East – CIA operative Robert Ames. What set Ames apart from his peers was his extraordinary ability to form deep, meaningful connections with key Arab intelligence figures. Some operatives relied on threats and subterfuge, but Ames worked by building friendships and emphasizing shared values – never more notably than with Yasir Arafat’s charismatic intelligence chief and heir apparent Ali Hassan Salameh (aka “The Red Prince”). Ames’ deepening relationship with Salameh held the potential for a lasting peace. Within a few years, though, both men were killed by assassins, and America’s relations with the Arab world began heading down a path that culminated in 9/11, the War on Terror, and the current fog of mistrust. Bird, who as a child lived in the Beirut Embassy and knew Ames as a neighbor when he was twelve years old, spent years researching The Good Spy. Not only does the book draw on hours of interviews with Ames’ widow, and quotes from hundreds of Ames’ private letters, it’s woven from interviews with scores of current and former American, Israeli, and Palestinian intelligence officers as well as other players in the Middle East “Great Game.” What emerges is a masterpiece-level narrative of the making of a CIA officer, a uniquely insightful history of twentieth-century conflict in the Middle East, and an absorbing hour-by-hour account of the Beirut Embassy bombing. Even more impressive, Bird draws on his reporter’s skills to deliver a full dossier on the bombers and expose the shocking truth of where the attack’s mastermind resides today.
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events—the exposure of a massive criminal enterprise and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea. “The perfect novel ... Freshly mysterious.” —The Washington Post Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. When his scheme collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call. In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives. Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility!
'James Hanning's book is excellent . . . The fascination of Love & Deception lies in the meticulously detailed account it gives of Philby's strange half-life in Beirut, where he was banished in 1956' Guardian Love & Deception is the extraordinary story of how Eleanor, an able, cultured American living in the espionage hot spot of 1950s Beirut, fell in love with the kindest of men. Unknown to her, that man, Kim Philby, was under suspicion by the British and US intelligence services of having secretly signed up to help the Russians fight fascism in the 1930s, and of remaining in their pay at the height of the Cold War. Despite his mysterious past, Eleanor adored and married Philby, but the strength of their love was challenged as the net steadily closed in on him. The outline of Philby's story is familiar to many, but Love & Deception breaks remarkable new ground. Through extensive research, Hanning produces an eye-opening tale of friendship, politics, love and loyalty. 'Fascinating and superbly researched' TLS 'I am always gripped by the Philby story and James Hanning succeeds in putting new flesh on this fascinating period in his double life . . . I thoroughly recommend it' Marina Hyde 'If ever there was a cautionary tale about the true costs of male privilege in the higher echelons of the British establishment - this is it' Amanda Foreman
This book is an extension of conversations began at Marfa Sounding, a three-year exploration into the acoustic processes of a specific place, which began as a 2015 curatorial residency with Fieldwork Marfa, an international program run by Beaux-Arts Nantes Saint-Nazaire, France; the University of Houston School of Art; and HEAD, Geneva. Focusing on ?phase shifting? in music, particularly as it relates to early experiments in Minimalism and artists whose practices run from the 1960s into the present, Marfa Sounding hosted writers from many different backgrounds?composers, sound theorists, art critics, dance historians, filmmakers, educators, students, curators, and archivists?who treat performance as a point of departure for thinking through the intersection of music, minimalism, and the political. Marfa Sounding treated sound as a frame for understanding how art integrates with, invades, and is effectively produced by its context. The spaces of Marfa also became frames for sound as individual and collective experience, where people come together at a specific place and time, in a site that enfolds them.
The secret history of MI6 - from the Cold War to the present day. The British Secret Service has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of James Bond and John le Carre. THE ART OF BETRAYAL provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction. It tells the story of how the secret service has changed since the end of World War II and by focusing on the people and the relationships that lie at the heart of espionage, revealing the danger, the drama, the intrigue, the moral ambiguities and the occasional comedy that comes with working for British intelligence. From the defining period of the early Cold War through to the modern day, MI6 has undergone a dramatic transformation from a gung-ho, amateurish organisation to its modern, no less controversial, incarnation. Gordon Corera reveals the triumphs and disasters along the way. The grand dramas of the Cold War and after - the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 11 September 2001 attacks and the Iraq war - are the backdrop for the human stories of the individual spies whose stories form the centrepiece of the narrative. But some of the individuals featured here, in turn, helped shape the course of those events. Corera draws on the first-hand accounts of those who have spied, lied and in some cases nearly died in service of the state. They range from the spymasters to the agents they ran to their sworn enemies. Many of these accounts are based on exclusive interviews and access. From Afghanistan to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the voices of those who have worked on the front line of Britain's secret wars. And the truth is often more remarkable than the fiction.