W. Bush's nomination to head his beloved CIA. It is fitting that Ackerman starts his book by convincing a room full of executives at an undisclosed U.S. food company that their excitement over growing asparagus in Colombia is misplaced and would likely result not just in financial losses but possibly death.

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Author Ian McEwan boarded the boat in 2005 and has only just revealed that his new book, "A Boot Room in The Frozen North, " is about climate change.

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His lunch, which he ate on his own in an enormous, empty dining room while reading a book under the absentminded gaze of the elderly maid, and the black-and-white gaze of his deceased wife looking out from photographs in ornate silver frames, was light: soup and a small portion of fish and mashed potatoes, some of which he would allow to go cold.

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"It's hard to see a payoff--a financial payoff--on this project in my lifetime, " concedes Hodel, 73, from his Lakewood, Colo. living room, near a stack of ski magazines and a book about global energy.

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To balance their domestic budget, his wife, Barbara, took a part-time job as a book-keeper and let a room in their flat.

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