The grenade exploded, sending up a large black burst of smoke and dust.

NEWYORKER: The Taliban��s Opium War

His predecessor, John Browne, was in many ways a remarkable chief executive, a man who sprinkled pixie dust onto the company's black gold while also boosting its market capitalisation ninefold.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

In the company of Emma McCune, misguided though she might have seemed to some, Ms Scroggins takes the reader by the hand into the hot dust of southern Sudan and the politics of the belly, where black meets white, rich meets poor and the fat white paunch of the West gets to look upon starving Africa's distended stomach.

ECONOMIST: Africa is a continent made for��and of��storytellers