Also, most people read fiction as an escape - and I wonder whether my books aren't a bit too grounded in reality to reach the widest possible audience.

After a generation of misrule under Mr. Hussein, who built a huge military infrastructure while neglecting civilian investment, and a dozen years of United Nations sanctions, Iraq's unemployment rate tops 50 percent.

The details of the personal expenses that executives put on the company tab often are not known because loopholes in federal disclosure rules let publicly traded companies generally avoid disclosing the perks they give executives along with pay and stock options.

For a developing country, average long-run growth of 5 percent a year per capita is excellent, and 7 percent is stellar.

Generally, a rally will have staying power, technicians say, if, in addition to price movements, it has heavy trading volume and breadth, meaning that several stocks rise for each stock that falls.