Conor O'Clery has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 5 ratings. The most-rated is How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune.
How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune
Summary
In 1988 Forbes magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the 23rd richest American alive. No one knew until then that he was extremely wealthy. Or was he? Born during the Depression in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Feeney had made a fortune as co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain. How he did it is one of the great untold retail stories of modern times. The greater untold story is that Feeney had in fact given away his fortune, in its totality, to endow Atlantic Philanthropies - one of the most generous and secretive philanthropic funds in the world. Atlantic Philanthropies is committed to giving away all its assets - currently they stand at $4 billion - during the next decade, an unprecedented example of the "giving while living" philosophy. Through the achievements of Atlantic Philanthropies, Chuck Feeney's influence has become even more impressive than his wealth. Feeney is a frugal man who travels economy class and does not own a house or a car. He has largely kept out of the public eye - until now. He has revealed his secret life only because he hopes his story will encourage something in which he passionately believes: that rich individuals have a moral obligation to put their wealth to good use while they are alive.
©2013 Conor O'Clery (P)2013 Gildan Media, LLC
Moscow, December 25,1991
Summary
The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking “bulldozer,” wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt, carried out by hardline communists, shook Gorbachev’s authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin. But it took four months of intrigue and double-dealing before the Soviet Union collapsed and the day arrived when Yeltsin could hustle Gorbachev out of the Kremlin, and move in as ruler of Russia. Conor O’Clery has written a unique and truly suspenseful thriller of the day the Soviet Union died. The internal power plays, the shifting alliances, the betrayals, the mysterious three colonels carrying the briefcase with the nuclear codes, and the jockeying to exploit the future are worthy of John Le Carré or Alan Furst. The Cold War’s last act was a magnificent dark drama played out in the shadows of the Kremlin.
©2011 Conor O'Clery (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp