Anna Rubino Shares Her Book, Queen of the Oil Club
On UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, November 14, at 9:30 PM

As the cost of oil tops a hundred and twenty dollars a barrel, the drive to develop biofuel sparks a world food crisis, and the Iraq war continues with no end in sight. Americans' daily lives are increasingly affected by the geopolitics of oil. To put it in context, to understand how oil—especially Middle East oil—has become such a pressing issue for the economy and for national security, it helps to look back to the 1950s when an elite club of Western oil executives managed the seven largest petroleum companies—and controlled access to the international oil world.

In Queen of the Oil Club: The Intrepid Wanda Jablonksi and the Power of Information, investigative reporter and historian Anna Rubino tells the story of how a path-breaking journalist, Wanda Jablonski, contributed to the breakdown of Big Oil by lifting the veil of secrecy over its business, exposing its vulnerabilities, and drawing attention to its chief opponents, the founders of OPEC. Through exclusive access to Jablonski's private papers, interviews with more than a hundred people who knew her, including former oil executives and oil ministers, and her own experience working for Jablonksi's Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, Rubino has written the first-ever biography of this fearless and pioneering woman known to the oil world simply as "Wanda."

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin, premiering Friday, November 14, at 9:30 PM, Rubino traces how the woman known as “OPEC’s Midwife” used information—highly prized intelligence in an industry that thrived on secrecy—to influence key players on both sides of the titanic struggle between oil-producing and consuming countries

Anna Rubino, a journalist and historian with a Ph.D. from Yale, has covered oil and business news from New York and Brussels. Her work has appeared in Business Week, the International Herald Tribune, and Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. Rubino is now an investigative reporter for OTR Global, a San Francisco-based investment news service

Don’t miss D.G. Martin’s engaging interview with Anna Rubino on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, November 14, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, November 16, at 5 PM.

During the 26-week season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Frances Mayes (A Year in the World), Rob Christensen (The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics), Robert Morgan (Boone), Eleanora Tate (Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance), Eric Wilson (Against Happiness), Wayne Caldwell (Cataloochee), Theda Perdue (The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears), Bernie Harberts (Too Proud to Ride a Cow), Therese Fowler (Souvenir), Joe Glatthaar (General Lee’s Army), Nortin Hadler (Worried Sick), Anna Hayes (Without Precedent), Jean Anderson (A Love Affair with Southern Cooking), J.D. Rhoades (Breaking Cover), Nancy Peacock (A Broom of One’s Own), Louise Hawes (Black Pearls), Tony Earley (The Blue Star) and  Cindy H. Ramsey (Boys of the Battleship North Carolina).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.