James Risen has broken story after story on the abuses of power of the Bush administration.

From warrantless wiretapping to secret financial data mining to the CIA''s rogue operations, he has shown again and again that the executive branch has dangerously overreached, repudiated checks and balances on its power, and maintained secrecy even with its allies in Congress. In no small part thanks to Risen and State of War, the "secret history" of the Bush years has now come partially into view.

In a new epilogue for the paperback edition, Risen describes the two-front war that President Bush is now fighting: at home against Congress and the Supreme Court, as his administration is increasingly reined in from its abuses; and in the Middle East, where George W. Bush''s great gamble to bring a democratic revolution is failing radically. We must learn the lessons of Risen''s history now, before it is too late.

The man who affected the reading habits of millions of Canadians gives us the work of a lifetime

Long before he became a radio voice Peter Gzowski was a writer. This book is an anthology of his best writing over a career spanning more than 50 years, starting with pieces from his time writing for The Varsity, and his early days as a young reporter caught in a forest fire.

Each entry forms a new chapter and typically begins with an introduction from Peter Gzowski today, setting it in context. When he was a young writer at Maclean's in 1959, he did a piece on Gordie Howe which still stands up today. In the same period, he wrote articles on racism in Saskatchewan ("This Is Our Alabama"), and, in 1961, a profile of an interesting young man named Trudeau.

Later, we follow him into the world of his books, with choice excerpts from his best work. From his book on the Edmonton Oilers, The Game of Our Lives, for example, there's his famous piece on skating, and another much-quoted passage on Wayne Gretzky. Look for choice pieces from The Morningside Papers (1984-95) and three pieces from his autobiography The Private Voice, and many pieces from here and there including "Song for Canada," which he wrote with Ian Tyson.

Above all, look for exciting new work never before collected in book form, including a thrilling account of sailing in Antigua in seas so high that the boat is dismasted, at the mercy of the waves. And there is a lovely piece about his earliest boyhood days growing up in what was then Galt, and by contrast, a look at Canada today.

This is a cornucopia of Gzowski, selected by Peter himself, that is a tasty blend of the personal and the objective, and always good reading.


From the Hardcover edition.

Brown tells the extraordinary stories of Kim Philby, a renowned double agent, and his father and mentor, Harry St. John Bridger Philby, who played a key role in establishing the modern Middle East. In this dual biography, the author includes interviews, private papers of both St. John and Kim Philby, and previously unreleased photographs and KGB memoranda--providing an intriguing account of espionage.

In 1991, Kanan Makiya, author of the bestselling Republic of Fear, returned to Iraq to investigate allegations of mass murder. The results show that at least 100,000 noncombatant Kurds were killed in 1988 in an operation code-named Al-Anfal. This book is not a historical inquiry into why that happened; it is a passionate plea that the cruelty not be ignored and repeated.

In December 1994, in the Ardeche Valley of southeast France, three explorers chanced upon the hidden entrance to an underground cavern. Digging away the rubble, they made their way through a narrow passage into a vast cave, and there made one of the most thrilling discoveries of modern times: The Chauvet cave, named for one of the discoverers, which had been untouched for thousands of years. It was filled with Stone Age cave bear skeletons and footprints, the blackened remains of fires, and, most importantly, walls covered with more than three hundred extraordinary paintings and engravings of animals. These staggering images proved to be doubly remarkable, for not only have radiocarbon tests established them to be over 30,000 years old - the oldest known paintings in the world, nearly twice as old as those found at Lascaux - but they are powerful, sophisticated works of art rather than crude sketches. Dawn of Art is the first book in English on the images that have, as the French Ministry of Culture declared, "overturned the accepted notion about the first appearance of art and its development". The remarkable photographs in Dawn of Art show each wall in clear detail, revealing the incredible mastery of the prehistoric artists. Astonishingly, while most cave art is of creatures such as horses, aurochs, and bison, over half of these images depict such dangerous animals as cave bears, hyenas, lions, mammoths, and rhinoceroses. The paintings are particularly impressive in terms of the techniques used to present perspective and motion. Many figures interact with each other; some are staggered, to give perspective; others are drawn on bulges in the cave wall to further suggest depth.

A gruesome and fascinating tale from the highly regarded children''s illustrator. Each spread is a feast of ghoulish good fun and leads to a huge and grisly poster, which can be kept with the book or hung on the wall.

A Map to the Door of No Return is a timely book that explores the relevance and nature of identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. It is an insightful, sensitive and poetic book of discovery.

Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean, journeys across the Canadian landscape, African ancestry, histories, politics, philosophies and literature, Dionne Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond.

The title, A Map to the Door of No Return, refers to both a place in imagination and a point in history - the Middle Passage. The quest for identity and place has profound meaning and resonance in an age of heterogenous identities.

In this exquisitely written and thought-provoking new work, Dionne Brand creates a map of her own art.

Documents the author's movie memorabilia collection of props, models, masks, costumes, and sketches from horror, science fiction, and fantasy movies. Accompanying the 200 photographs are backstage stories from the author's work on such films as and . Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Every civilized society, beginning with that of the ancient Egyptians and Chinese, has entertained a passionate curiosity about its predecessors: we want to know about our past in order to understand and even manipulate our present. The means to that end is archaeology, whose history is the fascinating subject of The Discovery of the Past.

Alain Schnapps'' study is astonishing in the depth and breadth of its coverage. Beginning with the ancient Greek poet Hesiod and extending thought St. Augustine, Rabelais, Newton, and Thomas Jefferson, he shows that the history of archaeology is not one of uninterrupted progress, but of the rediscovery and reinterpretation -- often erratic -- of forgotten observations.

The text is elegantly interwoven with illustrations and descriptions of objects surviving from antiquity, while extensive quotations from primary sources provide a fascinating insight into historical accounts. Contemporary depictions of ancient life, and incidents in its discovery, reveal the excitement of archaeological research.

For the first time, Ringo Starr is opening his private archive to share over 50 never-before-seen delightful and very intimate postcards sent to him throughout the years from John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. Each postcard is a warm and personal snapshot of life in (and after) The Beatles.