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Showing 1 - 20 of 132057 items
By Christine Magill. 2019
Every immigrant that comes to Canada has a story. This book captures ten of those stories and the remarkable resiliency…
and fortitude of the human spirit. In 1994 one of the worst genocides in human history took place in Rwanda--over one million people were killed in 100 days. Each chapter in The Hope that Remains focuses on a Rwandan survivor and their journey to escape the violence and chaos that overtook their country. Two of the featured stories follow individuals who fled before the killing began and the events that caused them to flee. Both were then faced with the challenge of being outsiders looking in as events deteriorated and their families were slaughtered. The other eight survivors share their detailed and gripping experiences of trying to stay alive while trapped in a nation of killers. Twenty-five years after the Rwandan Genocide the scars are still very real and rebuilding and coping with the trauma remains an emotional struggle. Despite their horrific pasts the survivors share feelings of hope, forgiveness, and a belief in a better future. They demonstrate the strength and courage it takes to leave the known behind to seek a better life in a new country. Their journeys to Canada contain humorous moments, thoughtful insights, and an overwhelming love and pride for the nation they now call home.By Anonymous. 2019
#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the…
anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation's capital.On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell essay and took the rare step of granting its writer anonymity. Described only as "a senior official in the Trump administration," the author provided eyewitness insight into White House chaos, administration instability, and the people working to keep Donald Trump's reckless impulses in check.With the 2020 election on the horizon, Anonymous is speaking out once again. In this book, the original author pulls back the curtain even further, offering a first-of-its-kind look at the president and his record -- a must-read before Election Day. It will surprise and challenge both Democrats and Republicans, motivate them to consider how we judge our nation's leaders, and illuminate the consequences of re-electing a commander in chief unfit for the role.This book is a sobering assessment of the man in the Oval Office and a warning about something even more important -- who we are as a people.By Susan Page. 2019
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"[The] rare biography of a public figure that's not only beautifully written, but also shockingly revelatory."…
-- The AtlanticA vivid biography of former First Lady Barbara Bush, one of the most influential and under-appreciated women in American political history.Barbara Pierce Bush was one of the country's most popular and powerful figures, yet her full story has never been told.THE MATRIARCH tells the riveting tale of a woman who helped define two American presidencies and an entire political era. Written by USA TODAY's Washington Bureau chief Susan Page, this biography is informed by more than one hundred interviews with Bush friends and family members, hours of conversation with Mrs. Bush herself in the final six months of her life, and access to her diaries that spanned decades. THE MATRIARCH examines not only her public persona but also less well-known aspects of her remarkable life. As a girl in Rye, New York, Barbara Bush weathered criticism of her weight from her mother, barbs that left lifelong scars. As a young wife, she coped with the death of her three-year-old daughter from leukemia, a loss that changed her forever. In middle age, she grappled with depression so serious that she contemplated suicide. And as first the wife and then the mother of American presidents, she made history as the only woman to see -- and advise -- both her husband and son in the Oval Office.As with many women of her era, Barbara Bush was routinely underestimated, her contributions often neither recognized nor acknowledged. But she became an astute and trusted political campaign strategist and a beloved First Lady. She invested herself deeply in expanding literacy programs in America, played a critical role in the end of the Cold War, and led the way in demonstrating love and compassion to those with HIV/AIDS. With her cooperation, this book offers Barbara Bush's last words for history -- on the evolution of her party, on the role of women, on Donald Trump, and on her family's legacy.Barbara Bush's accomplishments, struggles, and contributions are many. Now, Susan Page explores them all in THE MATRIARCH, a groundbreaking book certain to cement Barbara Bush as one of the most unique and influential women in American history.By Sid Ryan. 2019
A stirring, heartfelt manifesto written by a man who fervently believes in what workers with their civil society allies can…
achieve for the good of all. Sid Ryan, one of Canada’s most courageous and progressive union leaders, draws on the experience of his varied and colourful life to show what is right with the labour movement, what is wrong, and what has to change if it is to avoid becoming irrelevant. In A Grander Vision, Ryan calls for the adoption of social movement unionism, in which labour forges an alliance with other progressive elements in civil society, taking up the cause of young people, precarious workers, and immigrants. Ryan asserts that a renewed commitment to the NDP — the party that was built by unions — is necessary and that the Leap Manifesto should become the pillar of the movement in Canada.By Syrus Marcus Ware, Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson. 2020
The killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a white assailant inspired the Black Lives Matter movement, which quickly spread…
outside the borders of the United States. The movement’s message found fertile ground in Canada, where Black activists speak of generations of injustice and continue the work of the Black liberators who have come before them. Until We Are Free contains some of the very best writing on the hottest issues facing the Black community in Canada. It describes the latest developments in Canadian Black activism, organizing efforts through the use of social media, Black-Indigenous alliances, and more."Until We Are Free busts myths of Canadian politeness and niceness, myths that prevent Canadians from properly fulfilling its dream of multiculturalism and from challenging systemic racism, including the everyday assaults on black and brown bodies. This book needs to be read and put into practice by everyone." —Vershawn Young, author of Your Average Nigga: Performing Race, Literacy, and Masculinity and co-author of Other People's English: Code Meshing, Code Switching, and African American Literacy Contributors: Silvia Argentina Arauz - Toronto, ON Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - Toronto, ON Patrisse Cullors - Los Angeles, CA Giselle Dias - Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON OmiSoore Dryden - Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS Paige Galette - Whitehorse, YK Dana Inkster - University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB Sarah Jama - Hamilton, ON El Jones - Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS Anique Jordan - Toronto, ON Dr. Naila Keleta Mae - University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON Janaya Khan - Los Angeles, CA Gilary Massa - York University, Toronto, ON Robyn Maynard - University of Toronto, Toronto, ON QueenTite Opaleke - Toronto, ON Randolph Riley - Halifax, NS Camille Turner - York University, Toronto, ON Ravyn Wngz - Toronto, ONBy Jody Wilson-Raybould. 2019
An Indigenous leader who has dedicated her life to Indigenous Rights, Jody Wilson-Raybould has represented both First Nations and the…
Crown at the highest levels. And she is not afraid to give Canadians what they need most – straight talk on what has to be done to move beyond our colonial legacy and achieve true reconciliation in Canada. In this powerful book, drawn from speeches and other writings, she urges all Canadians – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous – to build upon the momentum already gained or risk hard-won progress being lost. The good news is that Indigenous Nations already have the solutions. But now is the time to act and build a shared postcolonial future based on the foundations of trust, cooperation, recognition, and good governance.By David Wallace-Wells. 2019
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical…
prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday DemonNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus ReviewsIt is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s.LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD“The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times“Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist“Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times“The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post“The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of BooksBy Desmond Cole. 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLER. A bracing, provocative, and perspective-shifting book from one of Canada's most celebrated and uncompromising writers, Desmond Cole. The…
Skin We're In will spark a national conversation, influence policy, and inspire activists.In his 2015 cover story for Toronto Life magazine, Desmond Cole exposed the racist actions of the Toronto police force, detailing the dozens of times he had been stopped and interrogated under the controversial practice of carding. The story quickly came to national prominence, shaking the country to its core and catapulting its author into the public sphere. Cole used his newfound profile to draw insistent, unyielding attention to the injustices faced by Black Canadians on a daily basis. Both Cole’s activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We’re In. Puncturing the bubble of Canadian smugness and naive assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year—2017—in the struggle against racism in this country. It was a year that saw calls for tighter borders when Black refugees braved frigid temperatures to cross into Manitoba from the States, Indigenous land and water protectors resisting the celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, police across the country rallying around an officer accused of murder, and more. The year also witnessed the profound personal and professional ramifications of Desmond Cole’s unwavering determination to combat injustice. In April, Cole disrupted a Toronto police board meeting by calling for the destruction of all data collected through carding. Following the protest, Cole, a columnist with the Toronto Star, was summoned to a meeting with the paper’s opinions editor and informed that his activism violated company policy. Rather than limit his efforts defending Black lives, Cole chose to sever his relationship with the publication. Then in July, at another police board meeting, Cole challenged the board to respond to accusations of a police cover-up in the brutal beating of Dafonte Miller by an off-duty police officer and his brother. When Cole refused to leave the meeting until the question was publicly addressed, he was arrested. The image of Cole walking out of the meeting, handcuffed and flanked by officers, fortified the distrust between the city’s Black community and its police force. Month-by-month, Cole creates a comprehensive picture of entrenched, systemic inequality. Urgent, controversial, and unsparingly honest, The Skin We’re In is destined to become a vital text for anti-racist and social justice movements in Canada, as well as a potent antidote to the all-too-present complacency of many white Canadians. Winner of the 2020 Toronto Book Award.By Rinaldo Walcott, Idil Abdillahi. 2019
What does it mean in the era of Black Lives Matter to continue to ignore and deny the violence that…
is the foundation of the Canadian nation state? BlackLife discloses the ongoing destruction of Black people as enacted not simply by state structures, but beneath them in the foundational modernist ideology that underlies thinking around migration and movement, as Black erasure and death are unveiled as horrifically acceptable throughout western culture. With exactitude and celerity, Idil Abdillahi and Rinaldo Walcott pull from local history, literature, theory, music, and public policy around everything from arts funding, to crime and mental health--presenting a convincing call to challenge pervasive thought on dominant culture's conception of Black personhood. They argue that artists, theorists, activists, and scholars offer us the opportunity to rethink and expose flawed thought, providing us new avenues into potential new lives and a more livable reality of BlackLife.By Jonathan Manthorpe. 2019
Claws of the Panda tells the story of Canada’s failure to construct a workable policy towards the People’s Republic of…
China. In particular the book tells of Ottawa’s failure to recognize and confront the efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate and influence Canadian politics, academia, and media, and to exert control over Canadians of Chinese heritage. Claws of the Panda gives a detailed description of the CCP’s campaign to embed agents of influence in Canadian business, politics, media and academia. The party’s aims are to be able to turn Canadian public policy to China’s advantage, to acquire useful technology and intellectual property, to influence Canada’s international diplomacy, and, most important, to be able to monitor and intimidate Chinese Canadians and others it considers dissidents. The book traces the evolution of the Canada-China relationship over nearly 150 years. It shows how Canadian leaders have constantly misjudged the reality and potential of the relationship while the CCP and its agents have benefited from Canadian naivete.By Lauren McKeon. 2020
A groundbreaking, insightful book about women and power from award-winning journalist Lauren McKeon, which shows how women are disrupting the…
standard (very male) vision of power, ditching convention, and building a more equitable world for everyone.In the age of girl bosses, Beyoncé, and Black Widow, we like to tell our little girls they can be anything they want when they grow up, except they’ll have to work twice as hard, be told to “play nice,” and face countless double standards that curb their personal, political, and economic power. Women today remain a surprisingly, depressingly long way from gender and racial equality. It’s worth asking: Why do we keep playing a game we were never meant to win?Award-winning journalist and author of F-Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism, Lauren McKeon examines the many ways in which our institutions are designed to keep women and other marginalized genders at a disadvantage. In doing so, she reveals why we need more than parity, visible diversity, and lone female CEOs to change this power game. She talks to people doing power differently in a variety of sectors and uncovers new models of power. And as the toxic, divisive, and hyper-masculine style of leadership gains ground, she underscores why it’s time to stop playing by the rules of a rigged game.By Adam Chapnick. 2019
As the twentieth century ended, Canada was completing its sixth term on the UN Security Council. A decade later, Ottawa’s…
attempt to return to the council was dramatically rejected by its global peers, leaving Canadians – and international observers – shocked and disappointed. Canada on the United Nations Security Council tells the story of that defeat and what it means for future campaigns, describing and analyzing Canada’s attempts since 1946, both successful and unsuccessful, to gain a seat as a non-permanent member. Impeccably researched and clearly written, this is the definitive history of the Canadian experience on the world’s most powerful stage.By Eldon Yellowhorn, Kathy Lowinger. 2019
"There is no death. Only a change of worlds.” —Chief Seattle [Seatlh], Suquamish Chief What do people do when their…
civilization is invaded? Indigenous people have been faced with disease, war, broken promises, and forced assimilation. Despite crushing losses and insurmountable challenges, they formed new nations from the remnants of old ones, they adopted new ideas and built on them, they fought back, and they kept their cultures alive. When the only possible “victory” was survival, they survived. In this brilliant follow up to Turtle Island, esteemed academic Eldon Yellowhorn and award-winning author Kathy Lowinger team up again, this time to tell the stories of what Indigenous people did when invaders arrived on their homelands. What the Eagle Sees shares accounts of the people, places, and events that have mattered in Indigenous history from a vastly under-represented perspective—an Indigenous viewpoint.By John Bolton. 2020
As President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened,…
and the facts speak for themselves. The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration, and one of the few to date by a top-level official. With almost daily access to the President, John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy—and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them. He shows a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government. In Bolton’s telling, all this helped put Trump on the bizarre road to impeachment. “The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning,” writes Bolton, who worked for Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. He discovered a President who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal—about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests. As a result, the US lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats, and in cases like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place. Bolton’s account starts with his long march to the West Wing as Trump and others woo him for the National Security job. The minute he lands, he has to deal with Syria’s chemical attack on the city of Douma, and the crises after that never stop. As he writes in the opening pages, “If you don’t like turmoil, uncertainty, and risk—all the while being constantly overwhelmed with information, decisions to be made, and sheer amount of work—and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description, try something else.” The turmoil, conflicts, and egos are all there—from the upheaval in Venezuela, to the erratic and manipulative moves of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to the showdowns at the G7 summits, the calculated warmongering by Iran, the crazy plan to bring the Taliban to Camp David, and the placating of an authoritarian China that ultimately exposed the world to its lethal lies. But this seasoned public servant also has a great eye for the Washington inside game, and his story is full of wit and wry humor about how he saw it played.By Julie S. Lalonde. 2020
For over a decade, Julie Lalonde, an award-winning advocate for women’s rights, kept a secret. She crisscrossed the country, denouncing…
violence against women and giving hundreds of media interviews along the way. Her work made national headlines for challenging universities and taking on Canada’s top military brass. Appearing fearless on the surface, Julie met every interview and event with the same fear in her gut: was he there?Fleeing intimate partner violence at age 20, Julie was stalked by her ex-partner for over ten years, rarely mentioning it to friends, let alone addressing it publicly. The contrast between her public career as a brave champion for women with her own private life of violence and fear meant a shaky and exhausting balancing act.Resilience sounds like a positive thing, so why do we often use it against women? Tenacity and bravery might help us survive unimaginable horrors, but where are the spaces for anger and vulnerability?Resilience is Futile is a story of survival, courage and ultimately, hope. But it’s also a challenge to the ways we understand trauma and resilience. It’s the story of one survivor who won’t give up and refuses to shut up.By Stephanie MacKendrick. 2020
Written for young women interested in running for office, this book is unlike any other, with inspiring stories of eighteen…
women role models along with the all the tools and resources needed to get a campaign off the ground. Stephanie MacKendrick, a former journalist now dedicated to women's career advancement, believes the time for women in political leadership is now. Judging by the recent wave of activism that developed into a flood of women seeking elected office, she's not alone. MacKendrick has created a one-of-kind insider's guide for young women interested in joining this movement and becoming part of the political system. It explores everything from what to expect in a campaign, to how to deal with the inevitable challenges, to why it's worth it to run. It combines uplifting stories of women who have run for office with practical strategies for doing so. Perfect as both a cover-to-cover read and a reference tool, the text is divided into three parts: first, engaging profiles that include the personal advice and encouragement of eighteen women who have run for office across the political spectrum, around the world and at all levels of politics, from Michelle Wu, past president of the Boston City Council, to Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand; second, a detailed twelve-step campaign plan with advice on developing the qualities needed to run; and third, a collection of articles, books and organizations to help eager readers learn more. Also included is a foreword by Anne Moses, founder and president of IGNITE. Offering equal parts inspiration and information, this unique guidebook is just the thing to help young women transform “I'll think about it” into “I'll do it!”By Kira Vermond, Clayton Hanmer. 2020
Fads and trends: How do they start? Why do they spread? And how deep can their impact be? Although trends…
might seem trivial, if you dig deeper, you’ll find that our desire to chase the next big thing can have an even bigger impact than expected. Established middle-grade author Kira Vermond and cartoonist Clayton Hanmer team up in this fun and accessible nonfiction look at fads. In four short chapters, the book explores what a fad is, how the latest crazes catch on, and what makes us jump on the bandwagon. Finally, it looks at the fascinating and even frightening effects of fads both modern and historic. Who knew the beaver pelt craze in 17th century Europe would change ecosystems, start wars, and disrupt life as people knew it? Comic-strip illustrations, an upbeat tone, and reader-friendly text make this a fun and timely tool for young readers who are building critical-thinking skills in the age of fake news and a world gone viral.By Ronald Deibert. 2020
In the 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, bestselling author and renowned technology and security expert Ronald J. Deibert exposes the disturbing…
influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity. Digital technologies have given rise to a new machine-based civilization that is increasingly linked to a growing number of social and political maladies. Accountability is weak and insecurity is endemic, creating disturbing opportunities for exploitation.? Drawing from the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group which he founded and directs, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the impacts of this communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms, and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. Deibert also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment.?In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation, and rampant electronic consumerism, he urges restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society.By Barack Obama. 2020
A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power…
of democracy#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Marie Claire In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.By Wade Davis. 2020
A captivating new book from Wade Davis--award-winning, bestselling author and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence for more than a decade-- that brings…
vividly to life the story of the great Río Magdalena, illuminating Colombia's complex past, present, and futureTravelers often become enchanted with the first country that captures their hearts and gives them license to be free. For Wade Davis, it was Colombia. Now in a masterful new book, the bestselling author tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet. Only in Colombia can a traveler wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valleys rising to soaring ice-clad summits. This rugged and impossible geography finds its perfect coefficient in the topography of the Colombian spirit: restive, potent, at times placid and calm, in moments explosive and wild. Both a corridor of commerce and a fountain of culture, the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry and prayer, the Magdalena has served in dark times as the graveyard of the nation. And yet, always, it returns as a river of life. At once an absorbing adventure and an inspiring tale of hope and redemption, Magdalena gives us a rare, kaleidoscopic picture of a nation on the verge of a new period of peace. Braiding together memoir, history, and journalism, Wade Davis tells the story of the country's most magnificent river, and in doing so, tells the epic story of Colombia.