This month we introduce a new feature of our on-line edition;The Book Round Up...In addition to our regular reviews we will now have this occasional feature which consists of short notices from many sources of reviews of books that we have not been able to review.

"Why has the relationship between Sudan and the US shifted so suddenly, and why is the Sudanese government so interested in helping the US government hunt down extremists that it used to fund and give sanctuary to? Why is the US so ready to normalize its relationship with a country involved in a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing, as the UN calls it, or genocide, as Colin Powell called it?"

While the hacks working for mainstream news organizations were busy chasing the story about the Runaway Bride late last month, a real scandal was just beginning to unfold as Congress inched closer to approving a controversial measure to open up a couple thousand acres of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

Under the Bush administration, the United States is leading the race to the bottom in wages, benefits, working conditions and social protections...The average annual employer contribution for Social Security in the United States is $2,196, compared with $8,274 in Germany, $2,972 in the U.K....

A transvestite dressed in red silk is discovered strangled in a Havana park. The death of this son of a high-placed Cuban government official has Lieutenant Mario Conde off of official suspension and on the case in this first novel of Padura’s four-part series.