Pitfall: The Race to Mine the World’s Most Vulnerable Places by Christopher Pollon Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2023 $39.95 / 9781771649124 Reviewed by Alexandra Pedersen, PhD * The term “sacrifice zones” conjures images of a toxic landscape left permanently barren by rapacious capitalism; consumed until there is nothing left with no possibilities, no hope for the…
Read more What should we extract?
When we launched The British Columbia Review — then The Ormsby Review — in September 2016, little did we expect that seven years later we’d post our 2000th review. I’m grateful to everyone — reviewers, publishers, authors, booksellers, and readers — for making it such a success and promoting BC writers, writing, and culture. It…
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Pictures on the Wall: Building a Canadian Art Collection by Michael Audain Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $60.00 / 9781771623742 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes * On the evening of November 14, 2002, I walked through a chilly downtown Vancouver, MiniDisc recorder and microphone safely tucked away in a shoulder bag, toward my destination:…
Read more Elite art collecting demystified
Poems with ‘immediacy, tactility, and general imaginative freshness’…
Christopher Levenson reviews Crushed Wild Mint, by Jess Housty (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2023) $19.95 / 9780889714502
The Compassionate Imagination: How the arts are central to a functioning democracy by Max Wyman Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023 $19.95 / 9781770866997 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * What is the point–honestly–of putting a lot of energy into discussing the connection between “art” on the one hand and society on the other? Well, Plato seemed to…
Read more What is the role of art?
Essay: The Way We Were: Two Friends, Two Historians by Robin Fisher * Earlier this year I flew down to New Zealand to spend a few days with my lifelong friend and gifted historian Kerry (K.R.) Howe. It was springtime in British Columbia but winter was coming in New Zealand. We both knew that it…
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Poems help us withstand the grief of loss and change… Trish Bowering reviews Moorings, by Christopher Levenson (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023) 9781773861272 / $20.00
Hopeful pictures of women at midlife and after… Carellin Brooks reviews Your Body Was Made For This, by Debbie Bateman (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2023) $21.95 / 9781553806929
Chasing Africa: Fear Won’t Find Me Here – A Memoir by Lisa Duncan Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $25.00 / 9781771605816 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * In her memoir of time spent as a 24-year-old in South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Zanzibar for three-and-a-half-months in 1996, Squamish-based author Lisa Duncan reveals much that…
Read more A Canadian’s life on the road
Landbridge [life in fragments] by Y-Dang Troeung Toronto: Alchemy by Knopf Canada, 2023 $35.00 / 9781039008762 Reviewed by Theresa Kishkan * When I opened this beautifully-designed book, with its cover drawings of delicate buds of kapok (in Khmer, Y-Dang Troeung tells us, planting a kapok tree, which makes no sound in the wind, is an…
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A Dream in the Eye: The Complete Paintings and Collages of Phyllis Webb edited by Stephen Collis Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023 $39.95 / 9781772014334 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * Artist Georgia O’Keeffe said she could say things with colour and shapes that she couldn’t say any other way – things she had no words for….
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“Readers of Kogawa’s poetry are privy to a singular pleasure…” Marguerite Pigeon reviews From the Lost and Found Department: New and Selected Poems, by Joy Kogawa (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2023) $18.00 / 9780771005138
Short fiction collection “succeeds beautifully.” Candace Fertile reviews Anecdotes, by Kathryn Mockler (Toronto: Book*hug, 2023) $23.00 / 9781771668446
Essay: History of typography by Thomas Girard * It would be hard to discount typography without first addressing its roots in the way we live. I was first drawn to the design history reference of stone tablets being carved into with lettering, and that lettering, at the very beginning, at least according to Megg’s, being…
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Post-Modern Mini-Comics by Colin Upton Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2023 $10 / 9781772620849 Reviewed by Jeffrey Stychin * Who is Colin Upton? An outcast, a punk, a nomad, a pioneer, a realist, a savant, a regular human faced with the problems of everyday life filled with nuances and trivialities? The choice is up to you,…
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Tear by Erica McKeen Toronto: Invisible Books, 2022 $22.95 / 9781778430060 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * When Frances moves into 48 Ford Crescent with her roommates Ky, Katie, and Reese she knows that something is wrong with the house. This line from the first chapter explains her apprehension very well and sets the tone for…
Read more Horror at 48 Ford Crescent
Sonnets From a Cellby Bradley Peters Toronto: Brick Books, 2023 $22.95 / 9781771316132 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * A cell is a lonely place. It is singular. Even when many cells are linked in series, each one is solitary. Sonnets, too. Sonnets come from Italy, where words rhyme easily. Oddly enough, these polished little objects…
Read more Not your high school teacher’s Shakespeare
BC Review Annual Fundraiser A note from Richard Mackie * Dear friends, supporters, and readers of The British Columbia Review: On behalf of the Board of Directors and Advisory Board of The British Columbia Review, I must remind readers of our continuing need for financial support. This request for private donations is done annually to keep…
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Wayi Wah!: Indigenous Pedagogies: An Act for Reconciliation and Anti-Racist Education by Jo Chrona Winnipeg: Portage & Main Press, 2022 $32.00 / 9781774920466 by Ken Favrholdt * Jo Chrona uses a rallying cry for her book: Wayi Wah! (Let’s go; it’s time!) It is time to make education a force in reconciliation. This is the…
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Ten Stories that Worried My Mother by Winona Kent New Westminster: Blue Devil Books, 2023 $14.99 / 9781777329495 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Best known as a writer of cozy mystery novels, New Westminster’s Winona Kent has organized this eclectic collection of mostly previously published works (dating from the early 1980s to the 2020s) chronologically….
Read more Story collection features whimsy and wit