“One of the most compelling aspects of the collection is its counterculture energy. There is a clear rejection of the idea that Canada’s value lies in its utility to the United States, a challenge to a worldview that reduces national identity to geopolitical convenience. The essays ripple with a sense of defiance that is both invigorating and necessary, particularly in an era when political rhetoric often blurs the line between hyperbole and threat.” Jeffrey Stychin reviews Canada Is Not the 51st F**king State! Canadians Face Off Against Donald Trump’s Worst Idea Ever (New Westminster: Cosmic Cranium Press, 2025) $27.99 / 9781069072610
“The individuals profiled in this book use all kinds of narrative formats, telling stories through poetry and prose, pictographs, maps, ribbon skirts, and beadwork. There is a serious challenge of scope with such a short volume, but it is successful in its brevity at providing a glimpse of the multitude of Indigenous storytellers.” Kristina Hannis reviews Ours to Tell: Reclaiming Indigenous Stories, by Eldon Yellowhorn & Kathy Lowinger (Toronto: Annick Press, 2025) $24.99 / 9781773219530
“A musician, or any artist, can have an infinite variety of origin stories, yet I cannot help but feel that it largely comes down to this line from Case: ‘The ways to be unwanted were inexhaustible, it seemed, and as a child I still had no clue how to claim a spot for myself in the world.’ I’m sure there are exceptions, but feeling bereft of security and belonging often becomes a natural prerequisite to longing for artistic autonomy—to be and embody the thing you admire.” Jessica Poon reviews The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, by Neko Case (Toronto: Hachette Book Group, 2025) $30 / 9781538710500
“What will also appeal to British Columbians is the passionate defense of his Vancouver home from all those who criticize it from ‘Back East.’ He credits the ‘Terminal City’ with inventing the California Roll, calls Canadian Tire ‘Crappy Tire’ (‘Canadian Tire has more actual real money than God’) and celebrates Tim Horton’s ‘Double-double’ (‘the salt-of-the-earth-and-the-winter-driveway coffee’). Ron Verzuh reviews The Eh Team: A Celebration of Canadianisms from Elbows Up to Poutine, by Charles Demers (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2025) $26.95 / 9781778403743
“In order to give an additional perspective on Castle’s role as photographer in the First World War, the author provides salient details of his role as a photographer in the earlier Balkans war. Here the whole culture of war photography, including camaraderie and competition amongst the journalists, she suggests were a seminal influence on Castle’s sense of his own role.” Theo Dombrowski reviews The Taking of Vimy Ridge: First World War Photographs of William Ivor Castle, by Carla-Jean Stokes (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2025) $64.99 / 9781771126984
“In terms of the development of the disciplines of history and science, as well as the development of the arts and culture in British Columbia, the Okanagan region contributed enormously. Three eminent women come to mind: Margaret Anchoreta Orsmby (1909-1996), Joan Heriot (1911-2012), and Sveva Caetani (1917-1994).” Adriana A. Davies contributes the essay Extraordinary Women of the Okanagan to The British Columbia Review
“Settling in Edmonton in 1951 was not so easy for immigrants and, although her father was able to locate work when he had arrived two years earlier, many Italian families experienced difficulties in finding employment. While the family isn’t poor, there is no money for luxuries as Adriana is growing up, and she keenly feels the divide between the ‘English’ children and the immigrant children.” Carol Matthews reviews My Theatre of Memory: A Life in Words, by Adriana A. Davies (Gananoque: Guernica Editions, 2023) $25 / 9781771837705
“This was, surprisingly, one of the most heartwarming and uplifting books I’ve read in a long time. Hearing the authentic voices of the men involved in WHoS directly allowed me to feel a great sense of connection with them and their struggles to find humanity in a setting where humanity is often lost.” Susan Sanford Blades reviews Staging Prison Theatre in Canada: Setting the Spotlight on William Head on Stage, by Thana Ridha and Sylvie Frigon (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2025) $39.95 / 9780776644905
“Kean’s Canada Films was becoming a familiar brand to Vancouver moviegoers. A. D. responded to a limited market by diversifying his subject matter: local industries, the war effort, civic celebrations, and soft news items.” Dennis J. Duffy contributes the essay “The Famous Cowboy Artist”: A. D. Kean in Vancouver, 1913–1916
“Surviving Vancouver…is a reckoning with that lost history. The word in the title divides the book into two parts. Surviving as an adjective refers to the buildings and cityscapes that somehow managed to survive the past century of booms and depressions, immigrations, and globalization; whereas surviving as a verb deals with the social divides in a city – and province – where sheer survival is a daily challenge for far too many people.” Peter Hay reviews Surviving Vancouver by Michael Kluckner (Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781988242545
“Poetry infused Tom’s life and shaped it as he ‘recarved’ words in a never-ending attempt to squeeze more meaning from them. His passing was swift and silent, leaving us with his poetry to ponder and consider as we navigate the troubled world he left behind.” —Ron Verzuh reflects on the restless decades of his lifelong friend.
“When with Jim Wickwire and listening in on the tales of his K2 climb, I was reminded of two Canadians, Jim Haberl and Don Culver who reached the summit of K2 in 1993, Culver dying in the descent. Jim Haberl died when skiing in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in 1999.” Ron Dart recalls his lunch with the accomplished mountaineer, the first American to summit K2, Jim Wickwire.
“’This book is an apology of sorts to the number of people I have stopped mid-sentence . . . to offer the aside that a word or term they have employed had its genesis in an old sea term.’ Apologies offered here to the author and a big thanks for many hours of amusing and educational exploration of word worthy and seaworthy turns of phrase.” Ron Verzuh reviews Sound Like a Sailor: The Book of Nautical Expressions, by R. Bruce Macdonald (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025) $24.95 / 9781998526239
“Through her honest and open diary entries the reader learns details of her mental health struggles, early career moves, the court trial of her abuser and, how she ran away from the painful memories and shame to Ottawa, and her ever-present state of loneliness.” Cathalynn Labonté-Smith interviews co-authors Susan Aglukark and Andrew Warner and reviews Kihiani: A Memoir of Healing (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2025) $36.99 / 9781443472944
“But mostly we see people alone, like the guy sleeping in a van or the haunting shot of two young women divided by a bus shelter pane, each intent on their phone. Why are we so alone, DeCroo’s poems wonder, and in one of them he hopes he will find a face that will provide the answer.” Sheldon Goldfarb reviews Night Moves: The Street Photography of Rodney DeCroo, by Rodney DeCroo (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2025) $40 / 9781772142396
“The 36 chapters in My Soul Lives in these Mountains combine a series of linked stories, poems and paintings that makes this book a finely threaded together collection of geology, history, amusing treks taken, research done as part of the larger project for Chilliwack Search and Rescue-RCMP and a valuable telling of the three fatal airplane crashes in the area.” Ron Dart reviews My Soul Lives in these Mountains: A Collection of Stories, Poems and Paintings of the Chilliwack Cascades —Land of the Ts’elxwéyeqw, by Peter D. Scott (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397881
“In fact, gratitude is something I believe was on display in this enclave in the Coastal Room at the Gibson Public Market, an appreciation for the array of literary talent on the Sunshine Coast and across the province. That was certainly the message relayed by several literary award judges at this fifth annual event.” Trevor Marc Hughes reports on the recent Art & Words Festival events held in Gibsons this past weekend.
“Fillo more than survives, he blossoms during the pandem-y. As a talented musician, song-writer, and singer, he’s thrilled to become a source of comfort to the abandonees of urban life. He realizes his true value as a wandering minstrel in what could otherwise have been a dystopic tale.” Cathalynn Labonté-Smith reviews Singing with the Trees, by Rob Fillo (Victoria: Rob Fillo, 2025) $25 / 9798306571607
“In the late 1990s and 20-naughts, Stan and I lived six blocks apart in Victoria’s James Bay neighbourhood. Stan and Janet’s house on South Turner Street became a modern annex to Dorothy Burritt’s Suite Two. There was a guarantee of good company, good talk, and cups of tea—and films to watch in the big back bedroom, the Fox screening room. (I like to think of it as “The Stanley Theatre.”)” Dennis J. Duffy contributes an essay about trailblazing filmmaker, the late Stanley Fox.
“Now You Know Me should serve as guide for everyone on how to learn from each other about what truth and reconciliation really means. The book is uniquely composed, giving voice to both men through alternating passages. It is a perfect composition, touching on many topics in 54 short chapters of roughly 300 pages, that is quick to read.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Now You Know Me: Seeing the Unhidden Truth in Settler Colonialism, by k’ʷunəmɛn Joe Gallagher and John Matterson (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397829
