Familial matters
Buoyant debut novel ponders manhood and Indigeneity…
Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Beautiful Beautiful, by Brandon Reid
(Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023) $24.95 / 9780889714540
History (B.C.)
No. 2000 for the BC Review!
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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Poems embrace the natural world
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 way we were
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 where sorrow and joy converge
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
Stories explore ‘tropes of older womanhood’
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
‘Strands of a life’
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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Meditative, impressionistic, awe-inspiring
“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
Not your high school teacher’s Shakespeare
Sonnets From a Cell by 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…
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‘Audacious? Yes. Dizzying? A little, yes.’
Run the Bead by Dustin Cole Berlin: Soyos Books, 2023 $18.99 (USD) / 9780645795851 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Early in Dustin Cole’s sophomore novel, Run the Bead, the Vancouver author briefly draws attention to a minor character who writes science fiction under the pseudonym R.F. Hale. Much later, the author has his protagonist scan…
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Life’s seasonality, in two poem collections
A Brief and Endless Sea by Barbara Pelman Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023 $20.00 / 9781773861258 doom eager by Karl Meade Salt Spring Island: Rainbow Publishers/Raven Chapbooks, 2023 $22.95 / 9781778160349 Reviewed by Joe Enns * Two Vancouver Island poets draw on vast landscapes as they examine grief and mortality through life’s seasonality. Victoria-based poet…
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Cpt. Sivart’s adventures in wonderland
Life at the Precipice by R.F. Vincent Victoria: FriesenPress, 2023 $20.99 / 9781039171497 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * There’s a long tradition of novels masquerading as true stories. Think of Robinson Crusoe. Or Lemuel Gulliver. Readers in 1726 were treated to the appearance of a book of travels by Captain Gulliver, who told of Lilliputians…
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1972 Make injection sites, not criminals
Decrim: How We Decriminalized Drugs in British Columbia by Kennedy Stewart Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023 $24.95 / 9781990776304 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Former Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart speaks from political experience when he describes the struggle to have hard drugs like heroin and cocaine decriminalized in Canada’s third largest city. He also speaks…
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1971 ‘Her new painterly expression’
A Dream in the Eye: The Complete Paintings and Collages of Phyllis Webb edited by Stephen Collis Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023 $59.95 / 9781772014747 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * A Dream in the Eye: The Complete Paintings and Collages of Phyllis Webb, edited by Stephen Collis, is a sumptious presentation of Phyllis Webb’s visual output, accompanied…
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1970 Calling Graduate Liberal Studies
Attention students in Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University! * Since 2018, students in the Graduate Liberal Studies programme at Simon Fraser University have contributed numerous essays, memoirs, poems, and book reviews to The British Columbia Review. We at the BC Review are delighted to maintain a productive collaboration with the GLS community, as…
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1967 ‘A long artistic tradition’
Pacific Voyages: The Story of Sail in the Great Ocean by Gordon Miller Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $59.95 / 9781771623476 Reviewed by Robin Fisher * This is a great book about a great ocean and the tiny ships that made it manifest. The literature on the exploration of the Pacific, it sometimes seems,…
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1965 The shame of 1907
White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver by Henry Tsang Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023 $32.95 / 9781551529196 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Many British Columbians will have heard of the Vancouver anti-Asian riots of 1907. It was a brutal historic event that revealed deep-seated public prejudices fueled by paranoia about the province being…
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1964 Literary thriller, ‘by all accounts … thrilling’
Uncontrolled Flight by Frances Peck Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2023 $25.95 / 9781774390757 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * Frances Peck has once again written a story that will grip British Columbian’s fears and hearts. Her debut novel, The Broken Places, envisioned fall-out from the big earthquake predicted to hit the Vancouver area. Uncontrolled Flight’s catalyst is…
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1961 Logging camp life
The Rangitangs: Life on the Edge – A Humorous Look at Coastal Loggers Float-camp Life from the 1920s to 1950s by Mike Whalen Self-published by Mike Whalen, 2023 $40.00 (soft cover) / 978173885723 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * Inspired by the cartoon collection from which it draws its name, The Rangitangs: Life on the Edge is…
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1958 Shades and perplexities of blue
Sapphire and the Hollow Bone by Diana Hayes Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2023 $23.95 / 9781771715192 Reviewed by gillian harding-russell * Meditative and elegiac in its imagery and moods and finding resonances in mythology, Diana Hayes’ Sapphire and the Hollow Bone is imbued with the colour blue. Whether such details as the cherished gift of a “star…
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