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History (B.C.)

#615 A floating city sinks

Floating City by Kerri Sakamoto Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2018; Penguin Random House, 2019 $21.00 / 9780345809896 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * “One swallow doth not a summer make” – Shakespeare, from Aristotle Kerri Sakamoto’s flight south to warmer climes after the publication of One Hundred Million Hearts (Penguin, 2005) has been a multi-year migration. And…
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#614 Waterfront industry & memory

Photo essay: Revolving W and Flying Pigs: A Neon Journal by Keith McKellar (Laughing Hand), with an introduction by Robert Amos Victoria: BoneYard Ink Books, 2018 $50.00 / 9781775357704 Orders: direct from  www.laughinghand.com A photo essay by Keith McKellar and Robert Amos * In December 2018 we published a review (Ormsby Review #449) by Grahame…
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#612 Chinese ghosts, Chinese identity

The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family by Lindsay Wong Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781551527369 Reviewed by Imogene Lim First published January 17, 2019 * Editor’s note: this review was first published in The Ormsby Review in January 2019. Somehow it disappeared when material…
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#610 Secwépemc playwright honoured

Honouring the Strength of Indian Women: Plays, Stories, Poetry by Vera Manuel (author) and Michelle Coupal, Deanna Reder, Joanne Arnott, Emalene A. Manuel (editors) Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9780887558368 Reviewed by Diana French * Vera Manuel (1949-2010), actor, playwright, poet, drama therapist, and healer has been honoured with an anthology of…
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#608 Kootenay art and activism

New Ground: A Memoir of Art and Activism in BC’s Interior by Ann Kujundzic, with a foreword by Mary Schendlinger Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9781773860015 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * I love memoirs like this. And really, we need so many more of them. So many stories still remain to be told,…
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#605 Island hotels & beer parlours

Along the E&N: A Journey Back to the Historic Hotels of Vancouver Island by Glen Mofford Victoria: TouchWood Press, 2019 $22.00 / 9781771512879 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * For 125 years, beginning in 1886, the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway served as Vancouver Island’s main railway line running from Victoria to Courtenay, with branch lines…
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#604 BC Hydro’s destructive legacy

Our Coloured Past: The Arrow Lakes in the Age of Colour Photography by Kyle Kusch Nakusp: Arrow Lakes Historical Society, 2019 $30.00 /  9780969423683 Reviewed by Duff Sutherland * In Our Coloured Past: The Arrow Lakes in the Age of Colour Photography, Kyle Kusch presents 350 colour photographs from the collection of Nakusp’s Arrow Lakes…
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#603 Deep time to time slipping away

The Nature of Canada by Colin M. Coates and Graeme Wynn (editors) Vancouver: UBC Press [On Point Press],2019 $29.95 / 9780774890366 Reviewed by Jenny Clayton * A collaborative effort by some of the leading scholars in the field, The Nature of Canada offers a fresh look at Canadian environmental history. Wishing to showcase research supported…
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#601 Notice to all Japanese Persons

The Three Pleasures by Terry Watada Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2017 $24.99 / 9781772140958 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * One of the touchstones of Canadian historical fiction is Obasan, Joy Kogawa’s gentle, autobiographical 1981 story of a Japanese-Canadian childhood disrupted by the racism of the Second World War years in British Columbia. With its cast of…
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#599 Coast Salish women revealed

Interwoven Lives: Indigenous Mothers of Salish Coast Communities by Candace Wellman Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 2019 $27.95 (U.S.) / 9780874223644 Reviewed by Marie Elliott * Researching settlement history can take you in many directions, some more challenging than others. While helping people with their family histories at the Washington State Archives in Bellingham,…
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#593 Wilderness campaigns & cultures

At the Wilderness Edge: The Rise of the Antidevelopment Movement on Canada’s West Coast by J.I. (Jack) Little Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 $29.95 / 9780773556409 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * Bear with me, please. Shouldn’t “Wilderness” be in the possessive? At the Wilderness’s Edge maybe? If so, this is a shocking…
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#592 Ginger beef and fried macaroni

Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants by Ann Hui Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $24.95 / 9781771622226 Reviewed by Imogene Lim * In March 2019, B.C. Bestseller Chop Suey Nation, by Ann Hui, was awarded the 2019 Dr. Edgar Wickberg Book Prize by the Chinese Canadian Historical…
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#590 Mission to skid row

In His Steps: The Life and Times of Wilberforce Cooper, Vancouver’s Skid Road Priest by Peter J. Cooper Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2019 $27.68 / 9781525544545 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * St. James’s Anglican Church presides over Vancouver’s Downtown East Side — presides over but does not loom over. Described as simultaneously Byzantine, Gothic Revival, and…
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#588 Love, labour, and linocuts

On the Curve: The Life and Art of Sybil Andrews by Janet Nicol, with a foreword by Robin Laurence Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $28.95 / 9781987915877  * See with Your Own Eyes: The Sybil Andrews Story by Laura Ellyn Campbell River: Campbell River Arts Council, 2018 $15.00 / 9780981207568 Both books reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb…
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#587 Islands and ingenuity

Complicated Simplicity: Island Life in the Pacific Northwest by Joy Davis Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $22.95 / 9781772032703 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Joy Davis’s book, she writes, “…focuses on the perspectives and experiences of people who live on Pacific Northwest islands, particularly those not served by ferries…” Life on these islands, she tells…
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#585 Shallow draft on Arrow Lakes

SS Minto: The Arrow Lakes’ Longest Serving Sternwheeler by Bruce Rohn Nakusp: Arrow Lakes Historical Society, 2018 $30.00 / 9780969423676 Reviewed by David R. Conn * Bruce Rohn’s book on the SS Minto – named after Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, Canada’s Governor General from 1898-1904 — won the BC Historical Federation’s Community…
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#583 From Nepean to Okanagan

Cornelius O’Keefe: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of an Okanagan Pioneer by Sherri Field Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $9.95 / 9781772032482 Reviewed by Ian Pooley * Sherri Field’s new book, Cornelius O’Keefe, the Life, Loves, and Legacy of an Okanagan Rancher, is a welcome addition to the short list of serious works about Okanagan history…
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#580 The power behind the P.M.

At the Centre of Government: The Prime Minister and the Limits of Political Power by Ian Brodie Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780773552906 Reviewed by Hamish Telford * A political scientist by training, Ian Brodie served as Stephen Harper’s first chief of staff, 2006-08, and he is now a professor of…
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#578 Roughing it at the Cove

Boom & Bust: The Resilient Women of Historic Telegraph Cove by Jennifer Butler Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2019 $26.00 / 9781771512985 Reviewed by Heather Graham * In 1911 or so, Alfred Marmaduke Wastell, known to all as Duke, informed his wife, Mame, that he had “bought out a bad loan on some land across the Johnstone…
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