“Andruff is proud of his own successes and those of his family since their arrival in Canada as refugees in the 1920s. He is not boastful. Rather, Andruff’s goal is to demonstrate the struggles and achievements of refugees.” Duff Sutherland reviews The Russian Refugees: A Family’s First Century in Canada, by Michael Andruff (Vancouver: Heritage House, 2022) $26.95 / 9781772034196
“Lazarus researched hundreds of historic documents related to the disaster, retrieved personal letters from the families of those who had been on the ship, and investigated the reports of the inquiries held into the catastrophe.” Ian Kennedy reviews Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025) $26.95 / 9781551529738
“Gumboots in the Straits is a book of poignant nostalgia, even romance, evoking the BC coast as experienced by men now in their 70s and 80s. It was a special time and place of beauty, serenity, opportunity, and adventure for those attracted to the sea, boats, and closeness to nature.” Tom Koppel reviews Gumboots in the Straits: Nautical Adventures from Sointula to the Salish Sea, edited by Lou Allison with Jane Wilde (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $26 / 9781773861548
“But Archibald – author Graeme Menzies uses his given name rather than his surname – is vocally against the plundering and abuse of the First Nations his ships encountered. In fact, he befriended them during his two round-the-world voyages that brought him to the west coast of Vancouver Island.” Ron Verzuh reviews Bones: The Life and Adventures of Doctor Archibald Menzies, by Graeme Menzies (Dunbeath, Scotland: Whittles Publishing, 2024) $23.95 / 9781849955911
“Mynett has dug deeply into HBC logs and personal journals to bring us this story of harsh competition and survival in a land of often unbearable cold and danger.” Ron Verzuh reviews A Gentlemen of Considerable Talent: William Brown and the Fur Trade, 1811-1827, by Geoff Mynett (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $26 / 9781773861524
“McAlpine’s memoir is a cogent, salubrious reminder that our accolades and impressive achievements are, more often than not, seldom the reason why anyone likes or trusts us. Initially, McAlpine keeps his recovery and his doctorly life neatly compartmentalized.” Jessica Poon reviews Prescription: Ice Cream: A Doctor’s Journey to Discover What Matters, by Alastair McAlpine (Johannesburg: Pan MacMillan South Africa, 2024) $37.50 / 9781770108042
“Their book, a collection of case studies, reveals the parallel experience of Indigenous women living on the Canadian prairie in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the ‘nuance and diversity in their everyday lives, in how they responded to, resisted, and refused settler colonial intrusion, and in the ways they persisted in the face of the many transitions that infringed on their traditional ways of life.'” Linda Rogers reviews Métis Matriarchs: Agents of Transition by Cheryl Troupe and Doris Jeanne MacKinnon (eds.) (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2024) $34.95 / 9781779400116
“It’s all BC coastal lore – this is Harbour Publishing and Howard White after all. Yet each volume is very different from the other. And the many authors involved amount to a virtual who’s who of the coast’s contemporary non-fiction writers.” Howard Macdonald Stewart reviews Raincoast Chronicle: Fifth Five, by Howard White [ed.] (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $60 / 9781990776939
“What Todd has written and photographed is a riveting, honest book which Bruce Kirkby aptly states in his introduction – examines ‘mortality, meaning and connection’ with a ‘ruthless honesty (which) reminds me at times of Anthony Bourdain on two wheels.'” Isabel Nanton reviews Inside the Belly of an Elephant: A Motorcycle Journey of Loss, Legacy and Ultimate Freedom by Todd Lawson (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2023) $30 / 9781771605755
“Not one single gravestone stands to mark my family. It is as though they didn’t exist.” —In “The Blood in the Stone” Deborah Lane excavates family history and imagines life as it might have been.
“Ann-Lee Switzer discovered the stories in the BC Archives of the Royal BC Museum in Victoria. Five previously unpublished stories have been added to the collection first published in 2007. Nearly thirty of Carr’s original illustrations are also included.” Mary Ann Moore reviews This And That: The Lost Stories of Emily Carr (Revised and Updated) by Emily Carr, Ann-Lee Switzer (ed.) (Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2024) $26 / 9781771514484
“This book outlines these men’s actions, detailing the things some people then found to be positive, in terms of developing businesses and resource allocation. However, on their journey to success by method of coverup and coercion they have not only destroyed lives, but ways of living, culture, and human rights.” Jeffrey Stychin reviews When Heroes Become Villains: Helmcken, Trutch, Bowser, and the Streets, Lakes, and Towns Named After Them, by Jon Bartlett & Brian Robertson (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2024) $18 / 9781554202126
“It’s as if Catherine is trying to live vicariously through Michelle, and thus how devastating that Michelle’s life was cut short, leaving Catherine to wonder what it was for, was it all in vain? Was the mission to Afghanistan in vain?” Sheldon Goldfarb reviews Embedded: The Irreconcilable Nature of War, Loss and Consequence, by Catherine Lang (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $26 / 9781773861517
“She loves the idea of motherhood, unconditional love, but the journey is harrowing, the gynecological/psychological equivalent of fingernails on blackboards, tearing the night sky apart. But, in the end, the blackboard embraces as it informs us that we are one in the many, stars burning bright.” Linda Rogers reviews Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes: essays on motherhood, by Adrienne Gruber (Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2024) $23 / 9781771669030
“Like many other books in this genre, Murray’s stories speak of the victimization of Indigenous people. But Murray is nobody’s victim and by his example others may heal themselves and their loved ones from intergenerational trauma, just as he had.” Richard Butler reviews Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation by The Honourable Murray Sinclair CC, Mazina Giizhik (as told to Sara Sinclair and Niigaanwedom Sinclair), (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024) $29.95 / 9780771099106
“With their offspring grown, they sought a new lifestyle and found it on Clayoquot’s Vargas Island during a kayaking trip (Clayoquot Sound is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve). Vargas lies northwest of Tofino, west of Meares Island and most of its territory is a Park Reserve.” Marianne Scott reviews Escape to Clayoquot Sound: Finding Home in a Wild Place, by John Dowd and Bea Dowd (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $34.95 / 9781772034714
This memoir, a “whimsical look at the fall of the British Empire,” features anecdotes about the author’s assorted encounters with celebrities over the decades. —Valerie Green reviews Celebrities Who Have Met Me: A Child of the Lost Empire, by John D’Eathe (Vancouver: Adagio Media, 2024) $21.99 9781999433925
“With Farrant’s impeccable talent for language, her story is beautifully detailed…This story will bring back memories to all who remember being a teenager in Greater Victoria in the 1960s.” Valerie Green reviews My Turquoise Years: A Memoir (Twentieth Anniversary Edition), by M.A.C. Farrant (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2024) $21.95 / 9781772016369
“It is the story of her survival expressed through her art, her poetry, and especially through the letters she writes to her grandson telling him stories of where his ancestors came from while hoping for a brighter future for him.” Valerie Green reviews Dear Arlo: letters to my grandson
by Olga Campbell (Vancouver: Jubaji Press, 2024) $21 / 9789981291130)
2024 donors to the British Columbia Review, a thank you from Richard Mackie.