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Biography

A musical, musical life

“Most readers are likely to experience the whole narrative sequence, not as a life arc, but, rather, a scrapbook of incidents, many wonderfully ‘insane’.”—Theo Dombrowski reviews Have Bassoon, Will Travel: Memoir of an Adventurous Life in Music, by George Zukerman (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2024) 24.95 / 9781553807131

‘A relationship with place’

“Amos connects Hughes’ reflective style of painting to his personal association with place in a way that illuminates man, art, and location to the reader.” Matthew Downey reviews two books by Robert Amos: E.J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island, new edition (Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2024) $30 / 9781771514248 & E.J. Hughes: Life at the Lake (Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2023) $25 / 9781771514194

The Carol I didn’t know

“I was wrong about her. Shields is among our best novelists. She is also in the forefront of women writers who have shown us that we’ve been a lesser reading nation for not recognizing the many works produced by women writers.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Canadian Shields: Stories and Essays by Carol Shields, edited by Nora Foster Stovel (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2024) $29.95 / 9781772840827

The outcome of cutting class

“Henry Miller said that Blaise Cendrars was the man Ernest Hemingway wanted to be.” Jim Christy writes an essay to introduce A Dangerous Life, Vol. 1: True tales from the life and times of Blaise Cendrars, the world’s greatest vagabond by David J. MacKinnon (translation), Blaise Cendrars
(Gananoque, ON: Guernica Editions, 2024)
$24.95 / 9781771839228

Founding father’s west coast perceptions

“Aside from the copious illustrations and comparisons of passages from Kane’s primary journals, the scribes account, and the final publication, there are the 14 sections of the preface, detailed maps, “Discussion” and “Notes” for each of the 25 chapters, which bring to life the “times, which is academically thorough and comprehensive.” Christina Johnson-Dean reviews Paul Kane’s Travels in Indigenous North America: Writings and Art, Life and Times, by I.S. MacLaren (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024) $450 (cloth, boxed four-volume set) / 9780228017479

Important contribution to our legal history

“Brode has produced a remarkable account of Inouye’s controversial life using a vast range of documents and news accounts. The thirteen chapters head towards a climatic end. ‘What was Inouye’s allegiance?’ Brode states.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Traitor by Default: The Trials of Kanao Inouye, the Kamloops Kid by Patrick Brode (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2024) $26.99 / 9781459753693

‘All life is sacred’

“Nurses don’t get to make mistakes. This book is written as carefully as Crook navigated intransigent bureaucracy, patients, and children.” Linda Rogers reviews Always on Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching, and Rural Living by Marion McKinnon Crook (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $26.95 / 9781772034691

An ‘ever-loud, ever-tempting world’

Debut book, a memoir, chronicles a typical middle-class suburban upbringing that’s followed by years of filling an existential “black hole” with harmful choices. —Carellin Brooks reviews Sunrise Over Half-Built Houses: Love, Longing and Addiction in Suburbia, by Erin Steele (Qualicum Beach: Dagger Editions, 2024) $26.00 / 9781773861500

Contemplating ‘multiple threads of identity’

“Mahtani is truly aiming to accomplish a lot with May it Have a Happy Ending and the threads of family, illness, work, and other elements take their turns in the spotlight, then drift through the background, reminding us that we are always composed of a range of tales, that nothing is exclusive or simple or from which we are easily healed.” Catherine Owen reviews May it Have a Happy Ending: A Memoir of Finding My Voice as My Mother Lost Hers, by Minelle Mahtani (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2024) $34.95 / 9780385675208

Navigating through life

“Into his own remarkable life story, he manages to also weave world events in history over the past century, including many human conflicts, criminal justice reform and his own personal reflections as he travels the world from Canada to the United Kingdom, Germany, Uganda, and the Middle East.” Valerie Green reviews Boxing The Compass: A Life of Seafaring, Music, and Pilgrimage by Michael L. Hadley (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $29.95 / 9781772034738

Diaries highlight the dynamic North

“Willard Freer’s diaries document a dynamic period in the North, and Jay Sherwood’s Kechika Chronicler takes the reader on many of Freer’s wilderness trails.” Ross Peck reviews Kechika Chronicler: Willard Freer’s Northern BC and Yukon Diaries, 1942-1975, by Jay Sherwood (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023) $26 / 9781773860909

Adieu, Pnina! Well, maybe

“What an odyssey her life has been! When you think of her beginnings in mid-century Romania and Israel, her narrow escape from perilous situations, and her good fortune, which she has fully utilized, it is one of those stories that can be told again and again.” Christina Johnson-Dean looks back on the life and art of Vancouver-based Pnina Granirer.

Appreciating where we are

“There’s an entire library of books about the marvels of a province that so many put at the bottom of their vacation bucket lists, certainly too many to cite here. But a few recent titles in the not-so-often-reviewed list caught my eye.” Stephen Hume reviews On the Trail: 50 Years of Engaging with Nature by Langley Field Naturalists (Surrey: Hancock House, 2023) $19.95 / 9780888397591, Gumboot Guys: Nautical Adventures on British Columbia’s North Coast by Lou Allison and Jane Wilde, (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023) $26 / 9781773861180, Fried Eggs and Fish Scales: Tales from a Sointula Troller by Jon Taylor (Madeira Park, Harbour Publishing, 2024) $24.95 / 9781990776656 & Backpacking on Vancouver Island: The Essential Guide to the Best Multi-Day Trips and Day Hikes by Taryn Eyton (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $26.95 / 9781778400100

“Just Say Yes” and other wisdom

“After reading McDonald’s memoir…I found him refreshingly spontaneous and unpredictable…I knew from an interview last year focused on his nonfiction book, The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis with Today’s Technology, that he’s one of the most contagiously positive and enthusiastic people I’ve ever met…” Cathalynn Labonté-Smith interviews Bob McDonald, author of his memoir Just Say Yes (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $34.95 / 9781771624206

Staring down white privilege

“Crossing the River is the author’s personal journey of atonement – coming to terms with her birthright of white privilege. The book gives voice to a different narrative of Canada’s history and offers personal insight into the meaning of reconciliation.” Sage Birchwater reviews Crossing the River: An Unsettling Memoir by Sandra Hayes-Gardiner (Calgary: BixBooks, 2023) $20 / 9781777296759

The leap to serenity

“So, he transplants himself to a new life, a new take on things. How many of us would like to do the same if we only had the courage?” Harvey De Roo reviews The Road to Appledore: or How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place, by Tom Wayman (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $26.95 / 9781990776632

Dealing with life-altering injury

“The emphasis on our human ‘neuroplasticity’ or the ability of the nervous system to alter its functions and responses following injury, ends up giving the most accurate approach to why the pain occurs, while offering hope for possible re-configurings of its pertinacity, if not resolutions.” Catherine Owen reviews The Pain Project: A Couple’s Story of Confronting Chronic Pain, by Kara Stanley with Simon Paradis (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $26.95 / 9781771648400

‘A multi-generational family saga’

“The book takes us through various phases in China’s modern history, from the Anglo-Chinese wars of the 1840s and the Boxer Rebellion, through both world wars, the Japanese conquest and occupation of China, and the advent of Communism.” Tom Koppel reviews Searching for Billie: A journalist’s quest to understand his mother’s past leads him to discover a vanished China by Ian Gill (Hong Kong: Blacksmith Books, 2024) $25.85 / 9789887554660

Scorched memories

“The book suggests that future efforts should prioritize rebuilding Lytton with a strong focus on sustainability and resilience. This involves implementing policies that address the root causes of vulnerability, such as historical injustices and environmental degradation.” Amy Tucker reviews Lytton: Climate Change, Colonialism and Life Before the Fire by Peter Edwards and Kevin Loring (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024) $36 / 9781039006157

Writers: a new ‘how-to’ philosophy

Warland is convinced that as writers, “we must learn to live with profound vulnerability.” In doing this, we are filling in the lack of stories that others have been too afraid to tell. We become more resilient in ourselves as we learn from ourselves—our fears and identities—and we can start to tell authentic narratives that our world, culturally and socially, so desperately needs.” —Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, by Betsy Warland (Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023) $24.95 / 9781770867031

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