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…
Read more No. 2000 for the BC Review!
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…
Read more ‘Strands of a life’
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…
Read more 1970 Calling Graduate Liberal Studies
Don’t Call It Hair Metal: Art in the Excess of ‘80s Rock by Sean Kelly Toronto: ECW Press, 2023 $26.95 / 9781770416437 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * Sometimes a book comes along that is simply a dream to read and review. Don’t Call It Hair Metal is one of those reveries: fiercely well-written, nostalgic, energetic,…
Read more 1955 Reaching for 1980s rock’s roots
Unsettled: Lord Selkirk’s Scottish Colonists and the Battle for Canada’s West, 1813-1816 by Robert Lower Toronto: ECW Press, 2023 $29.95 / 9781770417182 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Many of us learned about Lord Selkirk’s Red River Settlement in high school or college, but we’ve never read it so up close and personal as Robert Lower…
Read more 1954 Survival of the fittest Scots
Nimrods: A Fake-Punk, Self-Hurt Anti-Memoir by Kawika Guillermo Durham: Duke University Press, 2023 $25.95 / 9781478024927 Reviewed by Logan Macnair * Given that his complicated relationship with his father serves as the catalyst for much of the book’s content, it seems fitting that author Kawika Guillermo begins Nimrods with a reflection of his own experiences…
Read more 1948 ‘Anti-memoir’ meditates on fatherhood, perseverance
When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery & Transformation by Tara Sidhoo Fraser Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781551529271 Reviewed by Betty Jane Hegerat * Tara Sidhoo Fraser’s When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery & Transformation pieces together the aftermath of a stroke and diagnosis of a rare…
Read more 1943 ‘Don’t you dare forget me’
Out of the Dark by Julie Lawson Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2023 $14.95 / 9781774712344 Reviewed by Alison Acheson * “… just don’t get anything fancy. We are who we are”: words spoken by the main character’s mother in Julie Lawson’s middle grade/young adult novel Out of the Dark. The words reflect a theme to the…
Read more 1940 For YA readers: Halifax in WWI
Antarctic Pioneer: The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne by Joanna Kafarowski Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2022 $25.99 / 9781459749535 Reviewed by Amy Tucker * Prepare to embark on an awe-inspiring adventure as author Joanna Kafarowski takes us on a captivating exploration of one of the most remarkable women in the history of polar exploration in her…
Read more 1939 Remarkable journey of courage
Bloom Where You Are Planted: 50 Conversations with Inspiring British Columbians by Beka Shane Denter Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2022 $39.95 / 9781772034295 Reviewed by Valerie Green * This book by Beka Shane Denter is an inspirational collection of interviews in the form of Q&As with photographs, of a group of fifty (forty-nine women and…
Read more 1935 United through art
Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada [Doubleday Canada], 2020 $21.00 / 9780385687577 Reviewed by David Milward * Missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) remains a grave crisis in Canada….
Read more 1933 Calling a spade a spade
The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance by Sasha Colby Toronto: ECW Press, 2023 $24.95 / 9781770417359 Reviewed by Theresa Kishkan * More than 3 decades ago, on a family camping trip, I bought a set of matryoshka dolls in an art gallery in Wells, BC….
Read more 1930 From one generation to another
Class Warrior: The Selected Works of E.T. Kingsley by Benjamin Isitt and Ravi Malhotra (eds.) Athabasca: Athabasca University Press, 2022 $34.95 / 9781778290046 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Chances are you’ve never heard of Eugene Thornton (E.T.) Kingsley. Chances are also good that if you had heard of him you might not like him or…
Read more 1927 Impossiblist Maverick
The Fierce: The Untold Story of the Teenager Who Took on the Worst War Criminal Living in America by Judy Piercey Cheltenham, UK: The History Press, 2023 £20.05 / 9781803991153 Reviewed by Peter Hay * The Holocaust was not a single event, confined to a singular city or country, nor was it caused by one…
Read more 1923 A complex path to justice
Almost Brown: A Mixed Race Family Memoir by Charlotte Gill Toronto: Penguin RandomHouse, 2023 $36 hardcover / 9780735243033 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * The author of various fiction and narrative non-fiction titles, including the tree-planting memoir Eating Dirt, Sunshine Coast-based Charlotte Gill is a gifted storyteller. Her new memoir explores how the author’s self-image and…
Read more 1905 Stuck in the middle with you
The All + Flesh By Brandi Bird Toronto: House of Anansi, 2023 $16.99 / 9781487011826 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * We are all changed. Plague and pestilence have left many of us in a state of grief, our innocence lost, experience teaching us the perils of hubris. As usual, prayer translates to poetry as our…
Read more 1894 Notes on grief
Capturing the Summit: Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925 by Trevor Marc Hughes Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2023 $24.95 / 9781553806806 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * When naturalist/cinematographer Hamilton Mack Laing was commissioned by the National Museum of Canada to accompany the expedition making the first ascent of Mount Logan in 1925,…
Read more 1870 Mack Laing in Alaska
Interview channel update by Richard Mackie * Since January 2023 Trevor Hughes, interim non-fiction editor of The British Columbia Review, has branched out as Video Segment Producer and curator of our new Interview Channel, hosted by YouTube. So far, Trevor has uploaded thirteen interviews that capture in words a broad spectrum of British Columbian authors,…
Read more 1841 BC Review interviews update
Welcome Trevor and Brett by Richard Mackie * On behalf of the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society and our Advisory Board I’d like to welcome Trevor Marc Hughes and Brett Josef Grubisic as interim editors of The British Columbia Review for the year May 1, 2023 to May 1, 2024. The position was made possible…
Read more 1813 Welcome Trevor and Brett
Indigiqueerness: A Conversation About Storytelling by Joshua Whitehead, in dialogue with Angie Abdou Athabasca, Alberta: Athabasca University Press, 2023 $19.99 / 9781771993913 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * Joshua Whitehead doesn’t feel ashamed writing about sex he says. When he went home to “the rez,” he’d prefer helping the women in the kitchen where all…
Read more 1805 Nêhiyawêwin: being Cree