obittersweet: Life Lessons from Obituaries by Tamara Macpherson Vukusic Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781771615280 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * As a long-time reader of obituaries, I was delighted to receive a copy of Tamara Macpherson Vukusic’s collection of essays which is aptly titled obittersweet. Describing her Sunday morning ritual “with coffee in…
Read more 1177 Paint those final portraits
Pinkerton’s and the Hunt for Simon Gunanoot: Double Murder, Secret Agents and an Elusive Outlaw by Geoff Mynett Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781773860503 Reviewed by Tyler McCreary * There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the story of the Gitxsan outlaw Simon Gunanoot. Accused of killing two mixed-race men, Alex…
Read more 1172 Gunanoot at large, 1906-1919
Little Resilience: The Ryerson Poetry Chap-Books by Eli MacLaren Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $37.95 / 9780228003496 Reviewed by Carole Gerson * We have long needed this book! For 35 years, from 1925 to 1960, Canadian poets writing in English were sustained by the Ryerson Poetry Chap-Book series, which issued some 200 booklets…
Read more 1166 Canadian poetry: the untold story
Improbable Journeys: From Crossing the Himalayas on Horseback to a Career in Obstetrics and Gynaecology by Dr. Bernard A.O. Binns and Ron Smith Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2020 $29.95 / 9781772441932 Reviewed by John Kenwright * Editor’s note: Occasionally we run two reviews of the same book at The British Columbia Review. May Q….
Read more 1152 A career in postwar medicine
The Trial of Jeanne Catherine: Infanticide in Early Modern Geneva by Sara Beam Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781487587673 Reviewed by John Lepage * Historians are usually careful to establish the relevance of their publications. It is part of the ongoing program of history’s defence of itself as a field of study…
Read more 1148 Morality, poison & infanticide
The Bushman’s Lair: On the Trail of the Fugitive of the Shuswap by Paul McKendrick Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $22.95 / 9781550179224 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * In the early 2000s the Bushman of the Shuswap was on the national news. More of a nuisance than a menace perhaps. He lived off the avails…
Read more 1140 Bushman Bjornstrom of Shuswap
Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa’xaid by Cecil Paul as told to Briony Penn Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 $30.00 / 9781771602952 * Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Wa’xaid by Briony Penn with Cecil Paul Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $38.00 / 9781771603218 Both books reviewed by hagwil hayetsk Charles…
Read more 1139 The late Wa’xaid: Cecil Paul
Resilience Through Writing: A Bibliographic Guide to Indigenous-Authored Publications in the Pacific Northwest before 1960 by Robert E. Walls, edited by Darby C. Stapp Richland, WA: Journal of Northwestern Anthropology, Memoir 20, January 2021 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9798566579900 Reviewed by John Lutz * The very quotable English essayist Charles Lamb wrote that bibliographies are “books…
Read more 1137 Resurrecting Indigenous voices
ESSAY: “The Noise of Time”[1] and the Removal of History? by Robin Fisher * In 1957 a group of anthropologists went ashore at SG̱ang Gwaay, which they knew as Ninstints, the site of a long deserted Haida village on Anthony Island. With ropes, pulleys and crosscut saws they lowered a few of the surviving totem…
Read more 1124 “The Noise of Time” and the Removal of History?
I Can Only Paint: The Story of Battlefield Artist Mary Riter Hamilton by Irene Gammel Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2020 $49.95 / 9780228003915 Reviewed by Robert Amos * Mary Riter Hamilton was a Canadian artist born in Culross, Ontario in 1867. Following a difficult childhood she was married at 21 and widowed at…
Read more 1115 An artist in the wreckage of war
New Yorkers: A City and its People in Our Time by Craig Taylor Toronto: Penguin Random House (Doubleday Canada), 2021 $39.95 / 9780385681636 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * My one visit to New York was on August 11, 1977 and it lasted two hours. I remember suffocating heat, a sense of vertigo from all those…
Read more 1109 Stories in the voice of New York
Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett by Michael Nest with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9780889777491 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Editor’s note: I’m delighted to have heard today (January 3, 2022) that the film and tv rights to Cold Case North:…
Read more 1108 The Lower Foster Lake mystery
Metamorphosis: Selected Children’s Literature by P.K. Page, edited by Margaret Steffler Erin, Ontario: Porcupine’s Quill, 2020 $22.95 / 9780889844322 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * To be clear: P.K. Page (1916-2010) did write a number of delightful books for children, but this volume is not one of them. Not that this book is not delightful; it is,…
Read more 1107 Page’s plays and fairy tales
Victoria Unbuttoned: A Red-Light History of BC’s Capital City by Linda J. Eversole Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2021 $20.00 / 9781771513388 Reviewed by Patrick A. Dunae * For over a century, Victoria, British Columbia has promoted itself as a city of gardens, as a haven for genteel tourists and wealthy retirees. But as Linda Eversole reminds…
Read more 1105 Sex workers’ lives
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Two: Push and Pull: Tommy Norbury and Emigration by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 2 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada. Earlier in 2021 we published the…
Read more 1104 The call of the Kootenay
Improbable Journeys: From Crossing the Himalayas on Horseback to a Career in Obstetrics and Gynaecology by Dr. Bernard A.O. Binns and Ron Smith Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2020 $29.95 / 9781772441932 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * Editor’s note: for a subsequent review of Improbable Journeys by John Kenwright, see The Ormsby Review, June…
Read more 1089 A lifetime of care and medicine
Gwich’in K’yuu Gwiidandài’ Tthak Ejuk Gòonlih: Our Whole Gwich’in Way of Life Has Changed: Stories from the People of the Land by Leslie McCartney and Gwich’in Tribal Council Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2020 $99.99 / 9781772124828 Reviewed by Daniel Sims * “Publish or perish” is an axiom of professional academics, especially those employed by…
Read more 1086 The voice of Gwich’in Elders
Hearing More Voices: English-Canadian Women in Print and on the Air, 1914-1960 by Peggy Lynn Kelly and Carole Gerson Ottawa: Borealis Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781896133713 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * As a library school student in the mid 1970s I was told that Anne of Green Gables could not be considered a Canadian classic;…
Read more 1085 A balanced cultural herstory
A Whisper Across Time: My Family’s Story of the Holocaust told through Art & Poetry by Olga Campbell Vancouver: Jubaji Press, 2018, distributed by Red Toque Books. To purchase see here $31.95 / 9780981291123 Reviewed by Claire Sicherman * I first met visual artist and author Olga Campbell in 2019 at Vancouver’s Jewish Community Centre,…
Read more 1072 Healing through creativity
On Their Own Terms: True Stories of Trailblazing Women of Vancouver Island by Haley Healey Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $9.95 / 9781772033250 Reviewed by Lynne Bowen * Vancouver Island attracts a certain type of person: a person who has chosen to live separate from convention, or from family, or from boredom, or from the past…
Read more 1069 Island women in the spotlight