The Devil’s Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War by John Boyko Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Knopf Canada), 2021 $32.00 / 9780735278004 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Six Easy Pieces. John Boyko has written a compelling, largely anecdotal history of Canada’s involvement in the Americans’ long years of war in Indochina. It consists…
Read more 1340 Canada and Vietnam revisited
Prophet Against Slavery. Benjamin Lay: A Graphic Novel by David Lester, with Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle (editors) Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Beacon Press), 2021 $20.00 / 9780807081792 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Who was Benjamin Lay? A radical 18th-century Quaker challenges slavery It is fair to ask who the central figure is in…
Read more 1327 Who was Benjamin Lay?
Flourishing and Free: More Stories of Trail-blazing Women of Vancouver Island by Haley Healey Victoria: Heritage House, 2021 $9.95 / 9781772033533 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Flourishing and Free is a sequel to author Haley Healey’s best-selling book On Their Own Terms: True Stories of Trailblazing Women of Vancouver Island. In her new book she…
Read more 1318 A spectrum of Island women
A writers’ tribute to Ron Hatch by Richard Mackie and Ronsdale authors * Editor’s note: a courteous elderly gentleman used to stop by my office at UBC when I was book reviews editor at BC Studies between 2011 and 2016. This was Ron Hatch, a retired professor of English at UBC and publisher of Ronsdale…
Read more 1312 A writers’ tribute to Ron Hatch
Muggins: The Life and Afterlife of a Canadian Canine War Hero by Grant Hayter-Menzies, with a foreword by Mark Zuehlke Victoria: Heritage House, 2021 $22.95 / 9781772033717 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Writing a book totally devoted to a dog is a difficult task but Grant Hayter-Menzies has it down to a fine art. In Muggins:…
Read more 1308 The late life of Muggins
Pandemic Spotlight: Canadian Doctors at the Front of the Covid-19 Fight by Ian Hanomansing Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2021 $22.95 / 9781771622929 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * For nearly two years we have existed in a time warp. When I see a reference to something which happened in April, and now it is October,…
Read more 1285 From anonymity to spotlight
ESSAY: An “Odd-Man” at Government House, Victoria by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor * For most people, reading another person’s diary is a furtive and shameful act. For historians, however, studying the private journal of a long-dead person can be a valuable and exciting, if occasionally puzzling, endeavour. In 1870, Robert Colston was both the official government…
Read more 1267 Footman at Government House
Philip Roth, A Counterlife by Ira Nadel Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2021 $29.95 (U.S.) / 9780199846108 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * In a recent issue of the London Review of Books, James Wolcott gives us some background on an unusual event in publishing: the simultaneous appearance of two major biographies of an…
Read more 1263 Ira Nadel: triumph of the also-ran
Queen Victoria: This Thorny Crown by Michael Ledger-Lomas Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. (Spiritual Lives Series). $40.00 (U.S.) / 9780198753551 Reviewed by Simon Devereaux * This compact, densely written volume fills a surprisingly large gap in the vast biographical literature on Queen Victoria. The Victorian age is well-known for its public religiosity. It was manifest…
Read more 1255 Victoria’s religion of the heart
Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu New York: First Second Books (Macmillan), 2021. Distributed by Raincoast Books. Please order from your local independent bookstore $24.99 (U.S.) / 9781626723566 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * Vancouver poet and novelist Hiromi-Goto’s graphic novel Shadow Life, brilliantly illustrated by Ann Xu, is a vollendungsroman, a story…
Read more 1253 Running away in old age
Joseph William McKay: A Métis Business Leader in Colonial British Columbia by Greg N. Fraser Victoria: Heritage House, 2021 $22.95 / 9781772033403 Reviewed by John R. Hinde * By coincidence, Greg N. Fraser’s biography, Joseph William McKay: A Métis Business Leader in Colonial British Columbia, arrived on my desk the same day that the Tk’emlups…
Read more 1252 J.W. McKay & the Métis mystery
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Three: Letters, 1887 by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 3 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 Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2….
Read more 1244 Golden City to Tobacco Plains
Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment by Sarah Milroy (editor) Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2021, in collaboration with The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario $60.00 / 9781773271194 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * Today, we all accept that historically Canadian female artists were excluded from major exhibitions and art societies, given little financial support…
Read more 1232 Unwelcome in the academy
No Compromise: A Memoir by John Jensen, edited by Rod Link, foreword by George Heyman Vancouver: Walhachin Press, 2021. This book is for sale at Munro’s Books (Victoria), People’s Co-op Bookstore (Vancouver), and Misty River Books (Terrace) — Ed. $20.00 / 9781777582302 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Northern Socialist. Tracing the life of a B.C….
Read more 1227 John Jensen, northern socialist
ESSAY: Pray for the Paintress: the life of Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524-1588) by Bob Foulkes * Editor’s note: since 2019 The Ormsby Review has hosted the Graduate Liberal Studies Journal, home to many fine essays, memoirs, stories, and of course book reviews. We are delighted to have the GLS Journal under our roof and to…
Read more 1223 The painter & prioress of Florence
Lost Souls of Lakewood: The History and Mystery of Blaylock’s Mansion by Charlie Hodge with Dan McGauley Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $18.99 / 9781039100428 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * The Ghosts of Blaylock’s Mansion: A Romp Through the History of a BC architectural marvel is fun but lacks historical verification Mom used to drive us out…
Read more 1210 The ghosts of Blaylock’s mansion
Able to Lead: Disablement, Radicalism, and the Political Life of E.T. Kingsley by Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021 $34.95 / 9780774865777 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * “Impossibilist” Crusader: E.T. Kingsley led the Socialist Party of Canada and edited the Western Clarion Eugene Thornton “E.T.” Kingsley (1856-1929) was a sharp-tongued orator in…
Read more 1195 A serious thinker of the labour left
In Action with Destroyers 1939-1945: the Wartime Memoirs of Commander J.A.J. Dennis, DSC, RN by J.A.J. Dennis (author) and Anthony Cumming (editor) Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2017 £19.99 (U.K.) / 9781526718495 Reviewed by Michael L. Hadley * BC books and authors offer a rich palette of local and international perspectives. They…
Read more 1193 From Scapa Flow to Lord Byng
Abject Eroticism in Northern Renaissance Art: The Witches and Femmes Fatales of Hans Baldung Grien by Yvonne Owens London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020 $108.00 (U.S.) / 9781784537296 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * Art scholar and feminist Yvonne Owens has turned her gaze to the Northern Renaissance artist, Hans Baldung Grien, who adopted the orthodoxies of…
Read more 1187 Renaissance art & misogyny
The New Race: Selected Writings, 1901-1904 by William H.H. Johnson, afterword by Jade Ferguson Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, forthcoming 2022 $19.99 / 9781771124140 Reviewed by Frank Mackey * My only excuse for writing this account of a book yet unpublished is that I grew tired of waiting for it. The request had come…
Read more 1186 Excuses: a preemptive review