Fool’s Gold: The Life and Legacy of Vancouver’s Official Town Fool by Jesse Donaldson Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2020 $18.00 / 9781772141467 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * In the spring of 1967, if you went to the courthouse in downtown Vancouver between 2 and 3 p.m., you might have encountered a strange sight: a thirty-something man…
Read more 1051 The enigmatic Joachim Foikis
Taken by the Muse: On the Path to Becoming a Filmmaker by Anne Wheeler Edmonton: Newest Press, 2020 $20.95 / 9781774390016 Reviewed by Lynne Bowen * A train has stopped on a prairie siding. A passenger watches through the window as several children play shinny on a frozen water-filled ditch beside the tracks. It is…
Read more 1046 Featuring Anne Wheeler
Big Promises, Small Government: Doing Less with Less in the BC Liberal New Era by George M. Abbott Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9780774864879 Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy * Would Gordon Campbell like this book? He can answer for himself, but his response might well be, “Yes” and “No.” “Yes,” because as a…
Read more 1044 Campbell’s shortsighted edicts
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter One: The Historical Background: The East Kootenay in the late Nineteenth Century by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 1 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada, the introduction…
Read more 1040 An East Kootenay setting
Our Backs Warmed By the Sun: Memories of a Doukhobor Life by Vera Maloff Halfmoon Bay, Caitlin Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781773860398 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Doukhobor Diaspora: A family oral history offers an antidote to past misunderstandings about the Russian sect When I was in my teens, a terrible explosion rocked my West…
Read more 1036 Kootenay Doukhobor family saga
Doing Politics Differently? Women Premiers in Canada’s Provinces and Territories by Sylvia Bashevkin (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $34.95 / 9780774860819 Reviewed by Barbara J. Messamore * Do women “do politics differently?” Not so much. That said, it is not at all clear that we need even ask the question “is it worth electing more…
Read more 1034 Women trailblazing in politics
Letters from the Pandemic 23: Letter to Mary Magdalene by Lilian Broca * Dear Mariam, Who would have imagined at the time we first met a few years ago that our newly formed relationship would be interrupted for several months due to a pandemic threatening the entire world? I certainly didn’t and I suspect nor…
Read more 1032 Letters from the Pandemic 23: Letter to Mary Magdalene
Thinking a Modern Landscape Architecture, West & East: Christopher Tunnard, Sutemi Horiguchi by Marc Treib Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2020 $45.00 (US) / 9781943532780 Reviewed by Martin Segger * Thinking a Modern Landscape Architecture is a tale of two architects — or rather of two prominent books: Christopher Tunnard’s Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1948)…
Read more 1028 Christopher Tunnard’s gardens
The Rise of Real-Life Superheroes, and the Fall of Everything Else by Peter Nowak Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2020 $24.95 / 9781771622509 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Superheroes in Our Midst: Are we ready for some public-minded vigilante crime fighters? The slogan “Defund the Police” became popular in 2020 as thousands of people protested…
Read more 1025 Superheroes in our midst
Transatlantic Upper Canada: Portraits in Literature, Land, and British-Indigenous Relations by Kevin Hutchings Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $37.95 / 9780228001294 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * Kevin Hutchings, the holder of a University Research Chair in the Department of English at the University of Northern British Columbia, begins this book with a very…
Read more 1023 On the Road to Damascus
Stanley’s Dream: The Medical Expedition to Easter Island by Jacalyn Duffin Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 $39.95 / 9780773557109 Reviewed by Colin Levings * Stanley’s Dream, Jacalyn Duffin’s book on the 1964-65 Medical Expedition to Easter Island (METEI) is an intriguing detailed compendium, retrospective analysis, and overall fascinating story of one of Canada’s…
Read more 1021 Canadian science on Easter Island
The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain by Dukesang Wong, edited by David McIlwraith, translated by Wanda Joy Hoe Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2020 $18.95 / 9781772012583 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from…
Read more 1008 Mighty land, small laws
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Introduction to Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: We are pleased to present the first instalment of the late Brenda Callaghan’s biography and selected correspondence of East Kootenay settler Frederick Paget Norbury (1867-1940). In 1887, Norbury became…
Read more Frederick Paget Norbury: Introduction
Moon Madness: Dr. Louise Aall, Sixty Years of Healing in Africa by Alan Twigg Vancouver: Ronsdale Books, 2019 $21.95 / 9781553805939 Reviewed by Valerie Green * In writing the true-life story of Dr. Louise Aall (pronounced All), author Alan Twigg has produced a spellbinding biography about an incredible woman. For sixty years, Dr. Aall devoted…
Read more 1007 Love affair with Africa
Big Ledge: The Triumphs and Tribulations of Robert E. Sproule by Brian D’Eon Nelson: Home Star Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781775387206 Reviewed by Art (Sean Arthur) Joyce To obtain copies of Big Ledge, contact Brian D’Eon here. * Big Ledge by Brian D’Eon is that rarity in historical fiction — a story that combines historical…
Read more #999 Kootenay hardrock intrigue
The Pocket Guide to The Unheralded Artists of BC Series; the Life and Art of Jack Akroyd, George Fertig, Mary Filer, Jack Hardman, Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher, LeRoy Jenson, David Marshall, Frank Molnar, Arthur Pitts, Mildred Valley Thornton, Ina D.D. Uhthoff, Harry Webb, Jessie Webb by Mona Fertig (editor), with an introduction by Marsha Lederman Salt Spring…
Read more #986 Unsung artists find their voice
A Letter from the Pandemic: Losing My Mother by Cathy Patel * Dear GLS Family, In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes: “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.” I miss my mother. In the early part of the year of the pandemic, she died,…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 2: Losing my mother
An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century by Nicholas Bradley (editor) Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $34.95 / 9780228003373 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * “Purdy,” I say. “Al Purdy. Have you heard of him?” “You mean like the chocolates?” She is probably joking. I am asking people I know outside…
Read more #969 Piquing interest in Purdy
The E.J. Hughes Book of Boats by Robert Amos Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 $22.00 / 9781771513364 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * For the British Columbia painter E.J. Hughes, who died in Duncan in 2007, the sea was never far away. Hughes wasn’t the only famous Canadian artist to include boats in his canvases — we’ll…
Read more #966 A torrent of collective memory
ESSAY: Remembering John Foster Paton Nash by Michael Sasges For Remembrance Day 2020, Michael Sasges presents the life of Nicola Valley rancher John Foster Paton Nash (1866-1916). John Nash’s name is on three Great War memorials. The first is at his school in England, King William’s College on the Isle of Man; the second is…
Read more #961 From Quilchena to Flanders