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
Harrowings By Cecily Nicholson Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2022 $19.95 / 9781772014051 Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon * A bright red tractor churning Southern Ontario soil, BC orchards, waving prairie wheat fields. Christian uplift, and hardscrabble Euro-immigrant toil. All idealized scenes that participate in a specific farming imaginary that lets some Canadians eat our veggies without much bile—mostly…
Read more 1856 Connecting to ‘a vital abolitionist tradition’
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
Canadian Pacific Railway on the Revelstoke Division. Volume Six. The Connaught Tunnel — 106 Years of Service by Douglas R. Mayer Revelstoke: Revelstoke Heritage Railway Society, 2022 $40.00 / 9781999416850 Reviewed by Robert D. Turner Available from the Revelstoke Railway Museum, P.O. Box 3018, 719 Track Street West, Revelstoke, BC, V0E 2S0 (railwaymuseum.com) for $40.00…
Read more 1798 Under Mount Macdonald
Between Good and Evil: The Stolen Girls of Boko Haram by Mellissa Fung Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2023 $36.99 / 9781443456081 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * Canadian Journalist Mellissa Fung has written an important book which amplifies her documentary Captive, the story of three Nigerian girls captured by Boko Haram (which translates as “Western education is…
Read more 1785 Lost in Sambisa Forest
Announcing the BC Review interview series by Richard Mackie * In November 2022, at the most recent board meeting of the Ormsby Literary Society, the chair, Byron Sheardown, suggested that we open a YouTube channel and start an interview series. Board member Trevor Marc Hughes jumped at the suggestion. “I’ve got filmmaking experience,” he said,…
Read more 1757 Announcing interview series
Uncertain Kin by Janice Lynn Mather Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Doubleday Canada), 2022 $29.95 / 9780385697156 Reviewed by Alison Acheson * A dusty rooster and a badly tuned radio woke Priscilla just before six. It’s perfect detail that draws you in to Janice Lynn Mather’s world. Once there (with one exception, a story of…
Read more 1755 God on the dock
Built on a Dream An audio piece by Anne Watson * Introduction. Built on a Dream includes the voices of a narrator, a storyteller, and a historian. Positionality and self-conscious awareness matter in this experimental piece. I’ve written it different ways over the years: this is my first attempt using multiple voices. Pierre Bourdieu’s “Biographical…
Read more 1745 Built on a Dream
The Tree Whisperer: Writing Poetry by Living in the World by Harold Rhenisch Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2021 $29.95 / 9781554472314 Reviewed by Adrienne Fitzpatrick * I have spent the last few weeks in the company of a tree whisperer going from tree to tree on Sylix lands, absorbing the fruits revealed by light and…
Read more 1641 The wisdom of trees
Junie by Chelene Knight Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2022 $23.00 / 9781771667685 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * Strangers to Vancouver or its history before the city’s breakneck condo-ization might wonder about “the Village,” the comfortable place June-Anne Lancaster—the protagonist of Chelene Knight’s appealing first novel — affectionately sees as her hometown. In the vicinity of Main…
Read more 1559 Coming of age in Hogan’s Alley
TELEVISION DOCUSERIES REVIEW: British Columbia: An Untold History by Kevin Eastwood, Writer and Director Burnaby: British Columbia’s Knowledge Network, 2022 Reviewed by Patrick A. Dunae * Knowledge Network, ‘British Columbia’s public educational broadcaster,’ has produced a compelling documentary series entitled British Columbia: An Untold History. The production qualities are superb. Each episode of the four-part…
Read more 1405 Colonialism corrective
Black Canada: A History. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition by Robin W. Winks, with a foreword by George Elliott Clarke Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021 (second edition; first published by McGill-Queen’s University Press and Yale University Press, 1971) $32.95 / 9780773516328 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Black Canada: What I should have learned in high…
Read more 1390 Black Canada 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?
Word Problems: Poems by Ian Williams Toronto: Coach House Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781552454145 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * The title of Ian Williams’ latest poetry may be Word Problems, but it could just as easily have been World Problems. The poems tend to explore how language both prevents and allows communication and how difficult…
Read more 1292 Circling lines & opening spaces
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
Ten steps back to the garden: a poetic guide to recovery by Linda Rogers * A blooming branch has emerged from the dark age of lockdown for review, and as we cut the weeds growing around the stone steps into the garden, we are left to consider the moon phases we have endured, the brutal…
Read more 1163 Eleven poets from a plague year
Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough Montreal: Véhicule Press (Esplanade Books), 2020 $19.95 / 9781550655315 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * The time has long past when only one community’s work would be required to cure what ails us. — Zadie Smith, from Intimations: Six Essays (2020) In a time when uncertainty stands at the forefront…
Read more 1082 Black Canadian ancestry & identity
Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia by Crawford Kilian, with a foreword by Adam Rudder Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 (3rd edition, first published 1978) $26.95 / 9781550179484 * “Where Are You From?” Growing Up African-Canadian in Vancouver by Gillian Laura Creese Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019 $34.95 /…
Read more 1030 Blacks in BC then and now
Letters from the Pandemic 20: Two Sisters From Alabama by Tom Morton * When I think about 2020 two events come to mind: the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Both events share stories of humanity, sacrifice, and death. When I think of the Covid-19 pandemic my mind does not focus on the…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 20: Two Sisters From Alabama