Baybrook: Life’s Best Adventure by Hamilton Mack Laing, edited by Barbara Elaine Price Comox: Comox Archives and Museum Society, 2005, 2022 $20.00 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * Hamilton Mack Laing’s memoir, Baybrook: Life’s Best Adventure, is perhaps best viewed through the lens of a love story. Laing had a deep love affair for the place…
Read more 1833 Mack Laing at home
To Track a Traitor: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2023 $18.95 / 9781771513876 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Iona Whishaw doesn’t allow her heroine much time for grass growing underfoot in this, the tenth in the Lane Winslow Mystery series. It is spring 1948, and fast on the heels of…
Read more 1832 ‘Rife with suspects and motives’
Room at the Inn: Historic Hotels of British Columbia’s Southern Interior by Glen A. Mofford Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2023 $26.95 / 9781772034233 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Remember staying at that cozy little hotel on your honeymoon, that summer vacation spot by the lake or that mountain resort? Well, now you can vicariously enjoy…
Read more 1831 Bordellos and a dog named Dinty
KWANDUR by Cole Pauls Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2022 $25.00 / 9781772620771 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * KWANDUR is one of the truest forms of expression and stylistic artwork portrayal that I’ve come across since reading his comic Pizza Punks, which is also a must-read. Cole Pauls is a Champagne and Aishihik citizen and Tahltan…
Read more 1829 Tundra Wizard’s personal stories
Trickster Trilogy by Eden Robinson Son of a Trickster Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2017. $21.00 / 9780345810793 Trickster Drift Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2018. $21.00 / 9780735273443 Return of the Trickster Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2021. $21.00 / 9780735273474 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * I’ve never been a big fan of magical realism in fiction. While I get…
Read more 1828 A Trickster for our times
Art + DIY Electronics by Garnet Hertz Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, May 30, 2023 $45.00 / 9780262044936 (paperback) Reviewed by Thomas Girard * Dr. Garnet Hertz new book on DIY culture – Art + DIY Electronics – is a refreshing change from typical academic texts. It has the heft, but without the intimidation of…
Read more 1827 Sold on the human text
Frances Barkley: Eighteenth-century Seafarer by Cathy Converse Victoria: Heritage House, 2023 $12.95 / 9781772034417 Reviewed by Dave Flawse * Frances and Captain Charles Barkley navigated the Imperial Eagle into Nootka Sound in June 1787. The wife, husband, and crew sailed across the globe through storms and pirate-infested waters to procure a seemingly humble item—sea otter…
Read more 1826 An adventurous couple
This Place Is Who We Are: Stories of Indigenous Leadership, Resilience, and Connection to Homelands by Katherine Palmer Gordon with a foreword by Dallas Smith Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023 $39.95 / 9781990776137 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * “The central north coast of what settlers refer to as British Columbia in Canada, [is] a…
Read more 1825 A ‘cornerstone of cultural strength’
British Columbiana: A Millennial in a Gold Rush Town by Josie Teed Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2023 $22.99 / 9781459750210 Reviewed by Forrest Pass * The summer that I was eight, my parents bought me a red Walkman in hopes that it would keep me entertained during the long drive up to Barkerville, the reconstructed Cariboo…
Read more 1824 Hello, Wells
RUBYMUSIC: A popular history of women’s music and culture by Connie Kuhns Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, March 2023 $26.00 / 9781773861012 Reviewed by Catherine Owen As a “female bassist” myself at one time in my history and as a woman raised in a climate of continual music, whether from good ol’ CBC piped out of…
Read more 1823 Triumphant and melancholic
Sixty-Seven Ontological Studies: 49 Poems & 18 Photographs by Jan Zwicky & Robert V. Moody Calgary: Freehand Books, 2022 $24.95 / 9781990601095 Reviewed by Ron Dart * Poetry and photography, when at their compressed, suggestive and congealed best, speak a speech that evokes and summons forth depths within the longing soul. Such is the poetry…
Read more 1822 The mixing of textual & visual
Other People’s Secrets by Meredith Hambrock Toronto: Crooked Lane Books, 2022 $37.99 / 9781639100989 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch Oakwood Hills is a lakeside resort—a place for summer vacationers to escape from the city and flock to blueish waters. It’s surrounded by beaches, cabins, and sunshine. For the characters of Other People’s Secrets, Oakwood Hills is…
Read more 1821 Treasure maps, hangovers, inner turmoil
A Sentimental Education by Hannah McGregor Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771125574 Reviewed by Suzanne James * In her introductory “Author’s Note,” Hannah McGregor half-apologizes/half-explains this work, a collection of essays which blends memoir, “collective feminist meaning-making” and – most significantly – a discourse on what it means to care “deeply” and “ferociously.”…
Read more 1820 Caring ferociously
Printer’s Devils: How a Feisty Pioneer Newspaper Shaped the History of British Columbia, 1895-1925 by Ron Verzuh Qualicum Beach, BC: Caitlin Press, 2023 $28.00 / 9781773861036 Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy * Small town newspapers can reveal much about the communities they serve. Indeed, Ron Verzuh suggests that Printer’s Devils “plays a double role, first…
Read more 1819 The personalities behind the paper
Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper and Indira Samarasekera, with a foreword by Kim Campbell Toronto: ECW Press, 2022 $36.95 / 9781770416017 Reviewed by Amy Tucker * In a world where the glass ceiling is still very much present, Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went…
Read more 1818 The world of leadership
Wreck Bay: An Amanda Doucette Mystery by Barbara Fradkin Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2023 $21.99 / 9781459743878 Reviewed by Bill Paul * Amanda Doucette has worked overseas as an aid worker and across Canada with men and women who have struggled, “battered by addiction.” She’s nearing forty and has a history of trauma. While organizing activities…
Read more 1816 An ‘atmosphere of isolation and suspicion’
In the Defense of Liberty: a novel by Keith Maillard Calgary: Freehand Books, 2023 $24.95 / 9781990601415 Reviewed by Lenore Rowntree * When the story opens, it’s the middle of the afternoon, in the month of June. Mason is in a stranger’s truck rolling toward Merida University through “beautiful goddamned Ohio Country, all that green…
Read more 1815 A ‘stacking of visions’
The Ridge by Robert Bringhurst Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023 $22.95 / 9781990776250 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * When poetry flows through Robert Bringhurst, it sounds of wind, trees, waves, stones knocking in surf, and scraps of birds flashing past. It even sounds like a philosopher talking to those things. Bringhurst is a gardener who…
Read more 1814 At home on Quadra Island
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
Such a Lovely Afternoon: Stories by Patti Flather Toronto: Inanna, 2022 $22.95 / 9781771338844 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * The nine stories of North Vancouver’s Patti Flather’s debut collection, Such a Lovely Afternoon, are so crammed with concrete details and believable problems that it’s impossible not to run the stories as short movies in your…
Read more 1812 Families in dysfunction