Tales of B.C.: 50 Years of Wacky, Wild, & Thought-provoking Adventures by Daniel Wood Vancouver: OP Media Group, 2021 $24.95 / 9781777876401 Reviewed by Bill Engleson * I was delighted when Richard Mackie offered me the opportunity to write a review of the late Daniel Wood’s last book, an anthology of essays that captures several…
Read more 1409 Fifty years of Daniel Wood
My Long List of Impossible Things by Michelle Barker Toronto: Annick Press, 2020 $12.95 / 9781773213644 Reviewed by Valerie Green * This book is possibly one of the best Second World War books out there right now for Young Adults and is especially pertinent in view of current world events. My Long List of Impossible…
Read more 1408 Under Russian occupation
blue gait by Shauna Paull Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781896949888 Reviewed by Yvonne Blomer * Another word for gait is stride or way of walking, and Shauna Paull’s new poetry collection blue gait parallels the ways of walking through and on the land, with the natural world, beauty, women, and…
Read more 1407 Soft bells of beauty and blue
Antonyms for Daughter by Jenny Boychuk Montréal: Véhicule Press, 2021 $17.95 / 9781550655810 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * This collection of poetry from Jenny Boychuk presents the familiar sentiments of mother and daughter bonding but it also bears traumatic talons which seem to reach in and pierce that bond. I was particularly struck by the…
Read more 1406 Trauma, detox, paradox
Glorious Frazzled Beings by Angélique Lalonde Toronto: House of Anansi, 2021 $22.99 / 9781487009571 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Although a debut collection of short stories, Angélique Lalonde’s Glorious Frazzled Beings could easily be used in a master class. These are glorious unfrazzled stories, quirky, snappy, and wacky in a most beguiling way. Divided into…
Read more 1404 Lalonde’s fictional magic
The Almost Wife by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $24.99 / 9781443458429 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * A person’s entire life can change in a day. But how it changes? Who it changes? Accepting that change? No one will see it coming. The Almost Wife is a masterpiece of suspense, written through the themes…
Read more 1403 A perilous island sanctuary
Duct-taped Roses by Billeh Nickerson Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9781771666909 Reviewed by Grace Lau * Lovers, friends, family: We are all we have Duct-taped Roses, Billeh Nickerson’s sixth book (note to self: must read the other five) is divided into five parts, each one a vivid meditation on a theme in his life….
Read more 1402 Lovers, friends, family
Pizza Punks Collection by Cole Pauls Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2021 $15.00 / 9781772620535 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * I’m sure most reading this can remember a time when skateboarding and the punk rock attitude went together like ham on rye. Cole Pauls’ Pizza Punks Collection grabs at your desire for excitement and fun while…
Read more 1401 Vancouver’s pizza punks
I Will Be Corrupted by Joseph A. Dandurand Montréal: Guernica Editions, 2020 $20.00 / 9781771835060 * The East Side of It All by Joseph Dandurand Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2020 $18.95 / 9780889713802 Both books reviewed by Paul Falardeau * Joseph Dandurand has been busy lately. Since the Covid pandemic began, he has written three books…
Read more 1400 There is always laughter
The Farmer’s Daughter Bakes: cakes, pies, crisps, and more for every fruit on the farm by Kelsey Siemens Salem, MA: Page Street Publishing, 2020. See here to purchase $34.50 / 9781645671046 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * I have always been a farmer and a farmer’s daughter so this is the perfect cookbook for me. Already…
Read more 1399 Cake with a farmer’s daughter
Iron Goddess of Mercy by Larissa Lai Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2021 $19.95 / 9781551528441 Reviewed by Michael Turner * There is celebration at the gates of Larissa Lai’s recent poetry book, Iron Goddess of Mercy. On the back flap, Fred Wah comps on the book’s multiple epistolary addresses (“Dear Reader, Dear Deer in the…
Read more 1398 Who let the furies out?
Heroines Revisited by Lincoln Clarkes Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2021 (revised edition; first published 2002) $48.00 / 9781772140712 Reviewed by Lani Russwurm * Lincoln Clarkes started his “Heroines Project” in the late 1990s when he began photographing women who use drugs on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It took about five years and resulted in…
Read more 1397 Portraits of East Vancouver
Global University Rankings and The Politics of Knowledge by Michelle Stack (editor) Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2021 $32.95 / 9781487523398 Reviewed by D.G. Marshall * Rankings. North American consumers are obsessed with rankings. We rank things — cars, putters, TVs, computers, lingerie, bicycles, hiking boots, lightbulbs. We rank food and drink — macaroni, beer,…
Read more 1396 The reputational arms race
Sea Otters: A Survival Story by Isabelle Groc with forewords by Dame Judi Dench & David F. Mills Victoria: Orca Books, 2020 $24.95 / 9781459817371 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Sea Otters: A Survival story by Isabelle Groc is a delightful wildlife book for all ages. Author Isabelle Groc has written an exemplary survival story…
Read more 1395 Return of the sea otter
An Irish Country Yuletide by Patrick Taylor New York: Macmillan (Forge Books), 2021 $17.99 (US) / 9781250780904 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * With the recent release of Kenneth Branagh’s film Belfast, set during the Troubles in 1969, it’s timely that The British Columbia Review should ask for a review of Salt Spring Island resident…
Read more 1394 A great wee book, so it is
Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From by Kamal Al-Solaylee Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $32.99 / 9781443456159 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Some books take their readers across vast distances; some through sweeps of time. One of the most remarkable effects of Return, by journalist and author Kamal Al-Solaylee, currently Director of the School…
Read more 1393 Yearning for a house in the hills
man@the_airport: How Social Media Saved My Life. One Syrian’s Story by Hassan Al Kontar New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2021 $23.95 / 9781777010188 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * Given the staggering human toll of the civil war in Syria since 2011 — half a million dead, more than six and a half million internally displaced, another…
Read more 1392 A one-man freedom convoy
The Grey Zone: A Jack Taggart Mystery by Don Easton Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2019 $11.99 / 9781459745308 Reviewed by Jolie Won-Hyang Cho and Corrie Shoemaker * The Grey Zone is a compelling police mystery written by former RCMP officer Don Easton. With twenty years of experience working undercover, including seven years with the RCMP Intelligence…
Read more 1391 Under different aliases
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
The Girl with Many Names by S. [Samantha] Knight Cambridge, UK: Pegasus Publishers, 2021 £8.99 (UK) $16.09 (Canadian) / 9781784659912 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * If I had to sum up this novel in one word, it would be potential. Samantha Knight’s The Girl with Many Names is a refreshing take on fairy tale retellings…
Read more 1389 Grimhilda’s journey