Bloom Where You Are Planted: 50 Conversations with Inspiring British Columbians by Beka Shane Denter Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2022 $39.95 / 9781772034295 Reviewed by Valerie Green * This book by Beka Shane Denter is an inspirational collection of interviews in the form of Q&As with photographs, of a group of fifty (forty-nine women and…
Read more 1935 United through art
Once Upon an Effing Time by Buffy Cram Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $24.95 / 9781771623605 Reviewed by Carellin Brooks * The title of Buffy Cram’s Once Upon an Effing Time hints at its contents: a child’s fairy tale, if not exactly by the book. This version is closer to the classical Brothers Grimm…
Read more 1932 A ‘rollicking, heart-stopping, fraught, and hopeful’ debut
Bookworm By Robin Yeatman Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 2023 $23.99 / 9780063273009 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * It’s hard to understand why Victoria, the bookworm in Robin Yeatman’s debut novel, marries Eric. She doesn’t seem to have known him well before joining her life to his and is utterly miserable with him. Victoria spends most of…
Read more 1909 Regimented and tedious in Montreal
The Get: A Crime Novel By Dietrich Kalteis Toronto, ON: ECW Press, 2023 $26.95 / 9781770416840 Reviewed by Bill Paul * It’s 1965 and two street-wise Jewish hoods in Toronto, Lenny Ovitz and Gabe Zoller, hope to make bundles of money investing in a run-down tenement block near St. James Town. They’ve caught “wind that…
Read more 1906 The undoing of Lenny Ovitz
Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality By Lindsay Wong Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2023 $32.95 / 9780735242364 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Probably the West’s most iconic piece of short fiction begins with a shock: an office clerk wakes up one morning to discover that he has been inexplicably transformed into “vermin” (usually taken to be…
Read more 1889 Wealth, family, and the ‘spectrum of female suffering’
Radio Jet Lag By Gregor Craigie Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023 $24.95 / 9781770866713 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Radio Jet Lag, a lightly satiric comic novel, is at once a paean to the city of Victoria, a detailed account of the fast-paced world of radio broadcasting, a portrait of the trials and tribulations of contemporary…
Read more 1878 Satiric comedy with ‘relevant themes and a compelling plot’
Shamus, The Urban Rez Dog, P. I. By Leslie Gentile Toronto: Cormorant/DCB, 2023 $14.95 / 9781770867079 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * Teacher, singer, and now writer Leslie Gentile’s second middle grade novel is Shamus, The Urban Rez Dog, P.I. There’s no doubt juvenile readers with an appetite for fiction to match Shamus shameless pursuit of…
Read more 1872 An ‘adventure-filled whodunnit’ (for kids)
Scandal at the Savoy: A Priscilla Tempest Mystery (Book 2) by Ron Base & Prudence Emery Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $19.95 / 1771623452 Reviewed by Amy Whitmore * “Our Savoy… is populated by made-up characters who exist only in the world that we shaped for them. The royal, rich and famous who…
Read more 1863 Quick plot, too many twists
Naked Defiance: A Comedy of Menace by Patrik Sampler Vancouver, BC: New Star Books, 2023 $19.00 / 9781554202003 Reviewed by Steven Brown * A Comedy of Menace is the subtitle of this fine novel. Although it can be looked at as menacing comedy, there’s a lot else going on. Naked Defiance is also an arcane…
Read more 1862 ‘Part of the spectacle’
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
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
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
ChatGPT and me by Larry Hannant * The media today is agog with artificial intelligence and its boundless possibilities to expand mere mortals’ striving towards perfection, or to relegate them to the scrap heap. The intensity quickened on March 14, with the release by OpenAI of version 4 of ChatGPT. In a thoughtful Globe and…
Read more 1773 ChatGPT and me
Silent but Deadly: The Underlying Cultural Patterns of Everyday Behaviour by Kirsten Bell London, UK: Caw Press, 2022 £11.99 (U.K.) / 9781399936323 Reviewed by Tom Koppel Trigger Warning: Skip this review if you are truly offended by offensive language * Kirsten Bell (not to be confused with actress Kristen Bell) got her anthropology training in…
Read more 1770 Dissecting the everyday
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
The Ramen by Sheldon Goldfarb * Editor’s note: as a Holiday and post-Christmas answer to that leftover turkey or that ham, lamb, or duck roast, we present Sheldon Goldfarb’s solution — The Ramen! Sheldon adds that the poem was inspired by the cartoon below, courtesy Janet Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare — Richard Mackie * Once upon…
Read more 1688 The Ramen
Water Proof by Aaron Bushkowsky Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2021 $24.95 / 9781770866362 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * When Shakespeare created a pair of hapless sidekicks called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he little knew how similar pairs would proliferate through the following centuries. Samuel Beckett’s Gogo and Didi, like Hollywood’s Laurel and Hardy are amongst the best…
Read more 1684 Gore-Tex and infidelity
Fortune Knox Once: More Musings from the Edge by Jack Knox Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $22.95 / 9781772034172 Reviewed by Valerie Green * We all need a little Knox humour in our lives these days and Jack Knox has delivered just that once again in his latest book Fortune Knox Once: More Musings from The…
Read more 1667 The mixture we all need
Wildlife For Idiots: And Other Animal Cartoons by Adrian Raeside Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $16.95 / 9781550179323 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * So how do you review a book of cartoons by sardonic, irreverent, witty Adrian Raeside — standup comedian of the literary world. Born in New Zealand in 1957, Raeside came to Canada…
Read more 1642 Raeside outdoors
Confessions with Keith: Extracts from the Journals of Vita Glass by Pauline Holdstock Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $22.95 / 9781771964975 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Vita Glass, the character at the centre of Pauline Holdstock’s latest novel, lives in an extreme amount of chaos. It’s no wonder as she has four children, a dog, a cat,…
Read more 1607 A year in a life