Elemental by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9781987915631 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson First published Aug. 23, 2018 * Despite the book’s title and its division into five elements — water, fire, wood, sky, and earth — the dominant feature of Elemental, Kate Braid’s seventh book of poetry, is less unity of…
Read more #349 A carpenter poet adept at forms
On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement by Rod Mickleburgh Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $44.95 / 97871550178265 Reviewed by Bryan D. Palmer First published Aug. 22, 2018 * For four tumultuous months in 1983, the grassroots labour initiative in B.C. called the Solidarity Coalition–which took its name as an offshoot…
Read more #348 The ghost of Jack Munro
Mudgirls Manifesto: Handbuilt Homes Handcrafted Lives by the Mudgirls Natural Building Collective Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2017 $29.99 / 9780865718777 Reviewed by Kate Braid First published Aug. 14, 2018 * I was excited about being asked to review this book. In the ’70s and ’80s I spent 15 years as a Red Seal Journey(wo)man Carpenter…
Read more #343 Lasqueti mudgirls manifesto
First published Aug. 14, 2018. My West Coast Surveying Adventure by Richard G. Lipsey, OC, FRSC * We are delighted to present a memoir by Richard (Dick) Lipsey, arguably one of Canada’s foremost economists—and it’s not about economics. Here Lipsey recalls his work as a surveyor’s assistant and axeman on the west coast of Vancouver…
Read more #342 The woodsman & the economist
First published Jul. 8, 2018. Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley by Judith Plant Vancouver: New Star Books, 2017. $19 / 9781554201334 Reviewed by Nancy Janovicek * What had happened to us? Where did it go wrong? What could we have done? What should we have done? What we built together…
Read more #337 True tales of Camelsfoot
First published June 30, 2018. Robin Brunet Let’s Get Frank: Canada’s Mad Man of Advertising Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2018. $29.95 / 9781771621816 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Anyone who watched the award-winning TV series Mad Men will be equally discomfited with the advertising industry as depicted in Let’s Get Frank, a biography of…
Read more #332 Frank has still got game at 78
Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food by Rachel Rose (editor) Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2017 $25.00 / 9781772141016 Reviewed by Alan Belk First published June 26, 2018 * It would be easy to review Sustenance as a representative of the literary genre Coffee Table: a beautifully illustrated collection of short pieces…
Read more #330 Rachel’s food for thought
Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand against Big Hydro by Sarah Cox Vancouver: UBC Press (On Point Press), 2018. $24.95 / 9780774890267 * Damming the Peace: The Hidden Costs of the Site C Dam by Wendy Holm (editor) Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2018 $22.95 / 9781459413160 Both books reviewed…
Read more #327 Site C boondoggle unravelled
E.J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island by Robert Amos, with the participation of the estate of E.J. Hughes Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 $35 / 9781771512558 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * It’s not easy to paint an arbutus tree, although many artists try. Know in Washington State as Pacific madrone, the arbutus (Arbutus menzeisii) above the 49th…
Read more #326 Up-Island with E.J. Hughes
E.J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island by Robert Amos, with the participation of the estate of E.J. Hughes Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 $35.00 / 9781771512558 Reviewed by Alan Twigg First published June 1, 2018 * “B.C. is the best place in the world for landscape subject matter.” — E.J. Hughes “One of the main reasons I…
Read more #314 E.J. Hughes renewed
Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff: An Artist’s Letters from Depression-era British Columbia by Peter Neary (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $45.00 / 9780774834988 Reviewed by Daniel Francis First published May 8, 2018 * Most British Columbians live within an easy drive of one of the unemployment relief camps established by the federal government during the…
Read more #302 Middle class artist on relief
Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand against Big Hydro by Sarah Cox, foreword by Alex Neve Vancouver: UBC Press (On Point Press), 2018 $24.95 / 9780774890267 Review by John Gellard First published April 21, 2018 * From UBC Press’s new On Point Press, which aims to “introduce a broad audience…
Read more #291 Disturbing: the Peace
Views of the Salish Sea: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Change around the Strait of Georgia by Howard Macdonald Stewart Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $39.95 / 9781550178036 Reviewed by Peter Grant First published April 7, 2018 * Howard Macdonald Stewart’s Views of the Salish Sea: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Change around…
Read more #283 Stewart’s Salish Sea
The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2017 $29.99 / 9780865718395 Reviewed by Jawad Qureshy First published April 2, 2018 * Born in Tennessee in 1954, Joel Solomon was educated at Vassar College, worked as national youth co-ordinator on Jimmy Carter’s election campaign…
Read more #279 The wisdom of Solomon
The Locomotive of War: Money, Empire, Power, and Guilt by Peter Clarke London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017 $40.00 / 9781408851654 Reviewed by Stan Markotich First published March 31, 2018 * Prominent British political historian Peter Clarke (born 1942) divides his time between Cambridge and the Gulf Islands. Married to Canadian cultural historian Maria Tippett, Clarke was…
Read more #278 Trotsky’s locomotive of steam
The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy by Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson, with a preface by Naomi Klein Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2017 $22.95 / 9781459409613 Reviewed by J.R. (Jim) Miller First published March 4, 2018 * In the conversation about reconciliation that Canadians are having at the…
Read more #258 We stole it fair and square
First published Feb. 22, 2018. The Campbell Revolution? Power, Politics, and Policy in British Columbia J.R. (Jason) Lacharite and Tracy Summerville (editors) Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2017. $34.95 / 9780773551039 Reviewed by Hamish Telford Duplicitous in terms of his First Nations policies, Gordon Campbell was likewise self-serving when it came to the arts;…
Read more #250 Gordon Campbell, a reckoning
Vertical Horizons: The History of Okanagan Helicopters by Douglas M. Grant Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $39.95 / 9781550178135 Reviewed by Wayne Wilson First published Feb. 12, 2018 * Helicopters have been and remain a romantic and unlikely marriage of technology and human aspiration; and it is really only in the last few decades…
Read more #247 High risks, high expectations
First published Jan. 8, 2018. It Can Be Done: An Ordinary Man’s Extraordinary Success by Chick Stewart and Michele Carter Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017. $32.95 / 9781550178005 Reviewed by Michel Vallée Donald “Chick” Stewart moved to B.C. from a chicken farm in Manitoba in 1942 when he was fifteen years old. His first…
Read more #229 Youbou logger to S&R king
Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food by Rachel Rose (editor) Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2017 $25.00 / 9781772141016 Review by Caroline Woodward First published Dec. 20, 2017 * As Poet Laureate for the City of Vancouver from 2014-2017, Rachel Rose wanted a community project which offered another world view than the muttering…
Read more #225 Food & community in Vancouver