Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Economy & industry

‘A relationship with place’

“Amos connects Hughes’ reflective style of painting to his personal association with place in a way that illuminates man, art, and location to the reader.” Matthew Downey reviews two books by Robert Amos: E.J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island, new edition (Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2024) $30 / 9781771514248 & E.J. Hughes: Life at the Lake (Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2023) $25 / 9781771514194

Gold fever’s cautionary legacies

“Eager to explore the tale during the centenary of B.C.’s joining Confederation, their objectives were to ‘separate fact from fiction in Pitt Lake’s lost-creek gold-mine story.’ The authors write: ‘What we discovered instead was a fabulous collection of fabrication, mistruths, and wilful embellishments, all construed into an astonishing tale.'” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Slumach’s Gold: In Search of a Legend—and a Curse by Brian Antonson, Mary Trainer, and Rick Antonson (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $32.95/ 9781772035186

Making his way with words

“He met high-level influencers like former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, British travel writer Jan Morris, novelist Mordecai Richler, and up-and-coming political analyst Andrew Cohen among others. He recounts a lunch with future Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood wherein she tells a series of dirty lawyer jokes. His path had taken him to the high-water mark of Canada’s literati.” Ron Verzuh reviews Line Breaks: A Writing Life by George Galt (Montreal: Linda Leith Publishing, 2024) $24.95 / 9781773901565

‘All life is sacred’

“Nurses don’t get to make mistakes. This book is written as carefully as Crook navigated intransigent bureaucracy, patients, and children.” Linda Rogers reviews Always on Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching, and Rural Living by Marion McKinnon Crook (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $26.95 / 9781772034691

Architecture of place

“Genius loci, roughly translated as ‘spirit of the place,’ … This was the concept explored in the thought-provoking summer exhibition focusing on four modern Westcoast buildings and featured at Victoria’s Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum. The exhibit was the brainchild of museum curator Ben Clinton-Baker.” Martin Segger reviews the recent exhibition From the Ground, into the Light: Architecture and the Island, 1950-2000, at the Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum.

‘Our journey from past to present’

“[Neering] begins the book with some powerful words: ‘More than 30 years ago, wandering the province for a book on small town life in B.C., I sat with one of the Ktunaxa band counsellors on the St. Mary’s reserve near Cranbrook. David talked about ‘that place over there’ —the hated residential school that dominated the centre of the reserve. He described the beatings, the deprivation—but he also described the traditions and rebirth of pride among the Ktunaxa.'” Valerie Green reviews A Traveller’s Guide to Historic British Columbia (revised), by Rosemary Neering (Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2023) $34.95 / 9781770503700

‘A tipping point’

“Understanding this science, is a major step to encourage all of humanity to ‘think carefully about our options, and find a new course.'” Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Runaway Climate: What the Geological Past Can Tell Us About the Coming Climate Change Catastrophe, by Steven Earle, PhD (Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2024) $24.99 / 9780865719897

Canuck faithful heartbreak

“…Willes has filled in a lot of the blanks to produce a fascinating team history that gives credence to the ‘curse’ mythology.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Never Boring: The up and down history of the Vancouver Canucks by Ed Willes (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $28.95 / 9781990776892

On data’s ‘practical immortality’

An “accessible, elucidating book that makes a persuasive plea for us to connect data literacy and human rights.” Plus, “a genuine pleasure to read.” —Jessica Poon reviews We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, by Wendy H. Wong (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023) $35/95 / 9780262048576

Adieu, Pnina! Well, maybe

“What an odyssey her life has been! When you think of her beginnings in mid-century Romania and Israel, her narrow escape from perilous situations, and her good fortune, which she has fully utilized, it is one of those stories that can be told again and again.” Christina Johnson-Dean looks back on the life and art of Vancouver-based Pnina Granirer.

When speculation destroys liveability

“Condon’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of our cities, and is a call to action; challenging us to rethink urban development and advocate for policies that put people first.” Ryan Mitchell reviews Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality, and Urban Crisis, by Patrick M. Condon (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024) $32.95 / 9780774869553

Protecting unique island ecosystems

“Harrington devotes a separate chapter to each of the fifteen largest islands, namely Gabriola, Thetis, Salt Spring, North and South Pender, Saturna, Mayne, Galiano, Hornby, Denman, Quadra, Cortes, Savary, Bowen, Gambier, and Lasqueti, in that order.” Jack Little reviews Voices for the Islands: Thirty Years of Nature Conservation on the Salish Sea
by Sheila Harrington (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $34.95 / 9781772034929

Professional triumphs, adversities

“The book is also unique in that it provides first-person accounts from a socially and ethnically diverse group of professionals, including several chapters penned by women who openly share their lived experiences in a changing professional environment.” —Ryan Mitchell reviews The Role of Canadian City Managers, edited by Michael Fenn, Gordon McIntosh and David Siegel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023) $44.95 / 9781487552329

Clothe local

“If all you do is read the textile manifesto, you’ll come away with a lot to think about. But this book really shines in later sections, where McCabe brings us the stories of the people who work on the land and share relationships with their fibre, all combined with useful reference material.” Sarah Thornton reviews Fleece and Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands by Francine McCabe (Victoria: Heritage House, 2023) $34.95 / 9781772034530

Where salmon once swam

“Pearkes has issued an environmental warning…” Ron Verzuh reviews A River Captured: The Columbia River Treaty and Catastrophic Change by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2024) $25 / 9781771605236

Embodiment as spiritual practice

“It is a book for those who are ‘too much.’ A wary reader will, within a few pages, find resonance examples of too much: too loud, too tall, too fat, too brown, too….” Wendy Burton reviews Your Body is a Revolution: Healing Our Relationship with Our Bodies, Each Other, and the Earth by Tara Teng (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2023) $23.99 / 9781459752863

Confronting industrial impact on environment

“In her work at The Narwhal, Victoria-based investigative reporter Sarah Cox has earned a well-deserved reputation as one of Canada’s foremost environmental journalists. Mixing cautious optimism with an urgent call to arms, her remarkable new book, Signs of Life: Field Notes from the Frontlines of Extinction, provides a sobering account of biodiversity loss in Canada, its root causes, tragic consequences, and potential solutions.” Kevin Hutchings reviews Signs of Life: Field Notes from the Frontlines of Extinction by Sarah Cox (Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2024) $24.95 / 9781773102887

Transformation, on a cellular level

“The Sentient Cell comes at a timely moment, when the scientific consensus tells us that tipping points loom, and our options are narrowing quickly.” Loys Maingon reviews The Sentient Cell: The Cellular Foundations of Consciousness by Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, and William B. Miller Jr. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2023) $78.00 / 9780198873211

Breaking ground on housing policy

“The depth and breadth of Craigie’s analysis is impressive, giving a sense of direction to a realm of policy that often seems bleak in its partisanship and illusory political rhetoric.” Matthew Downey reviews Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis by Gregor Craigie (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024) $25.00 / 9781039009387

Chainsaw memories

“Aaron Williams was raised in logging camps in BC with an old-time logger for a father and a supportive mother and logging Grandmother Joy doing the raising. He makes good use of his youthful memories to tell us in first-person present tense the workings of various operations that make up the industry.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era by Aaron Williams (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $24.95 / 9781990776618

Pin It on Pinterest