“…Mather devotes the majority of the book to recounting the lives of the inhabitants of the house. This is both haunting and compelling. While all the families had ‘privileged lives’ based on their economic and social standing, they were subject to the joys and sorrows of ordinary living. Adriana A. Davies reviews Coldstream Lake House: A storied landmark of the Okanagan, by Ken Mather (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397690
“Adam Jones’s book can help each of us in reaching a principled position, in articulating it, and in understanding why others might rationally have arrived at and articulated a different view.” Richard Butler reviews Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (4th ed.), by Adam Jones (New York: Routledge, 2024) $61.99 / 9781032028101
“Transforming Trauma through Social Change is a nutrient-dense book of 330 pages. It deserves slow careful reading if you wish to secure a very rich education in becoming trauma-informed, through the cultural medium of storytelling. The book’s literary scaffolding is academic and therapeutic, inviting a growth mindset that encourages social and personal change in readers.” Lee Reid reviews Transforming Trauma Through Social Change: A Guide for Educators, by Theresa Southam, PhD (Santa Barbara, CA: Fielding University Press, 2024) $36.24 / 9798991258012
“Todd discusses the most common dog fears: other people, other dogs, loud noises, vet visits, being left alone, their things being taken away (resource guarding), and dysfunctional repetitive behaviours. She goes over mistakes that are easily made in training…” Jessica Poon reviews Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog by Zazie Todd (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $36.95 / 9781778401367
“Wilson-Raybould’s approach—based on learning, understanding, and acting—clarifies complex issues surrounding Indigenous justice and colonial history, making them approachable for readers of all backgrounds, including newcomers.” Amy Tucker reviews True Reconciliation: How to be a Force for Change, by Jody Wilson-Raybould (Toronto: McLelland & Stewart, 2024) $22 / 9780771004407
Probing account of representational ethics “is elucidating without ever being didactic and genuinely enjoyable to read,” yet prompts “more hope than outrage.”—Jessica Poon reviews Under the White Gaze: Solving the Problem of Race and Representation in Canadian Journalism, by Christopher Cheung (Vancouver: UBC Press/Purich Books, 2024) $24.95 / 9780774881111
2024 donors to the British Columbia Review, a thank you from Richard Mackie.
Bold art and great design work together to elevate an already exuberant, well-told tale about Katie Sandwina, a historical strongwoman. —Ginny Ratsoy reviews Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything, by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Jen White) (Naperville: Sourcebooks Kids, 2024) $28.00 / 9781728267814
“Her career has left marks on her stories of her life from beginning to (almost) end. Reading the memories in a collection, I hear her academic voice: wry, witty, reticent.” Wendy Burton reviews A Life in Pieces, by Jo-Ann Wallace (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771872560
“Wind sets out the many ways that Israeli institutions of higher education are enlisted in Israel’s settler-colonial project. Some are strategically situated to anchor Israeli territorial expansion, often standing literally on the sites of razed Palestinian villages.” Larry Hannant reviews Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, by Maya Wind (London: Verso, 2024) $39.95 / 9781804291740
“Crossing the River is the author’s personal journey of atonement – coming to terms with her birthright of white privilege. The book gives voice to a different narrative of Canada’s history and offers personal insight into the meaning of reconciliation.” Sage Birchwater reviews Crossing the River: An Unsettling Memoir by Sandra Hayes-Gardiner (Calgary: BixBooks, 2023) $20 / 9781777296759
“I’m writing this in part to address the request from readers of my other typography texts to write about Bringhurst, or perhaps pursue a retrospective. Both of these requests are solid and probably long overdue, so in this I attempt to take a first look at this pursuit.” Thomas Girard reviews two earlier books by Robert Bringhurst of Quadra Island, bringing readers a discussion on these influential titles: The Elements of Typographic Style & The Solid Form of Language.
Warland is convinced that as writers, “we must learn to live with profound vulnerability.” In doing this, we are filling in the lack of stories that others have been too afraid to tell. We become more resilient in ourselves as we learn from ourselves—our fears and identities—and we can start to tell authentic narratives that our world, culturally and socially, so desperately needs.” —Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, by Betsy Warland (Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023) $24.95 / 9781770867031
Delightful debut YA novel “speaks … to all readers who care about becoming adult in a positive, life-embracing, world-loving way.” —Alison Acheson reviews Crash Landing, by Li Charmaine Anne (Toronto: Annick Press, 2024) $18.99 / 9781773218427
Canadian scholar and essayist Thomas Girard takes us into the future of typography, asking “How does typography play a role in what’s coming? There’s no better way, in my mind, than to talk to the experts.” Thomas Girard writes the essay Where we jump forward to…
“‘It became a philosophical/legal statement about the land. I hope it reaches out to Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences and will inform people going forward with reconciliation.’” Sage Birchwater reviews Lha Yudit’ih We Always Find a Way: Bringing the Tsilhqot’in Title Case Home by Lorraine Weir, with Chief Roger William (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023) $35 / 9781772013825
An “archaeologist-poet” celebrates, honours, and meditates on a feminist pioneer. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Lady Bird, by Kerry Gilbert (Holstein: Exile Editions, 2023) $19.95 / 9781990773105
“Tlingit participants and scholars, Kan tells us, worked together as equals and their writing is aimed at benefiting source communities through the repatriation of knowledge.” Bruce Granville Miller reviews Sharing our Knowledge: The Tlingit and their Coastal Neighbors by Sergei Kan, with Steve Henrikson (eds.) (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023)
$60.95 / 9781496236883
A debut novel “full of both hope and despair” portrays Ines, a conflicted small town skateboarder new to the big city. —Jessica Poon reviews Late September, by Amy Mattes (Madeira Park, Harbour Publishing, 2024) $22.95 / 9780889714564
Quietly affecting novel delivers with an elegiac narrator recalling the “vibrant, creative and tragic world” of his youth. —Theo Dombrowski reviews The Marvels of Youth, by Tim Bowling (Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2023) $24.00 / 9781989496749