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
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
Jerry Zaslove: the summing up by Talonbooks editorial staff * Last summer, Talonbooks was delighted by the arrival of the long-awaited Untimely Passages: Dossiers from the Other Shore, a collection of essays by the late Jerry Zaslove, who taught at Simon Fraser University from 1965 until his retirement in 2000. He retained an office in…
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Knowledge Within: Treasures of the Northwest Coast by Pam Brown, Jisgang Nika Collison, Anthony Alan Shelton, and Jodi Simkin (curators). Edited by Caitlin Gordon-Walker Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2022, in collaboration with the UBC Museum of Anthropology $60.00 / 9781773270999 Reviewed by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa * A good book should leave something behind in your mind,…
Read more 1742 Knowing the Northwest Coast
Weird Rules to Follow by Kim Spencer Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2022 $12.95 / 9781459835580 Reviewed by Cassidy Jean * Growing up is tough. Crushes, hormones, and the expectations that come with going from child to “preteen” are difficult to navigate. Add to that racial tensions, and growing up as an Indigenous girl in the…
Read more 1736 Weird rules we all follow
Feeling Feminism: Activism, Affect, and Canada’s Second Wave by Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney (editors) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022 $34.95 / 9780774866507 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Increasingly I feel myself becoming historical. The feeling comes with advancing age, enhanced by encountering the work of a younger generation of scholars such as Lara…
Read more 1713 Getting emotional
Two books reviewed by Harper Campbell: Standoff: Why Reconciliation Fails Indigenous People and How to Fix It by Bruce McIvor Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $21.95 / 9780889714205 * Reconciliation and Indigenous Justice: A Search for Ways Forward by David Milward Black Point, NS, and Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood Publishing, 2022 $32.00 / 9781773635194 * This is…
Read more 1685 Vexation and reconciliation
Mea Culpa: A Plea of Innocence. A Memoir by Bruno Cocorocchio Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $24.49 / 9781039137462 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * The title of Bruno Cocorocchio’s memoir, Mea Culpa: A Plea of Innocence, has an immediate and jarring effect. It sets up a seemingly impossible concurrence of two states of being – “I am…
Read more 1670 An Italian childhood
11,000 Days at School: From Class Clown to High School Vice-Principal by Hugh Greer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $22.95 / 9781989467541 Reviewed by Bill Engleson * There are moments that just seem well-timed. This was one of them. It was a Sunday morning. I had several issues on the go and was avoiding most…
Read more 1647 Hugh Greer’s career
Lessons in Legitimacy: Colonialism, Capitalism, and the Rise of State Schooling in British Columbia by Sean Carleton Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022 $89.95 / 9780774868075 Reviewed by Patrick A. Dunae * With its sardonic title, Lessons in Legitimacy exemplifies an activist genre of history that has emerged in Canada following the revelations and recommendations of the…
Read more 1624 Schools of thought
Spíləx̣m: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence by Nicola I. Campbell Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2021 $32.00 / 9781553799351 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * When my friend, author, singer and educator Karen Lee White went north to celebrate the life of a beloved elder, the family women braided her long silver hair. “That is your…
Read more 1610 A star map to higher ground
Tsqelmucwílc: The Kamloops Indian Residential School – Resistance and a Reckoning by Celia Haig-Brown, Garry Gottfriedson, Randy Fred, and the KIRS Survivors Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022 $22.95 / 9781551529059 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * Celia Haig-Brown’s Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School was the first book ever published in Canada about…
Read more 1581 Resistance and resilience
Meet Me in Cairo: Tales of Hitchin’ in the ’60s by Jim Kerr Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $26.95 / 9781989467527 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Jim Kerr’s story of hitch hiking around North America, Europe, North Africa, and the Levant is truly a tale from another age. An era when one could count…
Read more 1574 From Kelowna to Casablanca
Literatures, Communities, and Learning: Conversations with Indigenous Writers by Aubrey Jean Hanson Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2021 $29.99 / 9781771124508 Reviewed by Harper Campbell * Indigenous literatures are relational. They are “moves” within existing relationships, calls to action, therapeutic texts, books that change the world simply by existing in a society that silences Indigenous…
Read more 1555 Affirming Indigenous learning
The Resistance Dilemma: Place-Based Movements and the Climate Crisis by George Hoberg Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $54.00 / 9780262543088 Reviewed by Stephen Bocking * The climate crisis demands that we break our fossil fuel habit. This implies an energy revolution, rewiring society to rely on renewable electricity. New technologies can…
Read more 1549 Clarifying climate policy
User experience & Sophocles by Thomas Girard * i. Ideas trapped within us We have ideas within us. They swim through our minds and sometimes move faster than we know what to do with them. A young guy approached me after the event last night and asked me what to do, with all of these…
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Inspiring Canadians: Forty Brilliant Canadians and their Visions for the Nation by Mark Bulgutch, with a foreword by Peter Mansbridge Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771623148 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * If Inspiring Canadians’ title doesn’t already mark this book as upbeat, both Mansbridge’s preface, centred on a touching anecdote from his…
Read more 1480 Forty visions of Canada
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
Race, Culture, and Politics in Education: A Global Journey From South Africa by Kogila Moodley, with an afterword by Sonia Nieto Columbia University: Teachers College Press, 2020 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9780807764886 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * A successful blend of personal memoir and insights culled from an extensive academic career, Kogila Moodley’s book, which forms…
Read more 1365 A journey from South Africa
Dreamers, Skeptics, and Healers: the Story of BC’s Medical School. The UBC Faculty of Medicine at 70 years by Wendy Cairns, John Cairns, David Ostrow, and Gavin Stuart Vancouver: Page Two Books, 2021 $50.00 / 9781989603895 Reviewed by Jaime Smith * As a graduate of the UBC medical school in 1976 and after training there…
Read more 1363 Beds and infrastructure at UBC