“Similarly, the modern University is under threat by a changing focus away from a celebration of the Liberal Arts toward a disproportionate emphasis on the hard sciences due to perceptions around return on investment. Across the world we see reductions in budgets for Liberal Arts and an increase in rhetoric that questions what economic value there is in these programs. This is the destruction of The Shire again before us; the development of the individual into a tool for economic production instead of a cultivation of what makes us uniquely human. The digitalization of education has introduced the logic of efficiency into learning itself, where speed and scale threaten the slower virtues of contemplation and care.” Scott Gibson contributes his SFU Graduate Liberal Studies essay Dreaming Spires and Concrete Halls: The Poetics of Place from Oxford to Simon Fraser University
“For me, that is the greatest inspiration the book offers. It affirms that outdoor adventure is not always about reaching the highest peak or covering the longest trail. Sometimes, it’s about sitting quietly on a shoreline, watching a seal bobbing in the current. Sometimes, it is about recognizing the return of a bird whose call you first heard as a child. Sometimes, it is about returning to a place you thought you knew—and seeing it again, this time with attention.” Amy Tucker reviews Wildlife Weekends in Southern British Columbia: Day and Multi-day Trips from Vancouver for Wildlife Viewing, by Roy Jantzen (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2024) $45 / 9781771604604
“Farrant picks on the connection in Japan’s Zen Buddhist tradition between noticing and waiting. Reaching back further yet, she points to China’s ancient Taoist oracle the I Ching with its emphasis on patience, and on finding harmony within the timing of notable changes. This attention to noticing has memorable forebears.” Trevor Carolan reviews Seventy-Two Seasons: A Memoir About Noticing, by M.A.C. Farrant (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2026) $22.95 / 9781553807438
“It’s almost more a coffee table book than a cook’s manual, a bibliographic work of art. But then you read it and realize the book is more than a thing of beauty: it is a mine of information and, in the words of Sabrina’s introduction, a ‘love letter to the land [and to] the seasons.'” Harvey De Roo reviews West Coast Kitchen Garden: Growing, Gathering & Eating Through the Seasons, by Sabrina Currie, photography by DL Acken (Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2026) $49 / 9781771514781
“Jesse Winter, based in Vancouver, has covered wildfires and other climate-related disasters since 2018 for a variety of media. His first experience was that year at Peachland in the Okanagan Valley. He was then a ‘wildfire neophyte’ who had no knowledge of what he was getting into. ‘The sheer volume of what I didn’t know has filled this book.'” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Wild Fire: Dispatches from a Country Ablaze, by Jesse Winter (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2026) $36.99 / 9781443475822
“Neil Surkan tells The British Columbia Review this collection, Empties, ‘spans five years of writing, revising, and doubting…and growing.’ But also present in this collection is fatherhood, and being a father during a time of climate change and political upheaval.” Trevor Marc Hughes interviews current Poet Laureate of Nanaimo Neil Surkan.
“Who committed the murders and why and what to do about it and what happens later takes up the rest of this remarkable story, the seventh book in what has evolved as author Geoff Mynett’s stand-out series of deep dives into formerly obscure corners of British Columbia history. William Brown is the subject of the author’s previous book in the series, A Gentleman of Considerable Talent.” Steven Brown reviews The Fort George Murders of 1823: Crises and Coexistence in New Caledonia, by Geoff Mynett (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2026) $28.00 / 9781773861791
“Elizabeth May said that COPs are important gatherings because they keep climate change on the map. She entered the forum in 1992 as the executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and attended many COPs. One of her functions was to keep an eye on politicians sent to COPs and then report to environmental activists what she learned.” DC Reid reviews 30 Climate COPs Later: Stories from Canadian Participants, by Thomas Burelli, Alexandre Lillo, Lauren Touchant, Lynda Hubert Ta, and Elie Klee (eds.) (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2025) $24.95 / 9780776645575
“Much of this restoration work laid out in Nature-First Cities, is happening in real-time with municipalities creating sustainability master plans, and nature-based development in partnerships with residential developers among others. The final chapters of the book detail the process for bottom-up land stewardship, joining individuals, neighbours, and community groups.” Ryan Mitchell reviews Nature-First Cities: Restoring Relationships with Ecosystems and with Each Other, by Cam Brewer, Herb Hammond, and Sean Markey (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024) $39.95 / 9780774868648
“Robin Ward, a graduate of the celebrated Glasgow School of Art and respected architectural critic and author, does justice to that inheritance. He has added to the comprehensive yet accessible guidebooks he has written singly or collaboratively, including on Victoria and Vancouver, in this province. The photography is excellent and selection of buildings and civic statuary or artwork both astute and appropriate to exploring the built environment of Canada’s one-time leading metropolis.” Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe reviews Exploring Montréal: 151 Best Buildings, by Robin Ward (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2026) $29.95 / 9781771624619
BC-set debut novel portrays environmental politics and a volatile family of five in 1989, 2001, and 2022. Against a forested backdrop, the novel “explores how a thriving family is a unique ecosystem with its own fragility and resilience.” —Trish Bowering reviews The Fall-Down Effect, by Liz Johnston (Toronto: Book*hug, 2026) $24.95 / 9781771669627
“Conrad Kain is a longer poem, much like David, but unlike the fictional David, Conrad Kain is biography turned into succinct and compact poetry. It is Birney at his alliterative and alluring best, and Kain is held high as the model and icon of the authentic Canadian mountain man.” Ron Dart takes a look back at the poem Conrad Kain, by Earle Birney.
“As many visitors to Antarctica have remarked, time spent witnessing the stunning abundance of life beyond the polar zone of extreme cold waters and the sheer beauty of that continent is life-changing. Blight witnesses that unlike her experience of previous research sites, which include the Canadian Arctic, Antarctica forever changed her ‘understanding of the world.’ This is her account of that break from ‘The World, The Real World, The World,’ as she and most scientists working in Antarctica refer to the outside world beyond the polar seas. Antarctica is her discovery and recovery back to a saner place of nature, no matter how harsh. It is a place where life meets death and grows from it.” Loÿs Maingon reviews Where The Earth Meets The Sky: A Story of Penguins, People and Place in Antarctica, by Louise K. Blight (Toronto: Doubleday Canada / Bond Street Books, 2026) $38 / 9780385702102
“There are more than 240 life histories of all the fishes calling the strait home for all or part of the year. Dick Beamish and Jeff Marliave are well-known scientists who have put this book together for you.” DC Reid reviews Fishes of the Strait of Georgia: More than 240 Life Stories, by Dick Beamish & Jeff Marliave (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025) $80 / 9781990776830
“Victoria’s urban landscape is littered with these remnants or references, in this case, to the golden age of Victoria’s great garden estates. They are a part of a legacy of similar markers, such as iron curbs that once protected sidewalks from steel-rimmed carriage wheels, hitching posts for horses stabled in the Rockland and Fernwood neighbourhoods, or small pockets of Garry Oaks that survived from a pre-settlement habitat that nurtured the Lekwungen people. These touchstones of community memory lend richness and meaning to the built heritage that tells Victoria’s story.” Martin Segger contributes the article Silent Sentinels, adapted from his upcoming book Tending Eden: A garden history of Victoria.
“Nancy J. Turner has spent a career working with Indigenous teachers who have shared their traditional knowledge with her, but as she tells The British Columbia Review, not all is shared, some is private, but one thing is clear: that she is grateful for the teachings.” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with ethnobotanist and author Nancy J. Turner.
“I had just finished reading Waterfall Hikes in the Canadian Rockies – Volume 1 when I reached for Volume 2 as if drawn by the gravitational pull of cascading water.” Amy Tucker reviews Waterfall Hikes in the Canadian Rockies – Volume 2, by Steve Tersmette (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2024) $25 / 9781771606882
“While the book may not feature the most extreme, off-the-grid waterfall routes, it is still an excellent reference for experienced hikers. Even for those who have spent decades on the trails, there is always something new to discover, and this book provides a fresh perspective on familiar landscapes.” Amy Tucker reviews Waterfall Hikes in the Canadian Rockies – Volume 1, by Steve Tersmette (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2023) $25 / 9781771606165
“Like Robert Moor, I feel I am a Tree Person, but whereas I write and read articles and books about trees, take photographs of trees from a distance and close-up all year long, and lead tree-identification walks, Moor would take ‘leave of the earth and scamper into its crown. I liked the way climbing trees made me feel (wilder, humbler).'” Nina Shoroplova reviews In Trees: An Exploration by Robert Moor (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2026)
$39 / 9781476739250
“Sarah Boon’s particular scientific interest is glacial hydrology and the modelling of the formation of rivers in the unstable melting phase of glaciers. She has also done some interesting work on forest hydrology, specifically on the impact of clearcutting of snow run-off. The memoir is interspersed with interesting comments and insights into glacier formations and on their importance for understanding the impacts of climate change. The focus is, however, on what it means to be a woman scientist in Canada and on Sarah Boon’s journey through a self-destroying system.” Loÿs Maingon reviews Meltdown: The Making and Breaking of a Field Scientist, by Sarah Boon (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2025) $27.99 / 9781772127911
