Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing by Andrew Chesham and Laura Farina (editors) Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781772141849 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * I love reading the interviews with writers in the Paris Review, the ones where the writers let you into their workshop and talk about the surprises that…
Read more 1415 Boot camp or religious retreat?
Tales of B.C.: 50 Years of Wacky, Wild, & Thought-provoking Adventures by Daniel Wood Vancouver: OP Media Group, 2021 $24.95 / 9781777876401 Reviewed by Bill Engleson * I was delighted when Richard Mackie offered me the opportunity to write a review of the late Daniel Wood’s last book, an anthology of essays that captures several…
Read more 1409 Fifty years of Daniel Wood
North Delta History and Heritage: including Annieville, Upper and Lower Sunbury, Annacis Island, Part of East Delta, and Burns Bog by John Macdonald (editor) Delta: Delta Heritage Society, 2020 (4th printing, 2021) $20.00 / 9781777161705 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * North Delta History and Heritage is a great example of what a group of historically-minded volunteers…
Read more 1344 Rambles in North Delta
ESSAY: Mourning and Burial Rites in Ancient China: A Grief Process by Dorothy Dittrich * Death is part of life, as are the feelings of grief, sorrow and anxiety that follow the loss of a loved one. While coming to terms with death and coping with loss may be part of living, the feelings that…
Read more Mourning rites in Ancient China
emerge 21: The Writer’s Studio Anthology by Emma Cleary, Raoul Fernandes, Dayna Mahannah, Christina Myers, and KT Wagner (editors), with a foreword by Renée Sarojini Saklikar Burnaby: Simon Fraser University, 2021 [price unknown] / 9781772870831 Reviewed by Michael Turner * For travellers who find reading and writing an essential service, I’m sure there is at…
Read more 1311 The land of reading and writing
Richard Wagamese Selected: What Comes from Spirit by Richard Wagamese, with an introduction by Drew Hayden Taylor Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771622752 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau * When he died at 61, Richard Wagamese still had a lot to say, though he had already said so much. The Ojibwe author was…
Read more 1298 A tribute to Richard Wagamese
ESSAY: Tragic Legacies: The Residential School System in Canada (1876-1998) by Lily Chow * Editor’s note: Today, September 30, 2021, is the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. “The day honours the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities,” states a Government of Canada website. “Public commemoration of…
Read more 1237 Tragic legacies of colonialism
ESSAY: Pray for the Paintress: the life of Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524-1588) by Bob Foulkes * Editor’s note: since 2019 The Ormsby Review has hosted the Graduate Liberal Studies Journal, home to many fine essays, memoirs, stories, and of course book reviews. We are delighted to have the GLS Journal under our roof and to…
Read more 1223 The painter & prioress of Florence
ESSAY: Why I love Lucy Maud by Carol Volkart * When I first met Lucy Maud Montgomery in her journals a few months ago, she was a sparkling flirt of 14 tumbling off sleds in winter snowbanks, losing her hat and laughing, laughing, laughing. When I said goodbye to her recently, she was an anguished…
Read more 1183 Why I love Lucy Maud
obittersweet: Life Lessons from Obituaries by Tamara Macpherson Vukusic Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781771615280 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * As a long-time reader of obituaries, I was delighted to receive a copy of Tamara Macpherson Vukusic’s collection of essays which is aptly titled obittersweet. Describing her Sunday morning ritual “with coffee in…
Read more 1177 Paint those final portraits
Big Reader; Essays by Susan Olding Calgary: Freehand Books, 2021 $22.95 / 9781988298818 Reviewed by Heather Graham * “When things go right, I read; when things go wrong, I read more.” Thus wrote Sara Nelson in So Many Books, So Little Time, published in 2004. Nelson’s witty observation about her own reading habits may not…
Read more 1143 Essays personal and impersonal
Letters from the Pandemic 32: Hidden in Plane Sight by Keith Shapland * In 1969 when I was seven, Robin Shapland, my father, a Boeing engineer, hid me in the trunk of our 1967 Impala so that he could sneak me past security at the gate and onto Boeing Field in Seattle so that we could…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 32: Hidden in Plane Sight
Here on the Coast: Reflections from the Rainbelt by Howard White Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $24.95 / 9781550179248 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Is this Howard White’s swan song? Probably not, but it would be a good one if it was. White has been an important player on the west coast literary scene…
Read more 1110 Cedar stumps and coastal rambles
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Two: Push and Pull: Tommy Norbury and Emigration by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 2 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada. Earlier in 2021 we published the…
Read more 1104 The call of the Kootenay
ESSAY: The Militant Mothers: Civil Disobedience in Raymur Housing Project by Meg Stainsby * The 1971 actions of the “Militant Mothers of Raymur” was one of the first direct action campaigns in Vancouver history. The successful, swift campaign ran from early January through late March. It has been documented and celebrated in newspaper and radio…
Read more 1093 The militant mothers of Raymur
Surreal Surrebutter Rebutter Sandwich Spread by Ernest Hekkanen * Editor’s note: The archives of the New Orphic Review (NOR) are a popular part of The Ormsby Review website. Since 2018 all the back issues of NOR have been housed under our roof. Founded in 1998 by Ernest Hekkanen and Margrith Schraner, NOR was a semi-annual…
Read more 1078 Hekkanen’s Kootenay Surrealism
ESSAY: Remnants of Sumas Mountain by Natalie Lang For those who came before and those not yet arrived. * And forever before me gleams, The shining city of song, In the beautiful land of dreams. But when I would enter the gate Of that golden atmosphere, It is gone, and I wonder and wait For…
Read more 1071 Remnants of Sumas Mountain
ESSAY: Sacred Cows by Sheila O’Donoghue * At The Ormsby Review we are pleased to host Letters from the Pandemic: A 30th Anniversary Commemorative Public Writing Project of the Graduate Liberal Studies Program of Simon Fraser University. Since December 2020, we have uploaded 27 letters and essays described by program director Sasha Colby as “moving…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 27: Sacred Cows
ESSAY: Anne Carson: Ambiguity, Uncertainty, Ecstasy by Bob Foulkes * On an otherwise ordinary day in 1965, a precocious, eccentric fifteen year-old discovered a book in the sales bin of a Coles bookstore, a serious tome by Willis Barnstone on Sappho the famous ancient Greek poet. The book was bilingual — ancient Greek and English,…
Read more 1067 The uncertainty of Anne Carson
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter One: The Historical Background: The East Kootenay in the late Nineteenth Century by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 1 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada, the introduction…
Read more 1040 East Kootenay off-grid, old-style