ESSAY: Advanced Typography Workshops in Quarantine by Thomas Girard * In October 2020, Thomas Girard of the Graduate Liberal Studies programme at Simon Fraser University taught a course in Advanced Typography at a design school in Vancouver. Here, he provides a summary of that course with nods to the history — and ubiquity — of…
Read more Teaching typography in quarantine
ESSAY: Walking in the time of Corona by Nina Watts * It was a Friday morning in May and I had arranged to meet my friend on a street corner close to her home in the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver. We were planning an urban wander with no particular destination. As I walked west from…
Read more 1015 Letters from the Pandemic 18: Walking in the time of Corona
Letters from the Pandemic 7: Dear Roger and David by Max Wyman * This letter to his childhood friends in England by Max Wyman is one of a series of Letters from the Pandemic published in the Graduate Liberal Studies Journal, hosted by The Ormsby Review. The entire series of letters can be seen here….
Read more #993 Letters from the Pandemic 7: Dear Roger and David
Great Expectations: Reflections on Museums and Canada by Jack Lohman Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2019 $14.95 / 9780772673039 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “Isn’t it amazing that in 2019, Canadians are so passionate about the past?” In this era seen by some as haunted by a toxic past which must be erased as…
Read more #989 Passionate about the past
Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860336 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Kate Braid’s new memoir, Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman, provides glimpses of her life as a carpenter, primarily in the Lower Mainland, during the 1970s and 1980s. Through a series…
Read more #978 Crazy about lumber
A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene by Heesoon Bai, David Chang, and Charles Scott (editors) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $39.95 / 9780889777569 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Seldom has this reviewer encountered an essay collection that is so topical and as important as A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living…
Read more #977 Tips for the Anthropocene
On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia by Jean Barman, edited by Margery Fee Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $34.95 / 9781550178968 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space,…
Read more #973 Barman’s BC fundamentals
A Story of Karma: Finding Love and Truth in the Lost Valley of the Himalaya by Michael Schauch Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771604673 A review essay by Trevor Carolan * Adventure travel goes through phases. In the Sixties you went off to Formentera in the Balearics or Corfu to find yourself. India…
Read more #964 Travelling the higher heights
Sherlockian Musings: Thoughts on the Sherlock Holmes Stories by Sheldon Goldfarb London: MX Publishing, 2019 $16.95 / 9781787054813 Reviewed by Patrick McDonagh * Sheldon Goldfarb’s Sherlockian Musings live up to their title. They are very much musings, open-ended and accessible, and they are quite often amusing as well. The book’s structure is immediately accessible —…
Read more #943 Investigating Sherlock Holmes
Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life, 1991-2018 by Ken Lum, with an introduction by Kitty Scott Montreal: Concordia University Press, 2020 $64.95 / 9781988111001 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Where on earth is he? The Vancouver Art Gallery is staging an interview with Vancouver-born art star Ken Lum. It’s May 2020, deep into…
Read more #930 The relevance of Ken Lum
Radiant Voices: 21 Feminist Essays for Rising Up Inspired by EMMA Talks by carla bergman (compiler and editor) Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2019 $22.00 / 9781927366844 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * If you’ve ever taken the time to observe birds, you might notice them flying up into the sky and then swooping down in magnificent arcs….
Read more #911 A space for feminine voices
ESSAY: Unique ways of prototyping by Thomas Girard * Editor’s note: When asked to define “prototyping” as used in this essay, Thomas Girard replied: When I talk about “prototyping” here, I’m talking about it in part as I’ve learnt it in traditional design education, at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, years ago. In…
Read more #890 Podiums, prototypes, and Plato
MEMOIR: Writing My Father by Meg Stainsby * After twenty years of carting it around unopened, I unpacked a stale cardboard box stuffed with crackly, yellowed sheets of typescript — some still clinging to their carbons, all faint and fusty — and began a solitary trek across a forty-year expanse of written terrain that my…
Read more #876 Stainsby’s carbons and files
Disabled Voices Anthology by sb. smith (editor), with a foreword by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Nanoose Bay: Rebel Mountain Press, 2020 $18.95 / 9781775301950 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way…
Read more #872 Making some good trouble
Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin by Susan Mayse Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020; first published by Harbour, 1990 $28.95 / 9781550170184 Reviewed by Dan Hinman-Smith * We’re all working men here, And we drink Lucky Beer, Do we hold a grudge? You bet. — Gordon Carter, “The Day They Shot Ginger Down”…
Read more #848 The ballad of Ginger Goodwin
ESSAY: The Will to Pleasure: Hedonism, Ethics, and Aesthetics from the Ancient World to the Present Age by Eryn Holbrook * When Christianity and Marxism end their shared reign, we will need visions of new possibilities. There is always one fixed point: the body. Not a body of Platonic ideas, nor a body cut in…
Read more #847 Hedonism, pleasure, ethics
My Favourite Crime: Essays and Journalism from Around the World by Deni Ellis Béchard Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $24.95 / 9781772012323 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Deni Béchard’s My Favourite Crime is a powerful collection of writing. The book’s cover blurb, not something I usually put much faith in, contains much truth: this really is…
Read more #837 The global frame of Deni Béchard
The Guilt Factor: A personal exploration with assistance from Antigone by Al Jones * Experiencing and living with guilt, whether small or big, is part of the human experience, and as I look back on my life I ask myself how guilt has affected me. At times, I am perplexed by how guilt can be…
Read more #834 Lessons from my brother’s room
ESSAY: There’s no place like home: our connection to meaningful places by Joanne Crozier * We are pleased to present an essay by Joanne Crozier, There’s no place like home, as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Ormsby Review and Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University, an interdisciplinary program that leads to the…
Read more #822 Home is where the memory is
Rain City: Vancouver Reflections by John Moore Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2020 $20.00 / 9781772141399 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * On the inside front pages of Rain City: Vancouver Reflections, John Moore brandishes a quote from Paul St. Pierre: “A journalist is a reporter who can’t hold a steady job.” The instability of journalism and feature…
Read more #821 The hidden pulse of Vancouver