Healing, health, self-help

1618 Goaltender, heal thyself

The Save of My Life: My Journey Out of the Dark by Corey Hirsch, with Sean Patrick Conboy Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2022 $32.99 / 9781443461092 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * It must be hard to write a good topical hockey book these days. The goalposts, as it were, keep shifting on the zeitgeist as Canada’s…
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1617 Love in vile places

Love in Vile Places: Military Hospitals as the Site of Care and Nurture by Jo-Anne Fiske * For Remembrance Day 2022 we present a memoir by Jo-Anne Fiske of Fraser Lake, in BC’s north-central interior, of her father Humphrey William Fiske (1886-1959). At the time of his enlistment in Kelowna in 1916, the Norfolk-born Fiske…
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1616 Nurse on the front line

A Time of Light and Shadow: To Asia, Africa, and the Long Way Home by Ella Harvey Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $28.00  /  9781771605694 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * Come come, whoever you are Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. — Rumi Ella Harvey’s life…
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1612 Bigger than adolescence

When We Are Broken: The Lake Elegy by Luanne Armstrong New Denver: Maa Press, 2020 $30.00 / 9780987838414 Reviewed by Diana Hayes * Luanne Armstrong, a prolific writer who has published twenty-five books of fiction, memoir, and poetry, has crafted a soulful and meditative narrative in her book, When We Are Broken – The Lake…
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1610 A star map to higher ground

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…
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1598 All together now

Namwayut: We Are All One. A Pathway to Reconciliation by Chief Robert Joseph Vancouver: Page Two Books, 2022 $29.95  /  9781774580059 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * At last, the building, its outline terrorizing The Bay or Yalis, the community framed by open legs, both sides of the water which feeds the people, has come down….
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1597 Get lost, young man

Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas by Harley Rustad Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Knopf Canada), 2022 $34.00 / 9780735279469 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * For some readers, stories like this one are a tempting invitation to satire. There is, after all, much fodder for lampoonery…
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1581 Resistance and resilience

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…
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1554 What boomers really need

Front-Wave Boomers: Growing (Very) Old, Staying Connected, and Reimagining Aging by Gillian Ranson Vancouver: UBC Press (On Point Press), 2022 $22.95 / 9780774890502 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Did you know that the United Nations has declared 2021-2030 the Decade of Healthy Ageing and the World Health Organization has recently begun its “Global Campaign to…
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1544 A fascinating dance of ideas

Jonas and the Mountain: A Metaphysical Love Story by Janis Harper Fort Lauderdale, FL: Sacred Stories Publishing, 2021. For more information about purchasing the book in Canada, contact Janis Harper $20.99 CDN / 9781945026805 Reviewed by Margaret Miller * An eastern mystic and western psychic walk into a bar… Not too much surprises me these…
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1524 LSD & Hollywood North

The Acid Room: The Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital by Jesse Donaldson and Erika Dyck Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $18.00 / 9781772141863 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh  * Acid Test in New West: LSD entered the world through the doors of a BC Hospital Before LSD guru Timothy Leary (“tune in, turn on and…
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1519 Reading the Covid landscape

Words from the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age by Sean Arthur (Art) Joyce Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2022 $25.95 / 9781771714587 Reviewed by Christopher A. Shaw * Capturing the “Landscape of the Imagination” in the Age of Covid No matter where one stands on the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines, and who’s responsible, the events of…
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1516 Memories and caregivers

A Funny Kind of Paradise by Jo Owens Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Random House Canada), 2021 $22.95 / 9780735278820 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * An extended care facility in Victoria might seem a claustrophobic setting for a novel, particularly when a stroke has rendered speechless its narrator, Francesca, who inhabits a room with four…
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1499 Not done yet

Going to Ground: Essays on Aging, Chronic Pain and the Healing Power of Nature by Luanne Armstrong Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781773860756 Reviewed by Claire Sicherman * I was really looking forward to reading Luanne Armstrong’s new book, Going to Ground: Essays on Aging, Chronic Pain and the Healing Power of Nature,…
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1494 A Cree hero’s journey

Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age by Darrel J. McLeod Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2018 $29.95 / 9781771622004 Reviewed by Heather Simeney MacLeod * Editor’s note: From time to time we get our wires crossed at The BC Review, or — very rarely — a publisher sends the reviewer the wrong book or kindly…
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1491 Be brave in giving

The Caregiver’s Companion by Patricia Jean Smith Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2022 $25.00 / 9781772442441 Reviewed by Betty Jane Hegerat * The cover of The Caregiver’s Companion by Patricia Smith is graced with an image by Chinese print maker, Hao Boyi, of two Manchurian red-crowned cranes. These birds are rare and endangered. To imagine…
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1470 Piecework and peace work

Mother, the Verb, Swan Sister Treasure Book by Linda Rogers and friends Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $25.00 / 9781039124530 Reviewed Cathy Ford * Upon a time (note dear reader, not “once”), there arrived a beautifully dense green book on my desk. For me, it arrived just in time. As said more often than anyone ever wanted…
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1466 A dozen kinds of hiding

Sounds from Silence: Reflections of a Child Holocaust Survivor, Psychiatrist and Teacher by Robert Krell Amsterdam: Amsterdam Publishers, 2021 $21.95 (U.S.) / 9493231488 Reviewed by Peter Hay * From the outside, Robert Krell’s memoirs present us with a man of great humanity who, after a long and distinguished career in medicine and psychiatry, has been…
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1394 A great wee book, so it is

An Irish Country Yuletide by Patrick Taylor New York: Macmillan (Forge Books), 2021 $17.99 (US) / 9781250780904 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * With the recent release of Kenneth Branagh’s film Belfast, set during the Troubles in 1969, it’s timely that The British Columbia Review should ask for a review of Salt Spring Island resident…
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1363 Beds and infrastructure at UBC

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…
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