Passageways by Philip Resnick Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2018 $18.95 / 9781553805236 Reviewed by Andrew Parkin * This book is a selection of poems reaching back more than four decades. Unsurprisingly, we experience an array of subjects and themes expressed mainly in free verse but with very occasional rhymes. The subjects derive from Resnick’s reading and… Read more #542 Classical, biblical, theoretical
James Cook: The Voyages by William Frame with Laura Walker Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $49.95 / 9780773552869 Reviewed by Robin Fisher First published April 5, 2019 * Every time I receive a new “cook book” to review I open it up in the hope that the author(s) will have something new to… Read more #524 Just another Cook book?
The Afrikaner by Arianna Dagnino Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $20.00 / 9781771833578 Reviewed by Alan Twigg * In Arianna Dagnino’s The Afrikaner, a brave and resilient woman ventures to the Kalahari Desert to find her place in Rainbow Nation. The novel arises from the author’s five-year stint as a journalist in South Africa during the… Read more #520 Somewhere inside the rainbow
Gold Rush Manliness: Race and Gender on the Pacific Slope by Christopher Herbert Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018 $30.00 (U.S.) / 9780295744131 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * Christopher Herbert has added to the considerable literature on gender in colonial societies, and of frontier masculinities in particular, as well as to the historiography of race,… Read more #511 Gold, gamblers, greenhorns
Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire by Renisa Mawani Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2018 $27.95 (U.S.) / 9780822370352 Reviewed by Hugh Johnston * Renisa Mawani writes a thoroughly academic prose, not intended for a casual audience. Even so, her book will have fans, especially among… Read more #496 Too much sail, not enough ballast
ESSAY: Universal Technologies and Traditional Innovations: A Comprehensive Perspective for Museums by Yosef Wosk An Ormsby Exclusive, in collaboration with the The Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars First published Feb. 5, 2019 * We are pleased to present an essay by Yosef Wosk about nothing less than mankind’s accumulation and appreciation of shared knowledge and wisdom. This extraordinarily… Read more #479 On the wings of forever
How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War by Allen Packwood Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2018 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9781473893894 Reviewed by Peter Clarke First published Jan. 29, 2019 * Each new book about Winston Churchill inevitably faces the question of whether it is really necessary, since there… Read more #474 Decisions, decisions
A Piece of the Continent by Paul Nicholson Victoria: Paul Nicholson, 2018 $24.50 / 9781775192305 Available from Amazon.ca and from the author Reviewed by Valerie Green First published January 19, 2019 * It is obvious from the first page of Paul Nicholson’s book that he is passionate about the two topics he covers in A… Read more #469 From Passchendaele to Paris
Costly Fix: Power, Politics and Nature in the Tar Sands by Ian Urquhart Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018 $39.95 / 9781487594619 Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming by Kevin Taft Toronto: Lorimer, 2017 $29.95 / 9781459409972 The Big Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks… Read more #468 Power, petroleum, and pipelines
White by Deni Ellis Béchard Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772012088 Reviewed by Paul Headrick First published Jan. 15, 2019 * The narrator of White has a dramatic CV: freelance war reporter, novelist, and memoirist. It’s a background that closely matches the author’s, even down to the contents of their memoirs. Béchard’s explores his difficult… Read more #465 Flight to the Congo
MEMOIR: The Spider Hunters by Lee Reid First published Nov. 23, 2018 * We are pleased to present The Spider Hunters, a coming-of-age memoir by Lee Reid (née Batchelor) of her early life in England (1946-1952), and then on densely-forested and thinly-populated Curteis Point near Sidney, Vancouver Island, between 1952 and 1964. The Spider Hunters… Read more #431 The Spider Hunters
Codename Project 9: How a Small British Columbia City Helped Create the Atomic Bomb by Ron Verzuh CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018 $13.08 / 9781720820703 Reviewed by Michael Sasges First published Nov. 22, 2018 * Codename Project 9 is a small book that engenders reflections on some big history. Since 1945, journalists and scholars… Read more #429 Trail, the bomb, and Blaylock
ESSAY: A century since Vimy and Passchendaele: Two wars, two families, one message by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published Nov. 11, 2018 * For Remembrance Day 2018 we offer a moving reflection by Howard Stewart — reprinted from Ormsby no. 195 (November 11, 2017) on this centenary of 11.11.18 — on war’s impact on his… Read more #420 Why the red poppies matter
First published October 16, 2018 Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska by Stephen R. Bown Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $34.95 / 9781771621618 Reviewed by Robin Inglis * The Great Northern Expedition of 1733-1743, initiated by Emperor Peter the Great, extended Russian influence to the Aleutian Islands… Read more #401 Legacy of Vitus Bering
Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation by Claire Sicherman Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $22.95 / 9781987915570 Reviewed by Mark Dwor First published Sept. 28, 2018 * Claire Sicherman opens Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation with this dedication: My maternal grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust and I… Read more #386 All my generations
An Uncommon Road: How Canadian Sikhs Struggled out of the Fringes and into the Mainstream by Gian Singh Sandhu Vancouver: Echo Storytelling, 2018. Available though Heritage Group Distribution $29.95 / 9781987900163 Reviewed by Gurpreet Singh First published August 29, 2018 * Gian Singh Sandhu came to Canada in 1970 and settled in Williams Lake, where… Read more #359 From Punjab to Williams Lake
Churchill and Fisher: The Titans at the Admiralty who fought the First World War by Barry Gough Toronto: James Lorimer, 2017 $39.95 / 9781459411364 Reviewed by James Wood First published Aug. 23, 2018 * Barry Gough of Victoria continues his torrid pace and high-quality output with the publication of his character study, Churchill and Fisher:… Read more #350 Naval giants of the Great War
Atomic Road Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2018 by Grant Buday, with a foreword by John O’Brian $20 / 9781772141139 Reviewed by Dustin Cole First published Jul. 9, 2018 * So it was all coming down, The future collapsing like a rotten house. – from Atomic Road. Recently I perused the Anvil Press website to see if… Read more #339 Missiles, murder & emasculation
The World’s Most Travelled Man: A Twenty-Three Year Odyssey to and through Every Country on the Planet by Mike Spencer Bown Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2017 $29.95 / 9781771621427 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published June 9, 2018 * During 1,000 weeks, Mike Spencer Bown backpacked around the world between 1990 and 2013,… Read more #319 King of the back packers
Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2017 $34.95 / 9780771096525 Reviewed by Walter O. Volovsek First published May 17, 2018 * Based in Coquitlam, B.C., the remarkable Paul Watson–not to confused with that Sea Shepherd captain also named Paul Watson who… Read more #305 Finding the Erebus and Terror