Indigenous

Grim ends, fresh starts

Probing, technical collection of poetry touches on Romantic literature, German philosophers, and the natural world as its author searches for connection. —Harold Rhensich reviews A Blueprint for Survival, by Kim Trainor (Hamilton: Guernica Editions, 2024) $21.95 / 9781771838627

Chainsaw memories

“Aaron Williams was raised in logging camps in BC with an old-time logger for a father and a supportive mother and logging Grandmother Joy doing the raising. He makes good use of his youthful memories to tell us in first-person present tense the workings of various operations that make up the industry.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era by Aaron Williams (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $24.95 / 9781990776618

Who was here before me?

“Author Richard Butler, in his two recent titles, has decided, quite admirably, to describe his own path in addressing reconciliation. He begins Taking Reconciliation Personally upfront about his own settler privilege.” Trevor Marc Hughes reviews Taking Reconciliation Personally (Victoria: A&R Publishing, 2023) $15 / 9798849376998 & I Dare Say…Conversations with Indigeneity by Richard Butler (Victoria: A&R Publishing, 2023) $11 / 9798871999066

A ‘glimpse / to a new world’

A “must-read” collection of poems reveals the poet’s critical examination of both the worlds he belongs to and his place within them. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Teeth, by Dallas Hunt (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2024) $19.95 / 9780889714526

The plot to kill Frederick C. Trudd

A retired criminal lawyer revisits his past and “the most significant trial of his career.” The results are engrossing. —Bill Paul reviews The Long-Shot Trial: An Arthur Beauchamp Thriller, by William Deverell (Toronto: ECW Press, 2024) $26.95 / 9781770417540

Indigi-queer philosophy 101 

Debut story collection by celebrated young author reveals him as “fully in control of his voice, confident of his reach, and utterly fearless.” —Daniel Gawthrop reviews coexistence, by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Toronto: Hamish Hamilton, 2024) $27.95 / 9780735242036

For young scientists and buzzworthy

Picture book for elementary school-age readers teaches “vivid ways to tell us where we live and how the world works.” —Ron Verzuh reviews The Bee Mother, by Hetxw’ms Gyetxw (Brett D. Huson) (Winnipeg: Highwater Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781774920800

Much more than field research

“McCrory argues that the horses, known in Tsilhqot’in culture as qiyus, are ‘a resilient part of the area’s balanced prey-predator ecosystem that predates the arrival of Europeans to the region.’ ” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future by Wayne McCrory (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023) $39.95 / 9781990776366

‘Cartographer of memory, of tradition’

“This is a book about uncovering and recovering what it means to come from a still-living matriarchal system. We’re not talking about a flakey New Age reconstruction of an ancient feminist ideal. Think of the rugged Yukon up the road; imagine isolated communities, vast horizons of smallish spruce, pine, aspen, balsam. It’s a place, Knott confirms, where female vision and leadership has survived with dignity and respect for a long time.” Trevor Carolan reviews Becoming A Matriarch: a memoir by Helen Knott (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2023) $32 / 9780385697774

‘Our realm of ideas’

“Taking into account all the studies of humanity Davis has done throughout his career, his pointing out the adaptability of human beings across the ages is a potent tonic for our collective cynicism and despair.” Trevor Marc Hughes reviews Beneath the Surface of Things: New and Selected Essays by Wade Davis (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $36.95 / 9781778400445

‘The healing nature of writing’

“Judy LeBlanc has written a courageous memoir through interconnected pieces of prose that honour her Scottish and Coast Salish matrilineal heritage.” Mary Ann Moore reviews Permission to Land: A Memoir of Loss, Discovery, and Identity by Judy LeBlanc (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781773861357

Reverence, diligence, duty

A “biodiverse” poet offers advice, wake-up calls, and calls to action in an inspired and passionate volume. —Mary Ann Moore reviews Hazard, Home, by Christine Lowther (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $20.00 / 9781773861241

‘A place worth fighting for’

“‘It became a philosophical/legal statement about the land. I hope it reaches out to Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences and will inform people going forward with reconciliation.’” Sage Birchwater reviews Lha Yudit’ih We Always Find a Way: Bringing the Tsilhqot’in Title Case Home by Lorraine Weir, with Chief Roger William (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023) $35 / 9781772013825

‘What is credible hope, in this place?’

Highly recommended novella presents “a humane vision from an imagined future, of the potential that arises from valuing connection and collaboration in and with place.” —Dana McFarland reviews Arboreality, by Rebecca Campbell (Hamilton: Stelliform Press, 2022) $19.00 / 9781777682323

‘Reaffirming Tlingit customs and tradition’

“Tlingit participants and scholars, Kan tells us, worked together as equals and their writing is aimed at benefiting source communities through the repatriation of knowledge.” Bruce Granville Miller reviews Sharing our Knowledge: The Tlingit and their Coastal Neighbors by Sergei Kan, with Steve Henrikson (eds.) (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023)
$60.95 / 9781496236883

‘To go north and missionize’

“In this present book, Ross has himself embarked on a mission, in the Christian sense. It has been a mission of love in which he engages in re-missionizing his own denomination to a better understanding of its historical relations with the Indigenous people whom the Northland Mission set out to reach.” Richard Butler reviews The Holy Spirit and the Eagle Feather: the Struggle for Indigenous Pentecostalism in Canada by Aaron A.M. Ross (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) $39.95 ISBN 9780228017660

‘Staggering, epic, a treasure trove…’

“Staggering, epic, a treasure trove – are words used to describe British Columbia Artists, an extensive digital finding aid to references for B.C. visual artists, started over 25 years ago…” Christina Johnson-Dean reviews Gary Sim’s British Columbia Artists (Vancouver: Sim Publishing, 2024)

Love, politics, and toxicity in the Yukon

Image-rich debut novel sets a naive young character in a new location, job, and romance. Complex problems result. —Joe Enns reviews Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit, by Nadine Sander-Green (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2024) $23.99 / 9781487011291

Growth from lawlessness

“The Notorious Georges is about the rivalry of the two Georges and about the founding of Prince George. It’s also about the drive to tame a wild land with organized townsites and laws, rules, and regulations that needed to be adhered to—civilization as opposed to lawless wilderness.” Steven Brown reviews The Notorious Georges: Crime and Community in British Columbia’s Northern Interior, 1909 – 1925 by Jonathan Swainger (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023) $32.95 / 9780774869416

The history behind the artifacts

“The subject of models is something that is not often written about, yet large portions of museum collects are often models, never used as a part of traditional Indigenous cultures.” Grant Keddie reviews Skidegate House Models: From Haida Gwaii to the Chicago World’s Fair and Beyond
by Robin K. Wright (Vancouver: UBC Press, co-publication with University of Washington Press), 2024 $60.00 / 9780774870641

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