The Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival is back — and it will be good by Howard Macdonald Stewart * The Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival is on again this year from July 15-17, with related events beginning July 11. Festival organisers improvised in 2020 and 2021 but now it’s back to our traditional…
Read more 1461 Denman Island calling
Art Exhibit Review: RABBIT LANE: DOUGLAS COUPLAND At the West Vancouver Art Museum, March 30-May 28, 2022, open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Between March 30 and May 28, 2022, the West Vancouver Art Museum is hosting an exhibit of photographs, RABBIT LANE: DOUGLAS COUPLAND. Heidi Greco, on behalf of The…
Read more 1459 Rabbit Lane: Douglas Coupland
The Box in the Closet: A Memoir by Jayne Doxtater West Vancouver: The Self-Publishing Agency, 2021 $23.95 / 9781777642013 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * The Box in the Closet: A Story of Hope Is love enough to keep two people together when your partner’s needs surpass your own? This is one of the questions Jayne…
Read more 1456 Butterflies and affirmation
Paradise Road: A Memoir by Marilyn Kriete Atlanta, GA: Lucid House Publishing, 2021 $22.95 / 9781950495115 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * A True Believer: A young woman’s troubled bicycle odyssey ends with a religious tract Remember your reaction when there was a knock at your door and you answered it only to find two nicely…
Read more 1450 A true believer
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada (Oneworld Publications), 2021 $30.00 / 9781786079251 Reviewed by Jessica Poon Note: Ayesha Chaudhry’s The Colour of God was previously reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * I know a journalist who balks at the word memoir. Though it would be easy to cynically quip about the…
Read more 1447 Memoirs, scripts, subtexts
A Factotum in the Book Trade: A Memoir by Marius Kociejowski Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771964562 Reviewed by Michael Turner * Vancouver is a city rich in book stores. Could it be richer? Sure. But if it’s more books you want, or a greater variety of them, I’ve had great luck at the…
Read more 1435 Where the magic happens
The Baddest Bitch in the Room: A Memoir by Sophia Chang New York: Catapult, 2021 $17.95 (U.S.) / 9781646220816 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan * The essence of autobiography is in creating identity, and Sophia Chang’s memoir, The Baddest Bitch in the Room, does just that. By writing her life story, she asserts: “I am defining…
Read more 1432 Sophia Chang and the Big Apple
Luminous: An Artist’s Guide to Radical Creativity by Linda Frimer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $39.95 / 9781989467220 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * Linda Frimer’s Luminous is a complex and intriguing work that mixes memoir, spiritualism, and meditations on art and colour with reflections on Judaism and her own family’s roots through generations going back…
Read more 1427 An artistic and spiritual journey
Losing Shepherd by Paul Headrick Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2022 $22.95 / 9781773240961 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * Over summers once upon a time, my sister and I would spend a month of every school break at my grandmother’s home, an alfalfa farm in Oliver, BC. Each vacation started off at the bus stop in…
Read more 1423 Scary stuff of real maturity
Artful Flight by Susan Glickman Erin, Ontario: Porcupine’s Quill, 2022 $24.95 / 9780889848795 Reviewed by Gary Geddes * I’ve been poring over Susan Glickman’s Artful Flight, a series of essays and reviews, with delight and a certain sadness, delight at her intelligence and close attention to the craft and contributions of a wide range of…
Read more 1422 Essays and bootless poetry
ESSAY: Letter from Victoria by Larry Hannant * If I were a baseball player, I’d be rated as a respectable batter if I had an average equal to the percentage of my letters to the Times Colonist in Victoria that get printed. About one in three bypasses the editor’s bullshit filter and appears in the…
Read more 1419 Letter from Victoria
Vancouver’s Women in Blue: Trailblazers of the Vancouver Police Department, 1904-1975 by Carolyn J. Daley, with a foreword by Bev Busson Maple Bay: Ruddy Duck Press, 2020 $49.95 / 9781999279202 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “I don’t remember the first time I drew my gun.” That’s one way to grab the reader’s attention. It’s the…
Read more 1411 A constabulary for women
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…
Read more 1394 A great wee book, so it is
Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From by Kamal Al-Solaylee Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $32.99 / 9781443456159 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Some books take their readers across vast distances; some through sweeps of time. One of the most remarkable effects of Return, by journalist and author Kamal Al-Solaylee, currently Director of the School…
Read more 1393 Yearning for a house in the hills
man@the_airport: How Social Media Saved My Life. One Syrian’s Story by Hassan Al Kontar New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2021 $23.95 / 9781777010188 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * Given the staggering human toll of the civil war in Syria since 2011 — half a million dead, more than six and a half million internally displaced, another…
Read more 1392 A one-man freedom convoy