When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery & Transformation by Tara Sidhoo Fraser Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781551529271 Reviewed by Betty Jane Hegerat * Tara Sidhoo Fraser’s When My Ghost Sings: A Memoir of Stroke, Recovery & Transformation pieces together the aftermath of a stroke and diagnosis of a rare…
Read more 1943 ‘Don’t you dare forget me’
Do You Eat the Red Ones Last? Canada’s Not-so-clandestine War to Expropriate Indigenous Lands and Resources by Marc G. Stevenson Altona: FriesenPress, 2022 $18.99 / 9781525585838 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * First, a word about the title to this book. It came from a 1980s meeting, as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans co-chair emptied…
Read more 1941 Confronting antipathy towards Indigenous Canadians
The Geography of Belonging: A Love Story of Horses & Africa by Oriane Lee Johnston Cortes Island: Salmonberrry Arts and Publishing, 2023 $25.00 / 9781777149222 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * A wise person once posited that one of the many pleasures of reading memoir is identifying parallels with our own lives. If that holds true,…
Read more 1931 Take your own country with you
Stikine Odyssey: From Adventure to Activism with The Great River by Peter Rowlands Altona: Friesen Press, 2023 $24.49 / 9781775238348 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes * What is it that draws adventurers to the Stikine River? For me, in 2012, it was a desire to see this beautiful, and integral, landscape in northern British Columbia…
Read more 1922 Irresistible Stikine
Almost Brown: A Mixed Race Family Memoir by Charlotte Gill Toronto: Penguin RandomHouse, 2023 $36 hardcover / 9780735243033 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * The author of various fiction and narrative non-fiction titles, including the tree-planting memoir Eating Dirt, Sunshine Coast-based Charlotte Gill is a gifted storyteller. Her new memoir explores how the author’s self-image and…
Read more 1905 Stuck in the middle with you
A Man and his River: A 25-year Love Affair with a Wild Island Waterway by D.C. Reid Surrey: Hancock House, 2022 $24.95 / 9780888397287 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * The Nitinat River, cutting through the thick jungle which separates the west coast of Vancouver Island from the majority of its inhabitants, is hardly the region’s…
Read more 1901 A hydro hagiography
Red Dust and Cicada Songs by Mary Bomford Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $26.00 / 9781773860916 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * African memoirs continue to enjoy a reading vogue with Mary Bomford’s account of her five-years working as a young “idealistic CUSO volunteer” teacher in newly-independent Zambia offering another insightful perspective. Chilliwack-raised in a large…
Read more 1900 Learning more than she could teach
Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey Through Mental Health by Jason Schreurs Powell River: Flex Your Head Press, 2023 $25 / 9781738921409 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * I almost met Jason Schreurs in 2012 when he was in Kamloops at a journalism conference and I was there to do what? A poetry reading, visit an ex’s…
Read more 1899 Shouting into a dented microphone
Drawing Botany Home: A Rooted Life by Lyn Baldwin Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2023 $30.00 / 9781771605922 Reviewed by Nina Shoroplova * Lyn Baldwin, PhD, has lived a life at the “confluence of choice and change.” As have most of us. But as a botanist, an ecologist, and a philosopher, especially about her own life…
Read more 1892 ‘Plant aware, nature aware’
Instructions for a Flood: Reflections on Story, Geography and Connection by Adrienne Fitzpatrick Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023 $24.00 / 9781773861128 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * Gentle memories. That’s the descriptor that first flowed over me at the close of reading this short, pared set of reflections on land, water, Indigeneity, history, time, people and…
Read more 1891 ‘Standing in the river’
How to Clean a Fish and Other Adventures in Portugal by Esmeralda Cabral Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, May 16, 2023 $27.99 / 9781772126556 (paperback) Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Well, first of all, you won’t learn how to clean a fish. Secondly, … But let’s start at the beginning. Esmeralda Cabral is a writer living…
Read more 1876 A reluctance to join in
Voices from Bridge River: The Bridge River Hydroelectric Projects, the People Who Built Them, and the Lives They Touched by BC Hydro Power Pioneers with Kerry Gold Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2022 $29.95 / 9781773271071 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * With her caustic wit and outspoken opinions, local newspaper publisher Ma [Margaret] Murray put BC’s…
Read more 1874 Bridge River Gold
Not Quite So Handsome By Danny Peart Vancouver: Milagro Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9780994932969 Reviewed by Patrick Connors * Vancouver’s Danny Peart begins Not Quite So Handsome with the poem “Intention,” which serves as sort of a prologue to the collection. The epigraph of the poem features lyrics from “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” by…
Read more 1873 Last words, famous and otherwise
You Have Been Referred: My Life in Applied Anthropology by Michael Robinson Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 2021 $21.95 / 9781988440705 Reviewed by Kirsten Bell * Many of my anthropological brethren jealously guard the boundaries of the discipline. Although there is no formal registration process for anthropologists, the standard view within most professional associations is that a…
Read more 1869 Fascinating life, flawed memoir
Ukrainian Scorpions: A Tale of Larceny and Greed by Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson Toronto: ECW Press, 2023 $28.95 / 9781770415676 Reviewed by Larry Hannant * Their proxy war in Ukraine against Russia floundering, the Western War Heads have been able to retain their mastery only on one crucial front line – propaganda. At least…
Read more 1868 An inconvenient tale of Ukraine
Entre Rive and Shore By Dominique Bernier-Cormier Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2023 $19.95 / 9781781773102870 Undoing Hours By Selina Boan Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $18.95 / 9780889713963 The Punishment By Joseph Dandurand Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $21.95 / 9780889714328 Shapeshifters By Délani Valin Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $19.95 / 9780889714281 Reviewed…
Read more 1854 Gifts of reconciliation
Walking the Camino: On Earth As It Is By Maryanna Gabriel Lawrencetown Beach, NS: Pottersfield Press, 2023 $21.95 / 9781990770180 Reviewed by Carellin Brooks * Maryanna Gabriel’s Walking the Camino has little in the way of conventional plot, but a journey of eight hundred kilometres and forty-plus days imposes its own narrative urgency. The route…
Read more 1844 A ‘trek of her own’
Interview channel update by Richard Mackie * Since January 2023 Trevor Hughes, interim non-fiction editor of The British Columbia Review, has branched out as Video Segment Producer and curator of our new Interview Channel, hosted by YouTube. So far, Trevor has uploaded thirteen interviews that capture in words a broad spectrum of British Columbian authors,…
Read more 1841 BC Review interviews update
The Power of Dreams: 27 Years Off-grid in a Wilderness Valley by Dave and Rosemary Neads Surrey: Hancock House Publishers, 2022 $24.95 / 9780888397188 Review by Phyllis Reeve * A couple built a house in the wilderness of Precipice Valley, on the ancient trade route linking BC’s Interior Plateau with the coast, and stayed for…
Read more 1837 A dose of planetary reality
Cooking Tips for Desperate Fishwives: An Island Memoir by Margot Fedoruk Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $22.95 / 9781772033953 Reviewed by Susan Sanford Blades * Cooking Tips for Desperate Fishwives, Margot Fedoruk’s island memoir, instantly captures her reader’s attention by beginning right in the thick of things: “The night I ran over Rick with my car,…
Read more 1834 Stuck in the middle of nowhere with you