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Memoir

1019 Prisoners of hope and memory

Two books reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb: The Girl Who Stole Everything: A Novel by Norman Ravvin Montreal: Linda Leith Éditions, 2019 $21.95 / 9781773900278 * Prisoners of Hope: Rising from the Ashes of the Holocaust: An Eyewitness Account of Life in the Auschwitz Extermination Camp and Two Slave Labour Camps (1944-1945) by George L. Pal…
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1008 Mighty land, small laws

The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain by Dukesang Wong, edited by David McIlwraith, translated by Wanda Joy Hoe Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2020 $18.95 / 9781772012583 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from…
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Frederick Paget Norbury: Introduction

ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Introduction to Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: We are pleased to present the first instalment of the late Brenda Callaghan’s biography and selected correspondence of East Kootenay settler Frederick Paget Norbury (1867-1940). In 1887, Norbury became…
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1007 Love affair with Africa

Moon Madness: Dr. Louise Aall, Sixty Years of Healing in Africa by Alan Twigg Vancouver: Ronsdale Books, 2019 $21.95 / 9781553805939 Reviewed by Valerie Green * In writing the true-life story of Dr. Louise Aall (pronounced All), author Alan Twigg has produced a spellbinding biography about an incredible woman. For sixty years, Dr. Aall devoted…
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1006 Three bad bills of 1983

Tranquility Lost: The Occupation of Tranquille & Battle for Community Care in BC by Gary Steeves Gibsons, Nightwood Editions, 2020 $21.95 / 9780889713864 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Three bad bills revisited: BC’s Operation Solidarity and the attack on public services in the early 1980s. Being on a picket line, protesting in the street, or…
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#991 Balkans, bicycles, baksheesh

Our Trip Around the World by Renate Belczyk Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $22.00 / 9781771603775 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Travel books have been with us for centuries. Homer’s saga of Odysseus’s ten years’ foray around the Aegean amongst monsters and temptresses set a high bar for adventure. It was in the age of…
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#990 All grandfathers are created equal

Grandfathered: Dispatches from the Trenches of Modern Grandparenthood by Ian Haysom Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2020 $22.95 / 9781772033335 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * All grandfathers are created equal: They all share the pleasure of a tiny hand slipping into their own. I skipped the grandfather stage of life and went straight to great grandfathering,…
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#988 Making lives at Oona River

Once Upon an Island: Hope and Hardship, Building a Log House and a Life on the North Coast of British Columbia by Suellen Guenther Victoria: Vargas Publishing, 2020 $29.95 / 9781771368421 Reviewed by Kate Braid * Once Upon An Island is the story of a young woman, Suellen Guenther, who in 1970 after a stint…
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#979 A fiery & persevering love affair

Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) by Lorna Crozier Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland and Stewart), 2020 $29.95 / 9780771021183 Reviewed by Kathy Mezei * We know of famous, sometimes notorious, writing couples — Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, Simone Beauvoir and Jean-Paul…
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#978 Crazy about lumber

Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860336 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Kate Braid’s new memoir, Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman, provides glimpses of her life as a carpenter, primarily in the Lower Mainland, during the 1970s and 1980s. Through a series…
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#971 Aphorisms from an apiarist

Show Me the Honey: Adventures of an Accidental Apiarist by Dave Doroghy, foreword by Rick Hansen Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771513227 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * Bees. Those black and yellow winged creatures buzzing about and smelling the roses; perhaps there is more to them than meets the eye. Do they hold the…
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#969 Piquing interest in Purdy

An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century by Nicholas Bradley (editor) Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $34.95 / 9780228003373 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * “Purdy,” I say. “Al Purdy. Have you heard of him?” “You mean like the chocolates?” She is probably joking. I am asking people I know outside…
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#964 Travelling the higher heights

A Story of Karma: Finding Love and Truth in the Lost Valley of the Himalaya by Michael Schauch Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771604673 A review essay by Trevor Carolan * Adventure travel goes through phases. In the Sixties you went off to Formentera in the Balearics or Corfu to find yourself. India…
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#960 Baby boomer granny

Tuesdays with Jack: A Grandmother’s Love and a Little Boy’s Brilliance by Pauline Daniel Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2018 $18.95 / 9781926991825 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Author Pauline Daniel, who likes to be known as the “how to follow your heart” coach, is the owner of Coaching Connections, a coaching service for women. She…
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#954 A counsellor’s perilous odyssey

Borderline Shine: A Memoir by Connie Greshner, with a foreword by Theresa Therriault Toronto: Dundurn, 2020 $19.99 / 9781459746121 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Connie Greshner calls her book a “memoir” but it doesn’t feel like a memoir. It feels like those painful slapstick comedies in which the protagonist suffers pratfall after pratfall, supposedly for…
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#950 L.A. Woman, Billy, and Jim

Love her Madly: Jim Morrison, Mary, and Me. A Memoir by Bill Cosgrave Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2020 $18.99 / 9781459746602 Reviewed by Randolph Eustace-Walden * Christmas 1986. I’m spending the month in Thailand. The island of Phuket hasn’t been gentrified yet. The streets are still dirt, the food and accommodation choices are still varied and…
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