The unforgettable Major Matthews: A memoir of 1969 by John Pass First published Jan. 23, 2018 * We are pleased to unveil a memoir by the award-winning poet John Pass (born 1947) from the summer of 1969 when he crossed paths with Vancouver’s first archivist, the one and only Major J.S. Matthews, an Imperial bulldog…
Read more #238 Unforgettable Major Matthews
First published Jan. 19, 2018. A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout by Marilyn R. Schuster (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. $39.95 / 9780774835459 Reviewed by Patricia Demers * Reading a collection of letters can be something of a guilty pleasure. Marilyn Schuster’s edition of the letters of Jane Rule…
Read more #235 Dancing on paper
First published Jan.16, 2018. Refuge in the Black Deck: The Story of Ordinary Seaman Nicola Peffers by Nicola Peffers Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press. $24.95. / 978-1-987915-43-3 Reviewed by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt * Readers are immediately immersed in life aboard an armed forces navy vessel in Refuge in the Black Deck: The Story of Ordinary…
Read more #232 All aboard for sea changes
Green Mackinaw in Europe, 1954-55 by Alfred H. Siemens Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2017 $25.99 / 9781460295342 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * Green Mackinaw recalls the “brief shining time” that its author spent in Europe in the 1950s. Alfred Siemens, a UBC student in his early twenties, crossed the Atlantic in the fall of 1954 to…
Read more #230 A good year and a good man
First published Jan. 8, 2018. It Can Be Done: An Ordinary Man’s Extraordinary Success by Chick Stewart and Michele Carter Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017. $32.95 / 9781550178005 Reviewed by Michel Vallée Donald “Chick” Stewart moved to B.C. from a chicken farm in Manitoba in 1942 when he was fifteen years old. His first…
Read more #229 Youbou logger to S&R king
Dirty Windshields: The Best and the Worst of the Smugglers Tour Diaries by Grant Lawrence Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $26.95 / 9781771621489 Reviewed by Dustin Cole First published Dec. 6, 2017 * Grant Lawrence’s memoir Dirty Windshields recalls his days and nights as lead singer in the garage rock band Smugglers, Canada’s self-proclaimed…
Read more #214 At home on the road
First published Dec. 4, 2017. Chasing Smoke. A Wildfire Memoir by Aaron Williams Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017. $22.95 / 9781550178050 Reviewed by Dan Gallacher The threat of terrorism is over-rated. ‘First responders’ were everywhere in 2017 dealing with hurricanes, earthquakes and forest fires. Aaron Williams’ Chasing Smoke: A Wildfire Memoir (Harbour $22.95)…
Read more #213 The forest smokeaters
Edges of Empire: A Documentary by Rhodri Jones (Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe) Vancouver: Rarebit Press, 2017 $20.00 / 9780994941237 Reviewed by Julian Wake First published Nov. 23, 2017 * Born in 1946, Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London and came to Canada to teach art history at McGill in…
Read more #208 An intellectual journey
Royal Blood: A Memoir by Laurenda Daniells Vancouver: Paper Trail Publishing, 2016 $22.95 / 9780994930309 Reviewed by Nancy Marguerite Anderson First published Nov. 22, 2017 * Royal Blood, by Laurenda Daniells, is a memoir in the form of a collection of short stories written by a woman who has clearly led a long, interesting, and…
Read more #207 From the HBC to UBC
At Home in Nature: A Life of Unknown Mountains and Deep Wilderness by Rob Wood Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2017 $22.00 / 9781771602518 Reviewed by John Gellard First published November 20, 2017 * Rob Wood might have saved my life … or at least my left foot. Some years ago I fell off a log…
Read more #204 Climbing bard of Maurelle Island
The Transcontinentalist: Or, The Joys of the Road Manuscript in the Laing Papers at the B.C. Archives, written in 1915 by Hamilton Mack Laing Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes First published Nov. 17, 2017 * Editor’s note: We are delighted that Trevor Marc Hughes has ventured into the voluminous Laing Papers at the British Columbia…
Read more #203 Mack, the life
First published November 10, 2017 Emily Carr As I Knew Her by Carol Pearson, with a foreword by Robert Amos. Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2016. $19.95 / 9781771511742 Reviewed by Kerry Mason * Our understanding of the internationally significant artist and author, Emily Carr, is enriched by this overdue reprint of Carol Pearson’s Emily Carr…
Read more #200 Emily’s compartmentalized friend
First published Nov. 5, 2017 A century since Vimy and Passchendaele: Two wars, two families, one message By Howard Macdonald Stewart * For Remembrance Day 2017 we offer a moving reflection by Howard Stewart on war’s impact on his family in the twentieth century. Howard touches on the personal and emotional repercussions on the families…
Read more #195 Remembrance Day, 2017
MEMOIR: Lill’s Story: Reminiscences of a Country Schoolteacher by Lillian Emerson Edited by Mary Novik and Ned Young First published Nov. 4, 2017 * We are delighted to present these memoirs of Lillian Emerson (1913-2003), a Vancouver Island teacher in the 1930s who became the mother of award-winning novelist Mary Novik. Born in Victoria to…
Read more #194 Lill Emerson: Raincoast educator
First published November 3, 2017 Mark Bate: Nanaimo’s First Mayor by Jan Peterson Victoria: Heritage House, 2017. $19.95. / 9781772031829 Reviewed by John R. Hinde While industrialist Robert Dunsmuir has long been recognized as the most important figure in nineteenth century Nanaimo, thanks in part to Terry Reksten’s The Dunsmuir Saga (Douglas & McIntyre, 1991),…
Read more #193 Nanaimo mayor rivals Dunsmuir
Blaise Cendrars Speaks… by Blaise Cendrars. Edited and with an introduction by Jim Christy, translated by David J. MacKinnon Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2016 $24.95 / 9781771711906 First published in Paris by Denoël, 1952 and 2016 Reviewed by Serge Alternês Review first published Oct. 16, 2017 * This upcoming Remembrance Day we might recall and commemorate…
Read more #183 Modernist poet Blaise Cendrars
Beckoned by the Sea: Women at Work on the Cascadian Coast by Sylvia Taylor Victoria: Heritage House, 2017. $19.95 / 9781772031799 Reviewed by Molly Clarkson First published October 16, 2017 * Sylvia Taylor’s Beckoned by the Sea: Women at Work on the Cascadian Coast brings together the stories of twenty-four women whose career paths brought…
Read more #182 Reckoning the beckoned
First published October 12,2017 Nanaimo journalist Julie Chadwick has helped The Man In Black’s manager in the 1960s and ‘70s, Saul Holiff, to posthumously present his recollections for The Man Who Carried Cash (Dundurn $19.95). The long-winded subtitle for this tale of a tempestuous but affectionate relationship is ‘Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash, and the Making…
Read more #179 Nanaimo & Johnny Cash
REVIEW: Florence, Dante and Me by Robert Stuart Thomson Godwin Books 2017 9780995876002 Reviewed by Beverly Cramp First published September 18, 2017 * It’s the summer of 1960 and a young UBC student is about to leave Vancouver, then still very much a White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant city. Twenty-year old Robert Thomson had won a scholarship to spend…
Read more #171 Florence, Dante and Me
Under Vancouver 1972-1982 by Greg Girard, with interviews by William Gibson and David Campany Toronto: The Magenta Foundation, 2017 $50.00 / 9781926856100 Reviewed by Bill Jeffries * Born in 1955, Greg Girard grew up in Burnaby and started photographing Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in 1972, when he was still in high school. Girard moved to Hong…
Read more #137 Glimpses of pre-Expo Vancouver