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
A GATHERING TO REMEMBER AND HONOUR PETER TROWER WILL BE HELD FROM 3 – 6 PM AT THE FORMER LOCATION OF THE RAILWAY CLUB IN VANCOUVER ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25. THE VENUE IS NOW CALLED THE RAILWAY STAGE AND BEER CAFE. IT’S AT 579 DUNSMUIR. Peter Trower, one B.C.’s most beloved poets, has died at…
Read more #201 Peter Trower (1930-2017)
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 As…
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
REVIEW: Wherever I Find Myself: Stories by Canadian Immigrant Women By Miriam Matejova (editor) Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017. $24.95 / 978-1-987915-34-1 Reviewed by Gillian Der First published October 21, 2017 * The third anthology in a series on Canadian women published by Caitlin Press, Wherever I Find Myself, edited by Miriam Matejova, is a…
Read more #185 Diversity of immigrant women
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 / 9781771711906First 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 Blaise Cendrars (1887-…
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
REVIEW: Walking to Camelot: A Pilgrimage through the Heart of Rural England by John A. Cherrington Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2016. $22.95 / 978-1-927958-62-9 Reviewed by John Gellard First published July 12, 2017 John Cherrrington takes a 365-mile hike through southern England on public footpaths. * From Figure 1 comes John Cherrington’s Walking to Camelot,…
Read more #150 Camelot and the waste land
Light Within the Shadows: A Painter’s Memoir by Pnina Granirer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781926997849 Reviewed by Janet Mary Nicol First published June 29, 2017 * Pnina Granirer was creative from an early age, but she didn’t come in to her own artistically until the “third act” of her life journey. This…
Read more #145 Pnina’s three lives
How Deep is the Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lakeby Shelley O’Callaghan Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915396 Reviewed by Sabina Trimble First published June 26, 2017 * In How Deep is the Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lake, Shelley O’Callaghan reflects on her family’s 100 years at this mountain lake 45 km….
Read more #144 One family, one lake, one century
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
A Great Old Tramp: Letters from a Canadian Sojourner in British Columbia, 1873-1875 by Greg Stott First published April 22, 2017 * Editor’s note, December 9, 2022: The SS Pacific, on which George Skippon met his death in November 1875, may have been found! See this CTV news story and a CTV video here. Editor’s…
Read more #123 Out of this world: George Skippon in BC, 1873-1875
The Dad Dialogues: A Correspondence on Fatherhood (and the Universe)by George Bowering and Charles Demers Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016$17.95 / 9781551526621 Reviewed by Christian Fink-Jensen First published March 15, 2017 * Vancouver writers George Bowering, born in 1935, and Charles Demers, born in 1980, had daughters – Thea and Josephine – more than forty…
Read more #104 Literary greenhorn dads
ESSAY: The story of a suitcase by Graham Brazier * From the cryptic contents of a stray suitcase that he inherited from a distant relative, Graham Brazier of Denman Island resurrects the otherwise forgotten personal history of Annie Watson (née Edwards, 1883-1966). Annie arrived in Winnipeg in 1910 and settled in Vancouver a few years…
Read more #101 The story of a suitcase
The Ghosts We Know by Sean Karemaker Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2016 $20.00 / 9781772620030 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner First published March 7, 2017 * In his first book, The Ghosts We Know, Sean Karemaker presents an artist’s recent journey through life on coastal B.C. from the quiet corners of rural Vancouver Island to the…
Read more #100 The hermit of Chemainus
Oscar of Between: A Memory of Identity and Ideas by Betsy Warland Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2016 $21.95 / 9781987915167 Reviewed by Catriona Sandilands First Published March 6, 2017 * In 2007, Betsy Warland took a birthday trip to London for a range of plays and events, including an exhibition on military camouflage at the…
Read more #99 Opening the Oscar envelope