Memoir

A whimsical respite

A joyous “compendium of delightfully quirky short pieces.” —Heidi Greco reviews Jigsaw: A Puzzle in Ninety-Three Pieces, by M.A.C. Farrant (Vancouver: Talon Books, 2023) $19.95 / 9781772015430

Responding to disaster, sexual identity

“Woven into this account is a backstory about the doctor’s evolving career as a brilliant pathologist, his not always successful private life, and his painfully slow coming out as a gay man.” Howard MacDonald Stewart reviews Fifteen Thousand Pieces – A Medical Examiner’s journey through disaster by Gina Leola Woolsey (Hamilton: Guernica Editions Inc., 2023) $25.00 ISBN 9781771838115

‘Healing power of stitch’

“Readers of this collection will be moved by the brilliance, passion, and honesty of the essays…” Penny Haggarty reviews Sharp Notions: Essays from the Stitching Life by Marita Dachsel and Nancy Lee, editors (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023) $32.95 ISBN 9781551529257

Long-distance run for justice

“…the book presents a moving account of athletic and life achievement despite constant struggle to be treated with basic dignity.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Races: The Trials & Triumphs of Canada’s Fastest Family by Valerie Jerome (Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2023) $24.95 / 9781773102900

Memoir of writer and companion

“His tribute to a very special little dog is both poignant and insightful, showing us how much dogs can teach us about love.” Valerie Green reviews Freddie: The Rescue Dog Who Rescued Me by Grant Hayter-Menzies (Victoria: Heritage House, 2023) $24.95 ISBN 9781772034615

A studio by the lake

“Hughes’ love of nature and the communities of the island shine as a record of twentieth century settlers in this lushly illustrated book.” Christina Johnson-Dean reviews E.J. Hughes: Life at the Lake by Robert Amos (Victoria: Touchwood, 2023) $25.00 ISBN 9781771514194

‘Intending to heal wounds’

“Menzies, scion of the Scottish Highlands, also a restless colony not quite out of English Imperial influence, is a descendent of Ontario settlers on treaty land.” Linda Rogers reviews Meeting My Treaty Kin: A Journey towards Reconciliation by Heather Menzies Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023 $29.95 / 9780774890663

Matters of conscience

“Regime of Obstruction documents the corruption of Canadian democracy that has become characteristic of our governmental systems, corporate regimes, and even the environmental organizations that have collaborated in the greening of the business ethos.” Dr. Loys Maingon reviews three titles he considers “guides for unscrupulous psychopathic capitalism.” Regime of Obstruction by William K. Carroll (ed.) Athabasca University Press, 2021 $39.99 / 9781771992893 & A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and The Politics of American Environmentalism by Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza, Don Mills: Oxford University Press – Canada, 2022
$108.95 / 9780190055349 & The New Corporation: How “Good” Corporations Are Bad for Democracy by Joel Bakan (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2020) $19.95 / 9780735238848

‘Navigating with needles’

“The fibre arts are like a ‘life preserver’ Lee says and as the knitting and stitching kept both editors going, they wondered if others had the same experience.” Mary Ann Moore reviews Sharp Notions: Essays from the Stitching Life edited by Marita Dachsel & Nancy Lee (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023)$32.95 / 9781551529257

Challenging ‘what the white man want’

Memoirist’s debut novel traces one man’s life-altering experiences in northern BC. —Theo Dombrowski reviews A Season in Chezgh’un, by Darrel J. McLeod
(Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023) $24.95 / 9781771623629

Illness and ‘the hardness of love’

Poet explores an “illness of the mind” and its effects within a family.
Daniela Elza reviews In the Blood, by Alan Hill (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022) $20.00 / 9781773860787

Broadening our thinking on grizzlies

“With the research aspects of this book the specialist in bear scholarship will feel right at home but there’s plenty of interest here for the general reader with a desire to know more about these great hairy creatures.” Steven Brown reviews Grizzly Bear Science and the Art of Wilderness Life: Forty Years of Research in the Flathead Valley by Bruce McLellan (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2023) $32.00 / 9781771605656

‘Reciprocal relationship with our lands’

“George belongs to the Tsleil-Waututh people, the People of the Inlet, who for thousands of years have lived along Burrard Inlet, the site of present Vancouver.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews It Stops Here: Standing Up for Our Lands, Our Waters, and Our People by Rueben George with Michael Simpson (Toronto: Penguin Random House/Allen Lane, 2023)
$34.00 / 9780735242807

Self-knowledge and lashings of eroticism

An ‘excellent gift for anyone kinky in your life.’
Carellin Brooks reviews Transland: Consent, Kink & Pleasure
by Mx. Sly (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023) $24.95 / 9781551529318

Travels of ‘an imperfect messenger’

“…Wosk removes his clothes, sits naked in silence, meditating on the Big Void.” Trevor Carolan reviews Naked In A Pyramid: Travels & Observations by Yosef Wosk (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2023) $22 / 9781772142204

Addiction…and choices

Here With You: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Addiction  by Kathy Wagner Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $26.95  /  9781771623667 Reviewed by Betty Jane Hegerat * Kathy Wagner’s Here With You reads like every parent’s nightmare. But this is not a dream. This is memoir, real life, and Wagner and her son, Tristan,…
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Remembering the working west coast

He presents his book as “a story of events I witnessed in a lifetime of living and working in the logging camps and workboats on the BC Coast.” Phyllis Reeve reviews From Camp to Camp, from Dock to Dock: The Work of Doug Harrison, The BC Coast in My Eyes by Doug Harrison (Gabriola Island: Doug Harrison, 2023) $39.95

Flying Binky Home

“In [Duthie Books’] paperback cellar Binky Marks was both a lovable eccentric and the possessor of the most prodigious knowledge of books accumulated over the last quarter century…” * Flying Binky Home, an essay by Mark Stanton

She looks beyond the headlines

Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls by Angela Sterritt Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2023 $34.95  /  9781771648165 Reviewed by David Milward * “The true measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members.” The quote has been attributed to both Mahatma Gandhi and former American Vice…
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