“1866 was the year he founded the American SPCA, based on the model of the Royal SPCA in London. He was 53 years old and up until a few years before he had not been particularly interested in animals. Then while in St. Petersburg, Russia he saw a driver mistreating a horse and had a revelation: animals would be his life’s work.” Sheldon Goldfarb reviews The Second Greatest Show on Earth: Henry Bergh, the Protection of Animals, and the Evolution of the Modern Social Movement, by Darcy Ingram (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025) $34.95 / 9780228025801
“As many visitors to Antarctica have remarked, time spent witnessing the stunning abundance of life beyond the polar zone of extreme cold waters and the sheer beauty of that continent is life-changing. Blight witnesses that unlike her experience of previous research sites, which include the Canadian Arctic, Antarctica forever changed her ‘understanding of the world.’ This is her account of that break from ‘The World, The Real World, The World,’ as she and most scientists working in Antarctica refer to the outside world beyond the polar seas. Antarctica is her discovery and recovery back to a saner place of nature, no matter how harsh. It is a place where life meets death and grows from it.” Loÿs Maingon reviews Where The Earth Meets The Sky: A Story of Penguins, People and Place in Antarctica, by Louise K. Blight (Toronto: Doubleday Canada / Bond Street Books, 2026) $38 / 9780385702102
“There are more than 240 life histories of all the fishes calling the strait home for all or part of the year. Dick Beamish and Jeff Marliave are well-known scientists who have put this book together for you.” DC Reid reviews Fishes of the Strait of Georgia: More than 240 Life Stories, by Dick Beamish & Jeff Marliave (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025) $80 / 9781990776830
“An autobiography is often just about an individual. However, when the narrative focuses on the principles that have guided the path of an individual’s development and where they originated, it becomes more than about the individual. It confirms the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. That makes for interesting thoughtful reading as Grant identifies the elements of her life that pre-disposed her to success.” Loÿs Maingon reviews One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forward: One Woman’s Path to Becoming a Biologist, by B. Rosemary Grant (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2025) $27.95 / 9780691260600
“Nancy J. Turner has spent a career working with Indigenous teachers who have shared their traditional knowledge with her, but as she tells The British Columbia Review, not all is shared, some is private, but one thing is clear: that she is grateful for the teachings.” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with ethnobotanist and author Nancy J. Turner.
“Like Robert Moor, I feel I am a Tree Person, but whereas I write and read articles and books about trees, take photographs of trees from a distance and close-up all year long, and lead tree-identification walks, Moor would take ‘leave of the earth and scamper into its crown. I liked the way climbing trees made me feel (wilder, humbler).'” Nina Shoroplova reviews In Trees: An Exploration by Robert Moor (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2026)
$39 / 9781476739250
“As the discussion heats up, one begins to feel like a dinner party guest privileged to listen in on a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation between two expert criminologists.” Richard Fyfe reviews Troubling Criminology, by Michael C. K. Ma and Mike Larsen (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2025) $34.95 / 9781771136853
“Sarah Boon’s particular scientific interest is glacial hydrology and the modelling of the formation of rivers in the unstable melting phase of glaciers. She has also done some interesting work on forest hydrology, specifically on the impact of clearcutting of snow run-off. The memoir is interspersed with interesting comments and insights into glacier formations and on their importance for understanding the impacts of climate change. The focus is, however, on what it means to be a woman scientist in Canada and on Sarah Boon’s journey through a self-destroying system.” Loÿs Maingon reviews Meltdown: The Making and Breaking of a Field Scientist, by Sarah Boon (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2025) $27.99 / 9781772127911
“Besides launching you on a hobby that needs only a bus pass, a big book for a press, good cardboard, and a few standard household items to start, the guide takes you through the steps from rank amateur to friend-of-the-museum-curator.” Briony Penn reviews Pressed Plants: Making a Herbarium, by Linda P. J. Lipsen, with illustrations by Derek Tan (Victoria: Royal BC Museum Publications, 2023) $19.95 / 9780772680563
“Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa begins with a conversation about her discovery and research into the one empirical example of an ancient practice, the raising of almost but not quite domestic animals who lived in isolation to protect them from inbreeding and physical damage, animals bred to provide the weft in essential weavings.” Linda Rogers reviews The Teachings of Mutton: A Coast Salish Woolly Dog, by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa et al (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025) $36.95 / 9781998526024
“The setting of Wildcraft Medicine is Clayoquot Sound where Wray gained most of her knowledge of healing plants from Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers. Her early years were spent in Powell River, then her family moved to West Vancouver where she met First Nations Medicine Woman Norma Myers, who played an important role in her education in plant medicine. As a mother, she turned to plants to for the medicinal needs of her family through childhood viruses and infections, as well as afflictions that affected the adults, as well as her pets.” Cathalynn Labonté-Smith reviews Wildcraft Medicine: In the Presence of Wonder, by Sheila Anne Wray (Victoria: FriesenPress, 2025) $43.99 / 9781039197220
“In this, the third (Giblin says last) of his books on the fishing-guide life and the odd, quirky characters of this profession and region, The Trophy Hunter: The Final Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide, we renew acquaintance with the Lodge’s residents and their favourite fishing holes.” Marianne Scott reviews The Trophy Hunter: The Final Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide, by David Giblin (Victoria: Heritage House, 2025) $24.95 / 9781772035551
“On the subject of misconceptions the author explains what archaeology is and what it isn’t. Archaeology is the story of the human past based on the things left behind by humans. It isn’t treasure hunting or looking for dinosaur bones with the thrill of digging around in the ground. Archaeology is part of the heritage industry. If a study isn’t based on humans and what is left from human activity it isn’t archaeology.” Steven Brown reviews Once upon This Land: Archaeology in British Columbia and the Stories It Tells, by Robert J. Muckle (Vancouver: Purich Books, 2025) $29.95 / 9780774881081
“In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, Dr. Grenz has created a provocative, moving, and timely book which every scientist and student, whether Western or Indigenous, should read.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing, by Dr. Jennifer Grenz (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2024) $23 / 9781039006034
“Without the karst environment, Haida Gwaii would lose much of its appeal for cave-based investigations. The name karst stems from Kras, a region in Croatia. Besides the Balkans, karst landscapes are found in southern Asia, Indonesia, Tasmania, New Zealand, the southern United States, and of course, British Columbia.” Katy Dycus writes about archeological discovery on Haida Gwaii in the ‘lost world’ of the karst caves.
“Chapter by chapter Dr. Bonnell highlights the slow progression of wildlife use, exploitation, and conservation from the original inhabitants to the fur trade and then the influx of miners and settlers.” Dennis A. Demarchi reviews Stewards of Splendour: A History of Wildlife and People in British Columbia, by Jennifer Bonnell (Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum, 2023) $34.95 / 9781039900004
“The 36 chapters in My Soul Lives in these Mountains combine a series of linked stories, poems and paintings that makes this book a finely threaded together collection of geology, history, amusing treks taken, research done as part of the larger project for Chilliwack Search and Rescue-RCMP and a valuable telling of the three fatal airplane crashes in the area.” Ron Dart reviews My Soul Lives in these Mountains: A Collection of Stories, Poems and Paintings of the Chilliwack Cascades —Land of the Ts’elxwéyeqw, by Peter D. Scott (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397881
“Paul Zizka’s compelling and creative images in The Canadian Rockies: Rediscovered are in the highest reach of ‘A’ level evocative photographs. The front cover of the book, ice climber ascending, soft purple northern lights backdrop, focused light on the climber a definite promise and hint of visual beauties to come—such creatively distinct approaches to the Rockies summon forth, for those who have lingered long in such enticing grails of the soul, a longing to return to deeper places.” Ron Dart reviews The Canadian Rockies: Rediscovered, Photographs by Paul Zizka (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2025) $40 / 9781771607391
“…Woodruff is to be commended for eschewing preachiness: she does not pontificate on the ills of drink so much as illustrate the deleterious impact a culture focused on alcohol can have on particular individuals, while drawing on research to reinforce her lived experience.” Ginny Ratsoy reviews Blind Drunk: A Sober Look at our Boozy Culture, by Veronica Woodruff (New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2025) $24.95 / 9781990160462
“Throughout the book, Hafting weaves a powerful thread of connection—not just between birds and humans but between people themselves. ‘Birds connect us and reflect how we are connected to those we love,’ she observes. That sentiment lingered in my mind long after I closed the book.” Amy Tucker reviews Dare to Bird: Exploring the Joy and Healing Power of Birds, by Melissa Hafting (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2024) $45 / 9781771606547
