Stillwater by Darcy Friesen Hossack New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2023 $22.95 / 9781990160202 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Darcy Friesen Hossack’s debut novel, Stillwater, plays on her own Mennonite and Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) background. The main character, Lizzy, a teenage girl with aspirations of a medical career, is forced to move with her family to…
Read more 1929 Perseverance in a closed community
The Five-Bottle Bar: A Simple Guide to Stylish Cocktails by Jessica Schacht Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2022 $28.00 / 9781771513760 Reviewed by Rebecca Coleman * Have you been out for drinks lately? At some of my favorite cocktail bars, drinks are now in the $20 to $25 range, and even at chains, you’re looking at between…
Read more 1928 DIY cocktails
Class Warrior: The Selected Works of E.T. Kingsley by Benjamin Isitt and Ravi Malhotra (eds.) Athabasca: Athabasca University Press, 2022 $34.95 / 9781778290046 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Chances are you’ve never heard of Eugene Thornton (E.T.) Kingsley. Chances are also good that if you had heard of him you might not like him or…
Read more 1927 Impossiblist Maverick
After That by Lorna Crozier Toronto, Ontario: McClelland & Stewart, 2023 $22.95 / 9780771004285 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * Language was Lorna Crozier’s consolation when her partner of forty years, Patrick Lane, was ill with “strange symptoms, which side-stepped any diagnosis.” The result was Through the Garden: A Memoir (with Cats). After Lane died…
Read more 1926 Bereavement, ‘impeccably expressed’
I Only Read Murder by Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2023 $24.99 / 9781443470766 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * I Only Read Murder is a zippy whodunit by Victoria’s Ian Ferguson and Calgary’s Will Ferguson with plentiful red herrings, comedic zingers, and miscommunication. If you’re looking for fun escapism with a satirical…
Read more 1925 Murder-mystery, where comedy prevails
Stedfast by Ali Blythe Fredricton, NB: Goose Lane/ Icehouse Poetry, 2023 $19.95 / 9781773103051 Safety Razor by Emily Osborne Guelph, ON: Gordon Hill Press, 2023 $20.00 / 9781774220856 Reviewed by Joe Enns * Two BC poets use different poetic techniques to connect their lived experience to the ancient and eternal. Stedfast, Ali Blythe’s third poetry…
Read more 1924 The lived, the eternal, the ancient
The Fierce: The Untold Story of the Teenager Who Took on the Worst War Criminal Living in America by Judy Piercey Cheltenham, UK: The History Press, 2023 £20.05 / 9781803991153 Reviewed by Peter Hay * The Holocaust was not a single event, confined to a singular city or country, nor was it caused by one…
Read more 1923 A complex path to justice
Stikine Odyssey: From Adventure to Activism with The Great River by Peter Rowlands Victoria: FriesenPress, 2023 $24.49 / 9781775238348 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes * What is it that draws adventurers to the Stikine River? For me, in 2012, it was a desire to see this beautiful, and integral, landscape in northern British Columbia before…
Read more 1922 Irresistible Stikine
Time to Wonder – Volume 2. A Kid’s Guide to BC’s Regional Museums: Vancouver Island, Salt Spring, Alert Bay, and Haida Gwaii by S. Lesley Buxton and Sue Harper Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $22.00 / 9781771605069 Reviewed by Valerie Green * In view of the recent closure of Point Ellice House and Gardens in…
Read more 1921 Treasures from the past
Story Lines: How Words Shape Our World by J. Edward Chamberlin Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $26.95 / 9781771623513 Reviewed by Gary Geddes * Stories not only keep us alive, but also help us make sense of the world and our place in it. From creation stories and cave drawings to the epic poems…
Read more 1920 A word for the wise
Girlfriend on Mars By Deborah Willis Toronto: Hamish Hamilton, 2023 $34.00 / 9780670069583 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * With a nod and wink, Vancouver’s Deborah Willis titles her story about a preposterously engineered mission to terraform Mars Girlfriend on Mars. The wonderfully lightweight word “Girlfriend” plays with the discrepancy between the gravity of a real…
Read more 1919 Mars, mirth, metadata
Artists and Their Autobiographies from Today to the Renaissance and Back: Symptoms of Sincerity by Charles Reeve New York: Routledge, 2023 $128.00 (USD) / 9780367221324 Reviewed by John O’Brian * In 1968, Andy Warhol was shot in his New York studio. Valerie Solanas fired twice from close range at his chest with a handgun, and…
Read more 1918 Seeing lives behind the art
New Millennium Boyz By Alex Kazemi New York: Permuted Press, 2023 $37 / 9781637583913 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * In some ways, Brad Seela is a typical seventeen-year-old white boy coasting through an apathetic life in the suburban North America of 1999: bored with school, indifferent about the future, disillusioned with his yuppie parents, susceptible…
Read more 1917 Teenage wasteland, Y2K bromance
Reuniting with Strangers By Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2023 $22.95 / 9781771623582 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio has written an engaging novel that tells the stories of the reunification of Filipino caregiver families over one Canadian winter. She has done this in an engaging and most unique way; not simply…
Read more 1916 Migratory Filipinos scraping by in Osoyoos, Sarnia, and Iqaluit
Laundering the Dragon–Black Renminbi By John D’Eathe Vancouver: Adagio Media, 2021 $17.99 / 9781999433918 Reviewed by Valerie Green * John D’Eathe has written what is described as “a contemporary melodramatic novel” set in recent times about a current day problem in the powerful, international financial business world. D’Eathe begins his book with an…
Read more 1915 Money laundering and melodrama
The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette F.C. Steeves Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021 $30 (USD) / 9781496234704 Reviewed by Robert (Bob) Muckle * One of the most popular topics in archaeology of the americas is that often phrased as “the peopling of the americas,” which includes interest in the timing and…
Read more 1914 Indigenous archaeological perspective
TL;DR: A Very Brief Guide to Reading and Writing in University by Joel Heng Hartse Vancouver: UBC Press, 2023 $24.95 / 9780774839143 (paperback) Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * There’s been a revolution in the teaching of composition. In my day (but this was back in another century) the focus was on The Essay, or what…
Read more 1913 Back to school
Before Combustion By Nicholas Bradley Kentville: Gaspereau Press, 2023 $23.95 / 9871554472543 Reviewed by Marguerite Pigeon * The title of Nicholas Bradley’s new book, Before Combustion, is drawn from a line in his poem, “Self-portrait in Lycra Skinsuit,” where the poet considers a schism in his cyclist persona. There’s the familiar self who, enveloped in…
Read more 1912 Fire, ash, and regrowth
The Animal in the Room By Meghan Kemp-Gee Toronto: Coach House Press, 2023 $23.95 / 9781552454602 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * In The Animal in the Room, Meghan Kemp-Gee develops a poetics of the Anthropocene. In fact, this collection of poetry can be seen as a compendium of reflections on the age of human impact. …
Read more 1911 A ‘strange convergence of animal and human personas’
Canada’s Place Names & How to Change Them by Lauren Beck Montreal: Concordia University Press, 2022 $34.95 / 9781988111391 Reviewed by Jeff Oliver * Is it possible to read a nation’s history through its place names? Lauren Beck’s new book Canada’s Place Names & How to Change Them makes a compelling case for it. This…
Read more 1910 What’s in a name?