ESSAY: Letter from Victoria by Larry Hannant * If I were a baseball player, I’d be rated as a respectable batter if I had an average equal to the percentage of my letters to the Times Colonist in Victoria that get printed. About one in three bypasses the editor’s bullshit filter and appears in the…
Read more 1419 Letter from Victoria
Smelter Wars: A Rebellious Trade Union Fights for Its Life in Wartime Western Canada by Ron Verzuh Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022 $34.95 / 9781487541125 Reviewed by Bryan D. Palmer * Old Time Labour History; or About Underwear as the Subject of Working-Class Politics Labour history was once all the rage. Less so now….
Read more 1418 Old time labour history
Cambium Blue by Maureen Brownlee Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $22.95 / 9781550179309 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * It is 1995, and Beauty Creek is celebrating its 60th year amidst climate change and hydra-headed Neo-liberalism. Like most BC Interior towns, the hamlet (somewhere north of Clearwater and resembling Valemount) is in transition, its defining pillars…
Read more 1417 Small town transition
Spectres of Fascism: Historical, Theoretical, and International Perspectives by Samir Gandesha (editor) Toronto: Between the Lines Books, 2020 $34.95 / 9781771135016 Reviewed by Stan Markotich * Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini … and Steve Bannon? When I was starting my undergraduate career at Simon Fraser University some 40 years ago, I often heard a joke that…
Read more 1416 Fascism now and then
Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing by Andrew Chesham and Laura Farina (editors) Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781772141849 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * I love reading the interviews with writers in the Paris Review, the ones where the writers let you into their workshop and talk about the surprises that…
Read more 1415 Boot camp or religious retreat?
Saving Seeds: A Home Gardener’s Guide to Preserving Plant Biodiversity by Dan Jason Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $14.95 / 9781550179002 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * This small book packs a lot of punch, much like a seed itself. I am a life long gardener, but, for various reasons, I have never been a seed…
Read more 1414 A seed saver’s companion
Upstream, Downstream: Exploring Watershed Connections by Rowena Rae Victoria: Orca Books, 2021 $19.95 / 9781459823921 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * A children’s book that is also a call to arms? Without so much as a single sabre rattle, a new book by biologist and writer Rowena Rae, titled, disarmingly, Upstream, Downstream, and subtitled Exploring Watershed…
Read more 1413 Teaching watershed warriors
PHOTO ESSAY: Trevor Martin: Vancouver photographer by Bill Paul * Originally from Cornwall, England, Trevor Martin started taking photographs there in 1960 before coming to Canada in 1969. He is known for his images of Vancouver, the Canadian Prairies, the American Southwest, England, Paris, Rome, and Sicily. Here, Bill Paul shares a small sample of…
Read more 1412 Trevor Martin’s Vancouver
Vancouver’s Women in Blue: Trailblazers of the Vancouver Police Department, 1904-1975 by Carolyn J. Daley, with a foreword by Bev Busson Maple Bay: Ruddy Duck Press, 2020 $49.95 / 9781999279202 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “I don’t remember the first time I drew my gun.” That’s one way to grab the reader’s attention. It’s the…
Read more 1411 A constabulary of women
All the Broken Things by Geoff Inverarity Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2021 $18.00 / 9781772141757 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * A sense of playfulness is immediately established in Geoff Inverarity’s debut poetry collection with an Author’s Preface in the form of a letter to his publisher in which he includes diary entries. The time is June…
Read more 1410 Breaking, haunting, mending
Tales of B.C.: 50 Years of Wacky, Wild, & Thought-provoking Adventures by Daniel Wood Vancouver: OP Media Group, 2021 $24.95 / 9781777876401 Reviewed by Bill Engleson * I was delighted when Richard Mackie offered me the opportunity to write a review of the late Daniel Wood’s last book, an anthology of essays that captures several…
Read more 1409 Fifty years of Daniel Wood
My Long List of Impossible Things by Michelle Barker Toronto: Annick Press, 2020 $12.95 / 9781773213644 Reviewed by Valerie Green * This book is possibly one of the best Second World War books out there right now for Young Adults and is especially pertinent in view of current world events. My Long List of Impossible…
Read more 1408 Under Russian occupation
blue gait by Shauna Paull Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781896949888 Reviewed by Yvonne Blomer * Another word for gait is stride or way of walking, and Shauna Paull’s new poetry collection blue gait parallels the ways of walking through and on the land, with the natural world, beauty, women, and…
Read more 1407 Soft bells of beauty and blue
Antonyms for Daughter by Jenny Boychuk Montréal: Véhicule Press, 2021 $17.95 / 9781550655810 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * This collection of poetry from Jenny Boychuk presents the familiar sentiments of mother and daughter bonding but it also bears traumatic talons which seem to reach in and pierce that bond. I was particularly struck by the…
Read more 1406 Trauma, detox, paradox
TELEVISION DOCUSERIES REVIEW: British Columbia: An Untold History by Kevin Eastwood, Writer and Director Burnaby: British Columbia’s Knowledge Network, 2022 Reviewed by Patrick A. Dunae * Knowledge Network, ‘British Columbia’s public educational broadcaster,’ has produced a compelling documentary series entitled British Columbia: An Untold History. The production qualities are superb. Each episode of the four-part…
Read more 1405 Colonialism corrective
Glorious Frazzled Beings by Angélique Lalonde Toronto: House of Anansi, 2021 $22.99 / 9781487009571 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Although a debut collection of short stories, Angélique Lalonde’s Glorious Frazzled Beings could easily be used in a master class. These are glorious unfrazzled stories, quirky, snappy, and wacky in a most beguiling way. Divided into…
Read more 1404 Lalonde’s fictional magic
The Almost Wife by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $24.99 / 9781443458429 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * A person’s entire life can change in a day. But how it changes? Who it changes? Accepting that change? No one will see it coming. The Almost Wife is a masterpiece of suspense, written through the themes…
Read more 1403 A perilous island sanctuary
Duct-taped Roses by Billeh Nickerson Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9781771666909 Reviewed by Grace Lau * Lovers, friends, family: We are all we have Duct-taped Roses, Billeh Nickerson’s sixth book (note to self: must read the other five) is divided into five parts, each one a vivid meditation on a theme in his life….
Read more 1402 Lovers, friends, family
Pizza Punks Collection by Cole Pauls Wolfville, NS: Conundrum Press, 2021 $15.00 / 9781772620535 Reviewed by Jeff Stychin * I’m sure most reading this can remember a time when skateboarding and the punk rock attitude went together like ham on rye. Cole Pauls’ Pizza Punks Collection grabs at your desire for excitement and fun while…
Read more 1401 Vancouver’s pizza punks
I Will Be Corrupted by Joseph A. Dandurand Montréal: Guernica Editions, 2020 $20.00 / 9781771835060 * The East Side of It All by Joseph Dandurand Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2020 $18.95 / 9780889713802 Both books reviewed by Paul Falardeau * Joseph Dandurand has been busy lately. Since the Covid pandemic began, he has written three books…
Read more 1400 There is always laughter