Moon Madness: Dr. Louise Aall, Sixty Years of Healing in Africa by Alan Twigg Vancouver: Ronsdale Books, 2019 $21.95 / 9781553805939 Reviewed by Valerie Green * In writing the true-life story of Dr. Louise Aall (pronounced All), author Alan Twigg has produced a spellbinding biography about an incredible woman. For sixty years, Dr. Aall devoted…
Read more 1007 Love affair with Africa
Tranquility Lost: The Occupation of Tranquille & Battle for Community Care in BC by Gary Steeves Gibsons, Nightwood Editions, 2020 $21.95 / 9780889713864 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Three bad bills revisited: BC’s Operation Solidarity and the attack on public services in the early 1980s. Being on a picket line, protesting in the street, or…
Read more 1006 Three bad bills of 1983
Lure: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the West Coast by Ned Bell with Valerie Howes Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2017 $29.99 / 9781773270876 Reviewed by Gillian Crowther * What is the bait for cooks? Ingredients? Recipes? What makes us cast our eyes over a cookbook? The cover? The title? The author? The search for inspiration? The…
Read more 1005 Ready, steady, halibut
Blood-Brain Barrier by Geoffrey Morrison Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2019 $15.00 / 9781926948904 Reviewed by Matthew Tomkinson * In the interest of full disclosure, Geoffrey Morrison is a frequent writing collaborator of mine, and together we wrote a book of short stories called Archaic Torso of Gumby (Gordon Hill Press, 2020). Therefore I was delighted…
Read more 1004 Startled by a secret talent
Fontainebleau by Madeline Sonik Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2020 $20.00 / 9781772141481 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * University of Victoria professor Madeline Sonik’s second collection of stories springs from the gritty suburban projects and amorphous rural settings in and around Windsor, Ontario in, roughly, the third quarter of the 20th Century. Linked short stories (think James…
Read more 1003 Windsor’s grit and magic
Modern in the Making: Post-War Craft and Design in British Columbia by Daina Augaitis, Allan Collier, & Stephanie Rebick (editors) Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing and Vancouver Art Gallery, 2020 $40.00 / 9781773271224 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This substantial, fact-packed volume doubles as a reference authority and as an exhibition catalogue; the subject enthusiast must…
Read more 1002 Saving west coast Modernism
ESSAY: Letters from the Pandemic 13: A window with a view by Adam Karolewski * Unless your income reaches the top 1 percent per mil, so you can afford a penthouse with a helicopter pad, living in downtown Vancouver doesn’t necessary come with a spectacular view. Often the view is of the side of the…
Read more 1001 Letters from the Pandemic 13: A window with a view
Calling all passengers by Richard Mackie * Passenger warning: ship’s whistle will sound. May I make a special request to readers of The Ormsby Review? To be eligible for the next BC Arts Council grant, which is due Jan 4th, as a digital journal we need at least 300 email subscribers. We are not quite…
Read more Calling all passengers!
Thank you! A successful fundraiser, Nov-Dec 2020 by Richard Mackie Publisher and Editor The Ormsby Review * With this, our 1,000th post of BC books and authors, we wish to acknowledge the support of the many readers who have followed and supported The Ormsby Review since our start in September 2016. It is sheer coincidence…
Read more 1000 A successful 2020 fundraiser
Big Ledge: The Triumphs and Tribulations of Robert E. Sproule by Brian D’Eon Nelson: Home Star Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781775387206 Reviewed by Art (Sean Arthur) Joyce To obtain copies of Big Ledge, contact Brian D’Eon here. * Big Ledge by Brian D’Eon is that rarity in historical fiction — a story that combines historical…
Read more #999 Kootenay hardrock intrigue
LETTER: Ms. Mary Wollstonecraft c/o The Disputatious Hereafter by Reema Faris * My dearest Mary, It’s been over five years since our encounter at Gunnebo House on the outskirts of Göteborg. Pushing the door ajar for me was such a kind gesture on your part. Luc, 14 at the time and with all the certainty…
Read more #998 Letters from the Pandemic 10: My dearest Mary
Render by Sachiko Murakami Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020 $18.95 / 9781551528274 Reviewed by Michael Turner * In his celebrated Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Croom Helm, 1976), Raymond Williams presents a selection of English words used in “general conversation” to demonstrate not their misuse by a general public, but how their…
Read more #997 Word Perfect
You Are Eating An Orange. You Are Naked by Sheung-King (Aaron Tang) Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2020 $20.00 / 9781771666411 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * It’s not everyday that a novel inspires me to drink a certain brand of beer, but I’ve been drinking Tsingtao regularly since I first read this debut novel from Sheung-King. Despite…
Read more #996 Straight white guys and Tsingtao
The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2020 $22.95 / 9781771622608 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Katherine Fawcett’s second collection of stories is a must read for anyone who likes deliriously imaginative, hilarious, and twisted fairy/fantasy stories that skewer contemporary culture. This was a book I often had to put down…
Read more #995 Fairy tales for modern minds
LETTER: Dear Readers of History, and all that Jazz by Mariken van Nimwegen * What does the Oxford historian Peter Frankopan’s hefty 2015 book The Silk Roads have in common with “Vancouver man about town,” Andreas Nothiger’s skinny 1984 synchronoptical World History Chart? I think I have a case, and a story. Frankopan gives us…
Read more #994 Letters from the Pandemic 8: Dear readers of history
Letters from the Pandemic 7: Dear Roger and David by Max Wyman * This letter to his childhood friends in England by Max Wyman is one of a series of Letters from the Pandemic published in the Graduate Liberal Studies Journal, hosted by The Ormsby Review. The entire series of letters can be seen here….
Read more #993 Letters from the Pandemic 7: Dear Roger and David
The End of Me: Stories by John Gould Calgary: Freehand Books, 2020 $22.95 / 9781988298566 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Every once in a while a book comes along that’s so different, it’s hard to find a tack to take in reviewing it. John Gould’s most recent collection of short fictions presents just such a…
Read more #992 Plums, psilocybin, faceplant
Our Trip Around the World by Renate Belczyk Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $22.00 / 9781771603775 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Travel books have been with us for centuries. Homer’s saga of Odysseus’s ten years’ foray around the Aegean amongst monsters and temptresses set a high bar for adventure. It was in the age of…
Read more #991 Balkans, bicycles, baksheesh
Grandfathered: Dispatches from the Trenches of Modern Grandparenthood by Ian Haysom Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2020 $22.95 / 9781772033335 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * All grandfathers are created equal: They all share the pleasure of a tiny hand slipping into their own. I skipped the grandfather stage of life and went straight to great grandfathering,…
Read more #990 All grandfathers are created equal
Great Expectations: Reflections on Museums and Canada by Jack Lohman Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2019 $14.95 / 9780772673039 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “Isn’t it amazing that in 2019, Canadians are so passionate about the past?” In this era seen by some as haunted by a toxic past which must be erased as…
Read more #989 Passionate about the past