Once Upon an Island: Hope and Hardship, Building a Log House and a Life on the North Coast of British Columbia by Suellen Guenther Victoria: Vargas Publishing, 2020 $29.95 / 9781771368421 Reviewed by Kate Braid * Once Upon An Island is the story of a young woman, Suellen Guenther, who in 1970 after a stint…
Read more #988 Making lives at Oona River
The Pocket Guide to The Unheralded Artists of BC Series; the Life and Art of Jack Akroyd, George Fertig, Mary Filer, Jack Hardman, Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher, LeRoy Jenson, David Marshall, Frank Molnar, Arthur Pitts, Mildred Valley Thornton, Ina D.D. Uhthoff, Harry Webb, Jessie Webb by Mona Fertig (editor), with an introduction by Marsha Lederman Salt Spring…
Read more #986 Unsung artists find their voice
Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History by Eve Lazarus Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9781551528298 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * As a lifelong Vancouverite, arguably the Canadian equivalent of a native New Yorker, I’m habituated to the abundant charms of Vancouver, which doubtless prevents me from noticing a veritable panoply of…
Read more #985 Open scenery, hidden history
How a Woman Becomes a Lake by Marjorie Celona Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada, 2020 (Hamish Hamilton) $19.95 / 9780735235847 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Marjorie Celona’s second novel, How a Woman Becomes a Lake, is similar in style to her first, Y, and that alone makes it worth reading. Celona is skilled at psychological…
Read more #984 Paper boats and rising secrets
One Madder Woman by Dede Crane Calgary: Freehand Books, 2020 $23.95 / 9781988298689 Reviewed by Carole Gerson * France’s Impressionist artists are now so canonical that we often forget that their first exhibition of 1874, organized in protest against the conservatism of the Académie de Beaux Arts that vetted the annual displays of the Paris…
Read more #983 A studio of one’s own
Gone Viking: A Travel Saga by Bill Arnott Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771604475 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Most of the stories in Bill Arnott’s Gone Viking describe travel around Britain and the North Atlantic world. A unifying theme is the imprint left on many of these places by those Scandinavian…
Read more #982 Notable Viking networks
The Brideship Wife by Leslie Howard Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 2020 $24.99 / 9781508259350 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Leslie Howard’s fictional interpretation of an 1860s journey to the new world on board of one of the famous bride ships is one of the best of many I have read on this subject. The Brideship…
Read more #981 Voyage to Vancouver Island
Christmas in Mariposa: Sketches of Canada’s Legendary Little Town by Jamie Lamb Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $19.95 / 9781772032871 Reviewed by Peter Babiak * It wasn’t until I was in grad school that I realised that fiction and myth, far from being cultural fripperies divorced from the practical matters of life, can be just as…
Read more #980 Ode to small town Ontario
Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) by Lorna Crozier Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland and Stewart), 2020 $29.95 / 9780771021183 Reviewed by Kathy Mezei * We know of famous, sometimes notorious, writing couples — Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, Simone Beauvoir and Jean-Paul…
Read more #979 A fiery & persevering love affair
Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860336 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Kate Braid’s new memoir, Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman, provides glimpses of her life as a carpenter, primarily in the Lower Mainland, during the 1970s and 1980s. Through a series…
Read more #978 Crazy about lumber
A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene by Heesoon Bai, David Chang, and Charles Scott (editors) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $39.95 / 9780889777569 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Seldom has this reviewer encountered an essay collection that is so topical and as important as A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living…
Read more #977 Tips for the Anthropocene
The Bomb in the Wilderness: Photography and the Nuclear Era in Canada by John O’Brian Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9780774863889 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Seeing past the mushroom cloud: A deeply passionate study of how photography has shaped our view of the Bomb. * Years ago on a visit to China, an…
Read more #976 Seeing past the mushroom cloud
Consent by Annabel Lyon Toronto: Penguin Random House, 2020 $29.95 / 9780345811455 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that Consent, by Annabel Lyon, has been shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Winners will be announced…
Read more #975 Stable women and good wine
A Great Revolutionary Wave: Women and the Vote in British Columbia by Lara Campbell Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $27.95 / 9780774863223 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Lara Campbell’s A Great Revolutionary Wave is Volume 4 in the UBC Press series Women’s Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy. Other volumes, by various authors, cover the suffrage…
Read more #974 Maternalists, suffragists, elitists
On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia by Jean Barman, edited by Margery Fee Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $34.95 / 9781550178968 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space,…
Read more #973 Barman’s BC fundamentals
Takaya: Lone Wolf by Cheryl Alexander, with a foreword by Carl Safina Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $30.00 / 9781771603737 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * When I was a child, I lived far more intensely with animals than I did with people. As the somewhat feral daughter of homesteading farmers, I found animals were far…
Read more #972 Sea wolf of Discovery Island
Show Me the Honey: Adventures of an Accidental Apiarist by Dave Doroghy, foreword by Rick Hansen Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771513227 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * Bees. Those black and yellow winged creatures buzzing about and smelling the roses; perhaps there is more to them than meets the eye. Do they hold the…
Read more #971 Aphorisms from an apiarist
The Weight of Blood by D.B. Carew Edmonton: New West Press, 2020 $18.95 / 9781988732923 Reviewed by Valerie Green * D.B. Carew’s The Weight of Blood, his second Chris Ryder mystery thriller, is a mixture of intriguing thrills and deep psychological insight. The main character, Chris Ryder, is a psychiatric social worker who is once…
Read more #970 Death on Highway 7
An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century by Nicholas Bradley (editor) Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $34.95 / 9780228003373 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * “Purdy,” I say. “Al Purdy. Have you heard of him?” “You mean like the chocolates?” She is probably joking. I am asking people I know outside…
Read more #969 Piquing interest in Purdy
Will you help The Ormsby Review? by Richard Mackie * A message from publisher Richard Mackie and the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society. Advisory Board: Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Cole Harris, Hugh Johnston, Patricia Roy, David Stouck, Graeme Wynn. Board of Directors: Ron Hatch, Eldon Yellowhorn, Imogene Lim, Byron Sheardown, LiLynn Wan, Trevor…
Read more #968 Ormsby Review fundraiser, 2020