Anna Wong: Traveller on Two Roads by Ellen van Eijnsbergen and Jennifer Cane (introduction) and Zoë Chan and Keith Wallace (essays), with a foreword by Maurice Wong Burnaby: Burnaby Art Gallery, 2018 $40.00 / 9781927364314 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * A handsome hardcover book published in 2018, five years after her death, has released printmaker…
Read more #647 Finding Anna Wong
Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man by C.E. Gatchalian Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $18.95 / 9781551527536 Reviewed by Vincent Ternida * “I live for art.” This is how C.E. Gatchalian commences his brief but dense collection of interconnected personal essays in Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making…
Read more #646 An abiding hunger for art
The Return of the Shadow by Kunio Yamagishi London: Austin Macauley, 2018 £6.16 (U.K) $25.95 (Cdn) / 9781786937155 / Please order from your local bookstore or through Book Depository who offer free worldwide shipping. Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy * In July 2019, The Return of the Shadow, by Comox Valley writer Kunio Yamagishi, was shortlisted…
Read more #645 The journeys of Eizo Osada
The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation by David B. MacDonald Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9781487522698 Reviewed by David Milward * When one hears the word “genocide,” it is easy to instantly think of the Holocaust and then not take it any further than that. As…
Read more #644 The Canadian genocide
My Father, Fortune-tellers & Me: A Memoir by Eufemia Fantetti Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2019 $21.95 / 9781896949758 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * “Children are resilient,” they say. “What doesn’t kill them makes them stronger” is another variation. It seems that religion, proverbs, and shibboleths were invented to justify the traumatic malformation of…
Read more #643 Father, daughter, and Tarot
Greenwood by Michael Christie Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2019 $22.00 / 9780771024450 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Michael Christie’s latest novel unfolds over a span of one hundred and thirty years, from 1908 until 2038. The precipitating event for what will follow is a head-on collision between two passenger trains near the…
Read more #642 Tales of timber & heartwood
The Codfish Dream: Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide by David Giblin Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772032420 Reviewed by Kenneth Campbell * In The Codfish Dream: Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide, David Giblin compresses fifteen years of experience as a sports fishing guide into one remarkable summer, resulting in an…
Read more #641 Big Bay fishing stories
11 Weeks: The Real-Time Chronicling of a Breakup. A True Story by Roo Phelps Independently Published (Amazon Digital Services), 2018 $23.15 / 9781791550363 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn with Ginny Ratsoy * A fourth-generation Canadian broadcaster with family roots in Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Courtenay, Roo Phelps has self-published her memoir 11 Weeks: The Real-Time Chronicling of a…
Read more #640 Heartbreak in the Okanagan
I Saw Three Ships: West End Stories by Bill Richardson Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $16.95 / 9781772012330 Reviewed by Harvey De Roo * In his introduction to this delightful book, Bill Richardson assures us in a Wildean mot that “The past is far too precious to waste on something as cheap as nostalgia.” But I Saw…
Read more #639 The characters of English Bay
The Horse of The River: A Camp Canyon Falls Adventure by Sari Cooper Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $12.95 / 9781550178777 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * “Riding is where your heart is. Go. Commune with the horses and live in the woods,” says Gillian’s mother as she encourages her daughter to enjoy a month-long trip…
Read more #638 Adventures at Canyon Camp
In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond: In Search of the Sasquatch by John Zada Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2019 $32.95 / 9781771645188 Reviewed by John Gellard * John Zada’s “Noble Beyond” is the Great Bear Rainforest, “the largest tract of intact coastal temperate rain forest in the world — one so rich and prolific that…
Read more #637 Coastal ranges & riddles
Captain Cook’s Final Voyage: The Untold Story from the Journals of James Burney and Henry Roberts by James K. Barnett (editor), with a foreword by Richard Neville and an introduction by Glyn Williams Pullman, WA: Washington University Press, 2017 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9780874223576 Reviewed by Robin Inglis * This handsome volume is a welcome addition…
Read more #636 Stopover at Nootka Sound
A Voluntary Crucifixion by David J. MacKinnon Montréal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $25.00 / 9781771832724 Reviewed by Jim Christy * If you’ve ever heard of David MacKinnon, where have you been? Certainly not around the literary scene anywhere in Canada, including his native British Columbia, even though he is arguably one of the best writers in the…
Read more #635 Go east, young man
Picking up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket by Carey Newman and Kirstie Hudson Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2019 $39.95 / 9781459819955 Reviewed by Sharon Fortney * Picking up the Pieces is a beautiful catalogue documenting the process behind the making of the Witness Blanket, an art installation created…
Read more #634 Fragments of sorrow
Meteorites: Stories by Julie Paul Victoria: Brindle & Glass, an imprint of TouchWood Editions, 2019 $22.00 / 9781927366820 Reviewed by William New * In a much quoted phrase, the Nigerian writer Ben Okri observes that the “fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection, there is…
Read more #633 Uneasy stories, imperfect lives
Tiny House, Big Fix Victoria: Orca Books, 2019 $9.95 / 9781459821200 by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Reviewed by Valerie Green * This small book by novelist Gail Anderson-Dargatz is a delightfully quick read for young adults. The story is told in just 136 pages. In the book, the author describes many aspects of rural life while at…
Read more #632 Living small on a tired planet
Adventures on the West Coast of Vancouver Island by Peter Vassilopoulos Delta: Pacific Marine Publishing, 2018 $39.95 / 9780919317512 Reviewed by John Hutchings * In this new book by Peter Vassilopoulos — the well-known, prolific, South African-born author of numerous books on boating in the coastal waters of British Columbia – we are taken to…
Read more #631 Vassilopoulos goes west
Mad Hatter by Amanda Hale Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $29.95 / 9781771833905 See here for the audiobook Reviewed by Sally Campbell * Some books are simply better than others. This fictionalized memoir, set in Britain during the Second World War, takes on big questions — mental fragility, emotional resilience, demonization of dissenters, tribalism, family secrets…
Read more #630 Breaking with the Tribe
Song of the Earth: The Life of Alfred Joseph by Ross Hoffman with Alfred Joseph Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2019 $21.95 / 9781928195054 Reviewed by Diana French * Song of the Earth is the story of Alfred Joseph, a long time Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief, a respected “knowledge holder” of the Nation’s history, an artist, teacher, and…
Read more #629 Wet’suwet’en land & revival
Sam Steele: A Biography by Rod Macleod Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2018 $35.99 / 9781772123791 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * There’s a CBC Heritage Minute about Sam Steele. You may have seen it. A stern, moustachioed Mountie sits at his rough wooden desk, staring down an excitable American prospector who wants to wear pistols…
Read more #628 Myths, Mounties, and Métis