Runecaster Book 1: The Stone of Sorrow by Brooke Carter Victoria: Orca Book Publishers $14.95 / 9781459824393 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * The Stone of Sorrow concerns magic, myth, and adventure. Each page I turned of this YA (young adult) novel meant more mystery and surprise. I wasn’t sure how much Icelandic and Norse mythology…
Read more #927 A runecaster’s apprenticeship
The Last High by Daniel Kalla Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2020 $22.00 / 9781501196980 Reviewed by Benjamin Matthews * Daniel Kalla’s The Last High begins with a murder, or rather a bunch of murders. We get a firsthand view of the murders through the eyes of Alexa, a 16-year-old girl who watches in bliss…
Read more #926 Crisis on the front line
On Forgetting a Language by Isabella Wang London, ON: Baseline Press, 2019 [out of print] / 9781928066477 Reviewed by Michael Turner * This ten-poem unpaginated chapbook arrived in my mailbox last week, an hors de commerce copy because its numbered run of 80 is now in the hands of its readers. I chose the book…
Read more #925 The process of forgetting
A Song from Faraway by Deni Ellis Béchard Fredericton: Goose Lane, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773101545 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Novel? Collection of short stories? A Song from Faraway is, in a conventional sense, neither of these. Or both. And this isn’t the only lack of convention in Deni Ellis Béchard’s new book. Pieced together…
Read more #924 Fractured angles & pools of time
When Emily was Small by Lauren Soloy Toronto: Penguin Random House, 2020 (Tundra Books) $21.99 / 9780735266063 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Lauren Soloy is both author and illustrator of this lovely adaptation of Emily Carr’s “White Currants” from The Book of Small (1942), which Doris Shadbolt, in the introduction to The Emily Carr Omnibus,…
Read more #923 Return to the Book of Small
View from the Tower, Tin Pushers and Pilots on the BC Coast by Grant B. Evans Crofton: Osborne Bay Books, 2019; first published 2016 $19.95 / 9780994906571 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * View from the Tower is about as rich and dramatic a memoir as one could reasonably expect to come from a former air…
Read more #922 In the hot seat at Port Hardy
Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley by Sherrill Grace Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020 $39.99 / 9781771124539 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * In 1993, towards the end of his life, the noted author Timothy Findley gave a talk at Duthie’s bookstore in Vancouver on one of his favourite topics: censorship. Only this time…
Read more #921 The death and life of Tiff Findley
We Two Alone by Jack Wang Toronto: Anansi, 2020 $19.95 / 9781487007461 Reviewed by William New * Jack Wang is a welcome new voice in Canadian letters. I say ‘new,’ because We Two Alone is his first book of stories; but in fact he has been an active writer for several years. Since 2015 he…
Read more #920 Rogue reverberating
Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity by Darryl Leroux Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2019 $27.95 / 9780887558467 Reviewed by David Milward * The arrival of Europeans on the shores of the Americas centuries ago made certain results inevitable. The colonization of Indigenous peoples, with its attendant atrocities and exploitation, certainly constitute a great many…
Read more #919 The Métis & the race-shifters
Congratulations to the winners of the 2020 BC and Yukon Book Prizes, for books published in 2019, announced at an online event on September 19th. And especially to the reviewers at The Ormsby Review who so willingly assessed the winners and shortlisted books, all of them published in 2019. Congratulations, as well, to the authors…
Read more #918 Congratulations BC Book Prizes winners, 2020!
McIntyre House by Sherry McKay, with a preface by Douglas Coupland and photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2020, and Vancouver: UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture [SALA] / West Coast Modern House Series $24.95 (US) / 9781943532940 Reviewed by Martin Segger * As Leslie Van Duzer — series editor of UBC…
Read more #917 McIntyre’s West Coast Modern
What Hurts Going Down by Nancy Lee Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2020 $19.95 / 9780771049033 Reviewed by Grace Lau * Nancy Lee’s collection of poetry, What Hurts Going Down, unabashedly examines pain and power. Often, it is through the lens of images we’re familiar with, thanks to Hollywood. You’ve seen it on…
Read more #916 An elixir of deceptive levity
The Abortion Caravan by Karin Wells Toronto: Second Story Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781772601251 Reviewed by Donalda Reid * Karin Wells has written an engaging book, The Abortion Caravan, about the 1970 national women’s march on Parliament aimed at forcing changes to Canada’s abortion laws. Her book takes us back fifty years into a period…
Read more #915 Shutting down parliament, 1970
Arrivals and Departures by Christine Hayvice Toronto: Unifor Local 2002, 2020 $35.00 / 9780968150511. Contact address: airlineworker1990@gmail.com Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Flying Union High: An insider’s look at the history of union bargaining at Canada’s airlines I love flying and I’ve done my share of it. Now I’m grounded like most of the world, thanks…
Read more #914 Flying union high
Crossing the Divide: Discovering a Wilderness Ethic in Canada’s Northern Rockies by Wayne Sawchuk Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781928195061 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * Who wouldn’t want a chance to sit around a campfire with Wayne Sawchuk, and listen to him tell stories? Horses munch grass in the background, his faithful dog, Chancey,…
Read more #913 Northern wilderness advocate
Sailing with Vancouver: A Modern Sea Dog, Antique Charts and a Voyage Through Time by Sam McKinney Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 (first published 2010) $20.00 / 9781771512640 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * I once got the urge to see all the apartments and houses where the British writer Malcolm Lowry had lived during his years…
Read more #912 Now that the coast is clear
Radiant Voices: 21 Feminist Essays for Rising Up Inspired by EMMA Talks by carla bergman (compiler and editor) Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2019 $22.00 / 9781927366844 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * If you’ve ever taken the time to observe birds, you might notice them flying up into the sky and then swooping down in magnificent arcs….
Read more #911 A space for feminine voices
Campfire Stories from Coast to Coast by Barbara Smith Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $19.95 / 9781772033113 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * Barbara Smith has been telling ghost stories since 1993, since her first book, Ghost Stories of Alberta. With nearly forty books now under her belt, Campfire Stories from Coast to Coast is a natural…
Read more #910 Handbook of fear & phantoms
Vancouver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Nightlife by Aaron Chapman Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $32.95 / 9781551527833 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * On March 12, 2020, Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark was one of five books shortlisted for the 2020 Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award of the BC and Yukon Book…
Read more #909 Twilight of the club scene
Disappearing Minglewood Blues by M.C. Warrior Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2020 $19.95 / 9781896949796 Reviewed by Colin Sanders * In Disappearing Minglewood Blues, a collection of poems written over several decades, M.C. Warrior gives voice to the mostly voiceless, often nameless, persons who toiled and laboured, navigating and negotiating, or falling victim to,…
Read more #908 Hooktenders & wildcat strikes