“The Stories That Shape Us is a gift for readers at any stage of historical or personal exploration. It speaks to the quiet strength of every family story and the importance of listening before it’s too late. It urges us to view immigration as a policy and a lived reality. Moreover, it reminds us that history is not just something that happens—it is something we carry.” Amy Tucker reviews Lost Legacies: Learning from Ancestral Stories for Inspiration and Policy-Making Today, by Margaret V. Ostrowski (Montreal West: DC Books, 2024) $21.95 / 9781927599624
“The newspapers of our day seem to be in disarray, crumbling from lack of readers and funding. Struggling to continue while the government attempts to step in and help. There is always apprehension when a powerful organization steps in offering financial assistance since news organizations know there is usually a caveat.” Jeffrey Stychin reviews Tomorrow’s News: How to Fix Canada’s Media, by Marc Edge (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2024) $21 / 9781554202140
“This book offers a whole new adventure for naturalists, botanists and all those who love the natural world, luring all of us into the outdoors, to check out the plant relationships reflected in the different sections, to see those plants we are familiar with as parts of a larger complex, and to get to know the smaller, perhaps previously overlooked species that have now been introduced to us in such intriguing ways.” Nancy J. Turner reviews Native Plants of British Columbia’s Coastal Dry Belt: A Photographic Guide by Hans Roemer and Mary Sanseverino (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025)
$29.95 / 9781998526000
“The more we are immersed in the life, activism, and writings of Tommy Douglas and Milton Acorn, the more we will be walked into a unique Canadian synthesis of faith, literature, and politics that has still much to commend it.” Ron Dart contributes an essay on the work of the late poet and storyteller, Milton Acorn.
“As a child of immigrants, novelist and memoirist Yasuko Thanh asks the question: What is home?” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with Yasuko Thanh.
“Many might think of Rodger Touchie as the publisher at Heritage House based in Victoria, but he is also a published history writer. Some of his titles include Bear Child: The Life and Times of Jerry Potts, Edward S. Curtis: Above the Medicine Line, and Vancouver Island: Portrait of a Past…” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with publisher, and writer of BC history titles, Rodger Touchie.
“Messamore doesn’t predict such potential outcomes. Her job, and she does it well, is to reveal the historical facts about early 20th-century elections. But we may be seeing parallels to our political past in the run-up to our April 28 federal election. Will Mark Carney be Mackenzie King and Pierre Poilievre Arthur Meighan?” Ron Verzuh reviews Times of Transformation: The 1921 Canadian General Election, by Barbara J. Messamore (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2025) $19.56 / 9780774870597
“Blanchet’s writing epitomises the provincial stereotype as the home of aspirant eccentrics, philosophically ponderous lumberjacks, and hopeless romantics seeking to carve out a small, domesticated presence in the dense rainforest. Blanchet’s representation of British Columbia, in which urban settlement is an exception to the cultural status quo, still resonates today…” Matthew Downey reviews The Curve of Time: New, Expanded Edition, by M. Wylie Blanchet (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $19.95 / 9781990776786
“Joseph’s book is more than a field guide to plants. It reflects her philosophy and love of nature.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Held By The Land: A Guide to Indigenous Plants for Wellness, by Leigh Joseph (New York: Wellfleet Press, 2023) $24.99 / 9781577152941 & Held by the Land Deck: 45 Ways to Use Indigenous Plants for Healing and Nourishment, by Leigh Joseph (New York: Wellfleet Press, 2024) $19.99 / 9781577154440
“More than just a travel guide, Ellison’s book is an invitation to embrace an underrated adventure that reveals a world teeming with vibrant marine life, from giant Pacific octopuses to fields of colorful anemones and elusive nudibranchs.” Amy Tucker reviews Snorkelling Adventures Around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands: The Ultimate Guide, by Sara Ellison (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2023) $26.95 / 9781990776151
“This is Taylor’s third architectural biography. His previous two were The Spencer Mansion: A House, A Home and an Art Gallery and The Birdcages: British Columbia First Legislative Buildings 1859-1857. In terms of its topic, the book nestles between two previous volumes, Peter Cotton’s architectural exploration of the two Cary Castles that preceded the present 1958 Government House, Vice Regal Mansions of British Columbia, and Government House: The Ceremonial Home of All British Columbians by Rosemary Neering and Tony Owen which primarily focuses on the current house. Martin Segger reviews Between Heaven and Balmoral: A History of Cary Castle, British Columbia’s First Government House 1860-1899, by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor (Victoria: Friesen Press, 2024) $17.49 / 9781039184534
“From the sexual imagery of butterflies, to the confused and chaotic state of mind brought on by natural landscape and creatures found in them, to the exploration of potential structure shown in consequential panels, Shadbolt appears to have been an artist who not only absorbed the natural world in the place called British Columbia but also attempted to describe the state of mind it created within him.” Trevor Marc Hughes reviews Jack Shadbolt: In His Words by Susan M. Mertens (ed.) (Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2024) $40 / 9781773272559
“He lived to the ripe old age of 100 and his years of ‘hardship, laughter, and recycling’ have been delightfully told by his daughter in this little book about a man simply known as Scrappy Jack.” Valerie Green reviews Scrappy Jack: 100 Years of Hardship, Laughter, and Recycling by Joan Steacy (Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2023) $24.95 / 9781988242521
“Books are involved, of course; but there’s a lot about compassion, charity, about how one becomes beloved. Wosk is an ordained rabbi: you don’t share these stories without knowing how they are practiced.” Trevor Carolan reviews New Life Joke Shop: Travels and Observations by Yosef Wosk (Victoria, Ekstasis Editions, 2025) $ TBA / 9781771715805
“Díaz literally projects herself into the biography, frequently adding her own experiences to information about Fortes she presents. If the reader is aware of the facts known about Fortes, they do not come to know him any better or more than before she produced this biography. It is a memoir of her search, her overlay of her daily lived experiences onto the life of a man dead now more than one hundred years.” Searching for Serafim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim “Joe” Fortes, by Ruby Smith Díaz (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025) $21.95 / 9781551529752
“Along Came a Gardener serves as a reminder that personal growth is not linear. Like nature itself, there are seasons of progress and setbacks, of flourishing and dormancy. Stevan reassures readers that moments of stagnation are not failures but necessary pauses in the journey of self-improvement.” Selena Mercuri reviews Along Came a Gardener, by Diana Stevan (Campbell River: Island House Publishing, 2025) $21.95 / 9781988180229
“Transforming Trauma through Social Change is a nutrient-dense book of 330 pages. It deserves slow careful reading if you wish to secure a very rich education in becoming trauma-informed, through the cultural medium of storytelling. The book’s literary scaffolding is academic and therapeutic, inviting a growth mindset that encourages social and personal change in readers.” Lee Reid reviews Transforming Trauma Through Social Change: A Guide for Educators, by Theresa Southam, PhD (Santa Barbara, CA: Fielding University Press, 2024) $36.24 / 9798991258012
As the narrator faces a parent’s progressive illness, she’s beset by memories of a childhood “at the bottom tip of Africa” and adult knowledge about the legacies of Apartheid. —“Here With Us In This Home,” an essay by Deborah Vieyra
“Is Amor de Cosmos deserving of eroding public awareness? Just how significant was he in the grand story of our province?” Matthew Downey writes the essay The hidden eccentric: fading memories of Amor de Cosmos, B.C’s father of confederation.
“Todd discusses the most common dog fears: other people, other dogs, loud noises, vet visits, being left alone, their things being taken away (resource guarding), and dysfunctional repetitive behaviours. She goes over mistakes that are easily made in training…” Jessica Todd reviews Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog by Zazie Todd (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $36.95 / 9781778401367
