“Iron Mike provides an insider’s view of the coaching life aimed at vindicating its author’s brutal winning philosophy and intimidating style. Keenan’s out to settle a few scores, but he also wants us to know that, deep down, he’s a much nicer guy than the tyrant who crashed and burned his way through head coaching gigs in eight different cities before wearing out his NHL welcome.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Iron Mike: My Life Behind the Bench, by Mike Keenan, with Scott Morrison (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024) $36.00 / 9780735281851
“We can look back at our lives and say, look what I survived. We can look back with appreciation and say, look what I discovered by remaining curious, look what joy came my way when I didn’t expect it.” Mary Ann Moore reviews The Erotics of Cutting Grass: Reflections on a Well-Loved Life by Kate Braid (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025) $24 / 9781773861623
“Although he isn’t related to George Vancouver’s former botanist and surgeon aboard the HMS Discovery, Archibald Menzies experienced extraordinary times, times that Graeme Menzies felt had to be shared. The result was the book Bones: The Life and Adventures of Doctor Archibald Menzies, in which Graeme Menzies tells of how the doctor used reason and his senses, as well as his familiarity of the Scottish clan system, to understand what he found as the lone scientist on board that British vessel of exploration.” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment featuring Vancouver author and historian Graeme Menzies.
“With the budget and size of the current gallery, it had become difficult to adequately show the collection and avoid being just a storehouse. Hence, the wise decision to have a rotating exhibition for the next five years, so that the public can appreciate the depth and breadth of the collection.” Christina Johnson-Dean reviews the exhibition A View from Here: Re-Imagining the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Collections curated by Steven McNeil and Heng Wu.
This “compelling case study,” charts the city’s historical transformation, as the “grime of Montreal’s ‘moral decay’ was … scrubbed away by new regulations and bylaws that targeted everything from pornography to lewd or countercultural artwork to pinball machines and tarot readers—anything that might be considered offensive to or in poor taste by the international community that [the mayor] was hoping to entice.” —Logan Macnair reviews Montreal After Dark: Nighttime Regulation and the Pursuit of a Global City, by Matthieu Caron (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2025) $34.95 / 9780228024774
“[Leavitt] has created a life-affirming, deeply affectionate, intermittently humorous evocation of grief that reminds us that the ones we love are still with us, if we remember them.” Jessica Poon reviews Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love, by Sarah Leavitt (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024) $27.95 / 9781551529516
“This book is a tool kit, neither poetry, nor the story inversions that alleviate the pain of living in post-colonial society, but a logical overview from a sympathetic perspective.” Linda Rogers reviews Indigenous Rights in One Minute: What You Need to Know to Talk Reconciliation by Bruce McIvor (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, Nightwood Editions, 2025) $22.95 / 9780889714885
“Henry Yu is a history professor at The University of British Columbia. He tells The British Columbia Review about how his path to becoming an historian was shaped by the exclusion and challenges of his Chinese Canadian ancestors in BC.” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with historian and UBC professor Henry Yu
“…Mather devotes the majority of the book to recounting the lives of the inhabitants of the house. This is both haunting and compelling. While all the families had ‘privileged lives’ based on their economic and social standing, they were subject to the joys and sorrows of ordinary living. Adriana A. Davies reviews Coldstream Lake House: A storied landmark of the Okanagan, by Ken Mather (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397690
“Adam Jones’s book can help each of us in reaching a principled position, in articulating it, and in understanding why others might rationally have arrived at and articulated a different view.” Richard Butler reviews Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (4th ed.), by Adam Jones (New York: Routledge, 2024) $61.99 / 9781032028101
“300 Mason Jars: Preserving History is a book to be treasured. Beautifully presented in colour, the delightful poems and contents of the mason jars can be savoured and preserved for years to come.” Valerie Green reviews 300 Mason Jars: Preserving History, by Joanne Thomson (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $34.95 / 9781772935162
“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
