“Trained in visual art … FitzGerald arrived in Victoria in March 2020 having made her decision to sketch and write about the city before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada and beyond. The focus of the book is ‘on the life pulse of the city of Victoria that kept on going in spite of it.'” Mary Ann Moore reviews Hand Drawn Victoria: An Illustrated Tour in and around BC’s Capital City, by Emma FitzGerald (Toronto: Appetite [Penguin Random House], 2024) $19.95 / 9780525611042
Essay collection relates the “great pleasure of strolling in great cities” and offers an appealing and illuminating “window into a wider world.” —Bill Paul reviews The Coincidence Problem: Selected Dispatches 1999-2022, by Stephen Osborne (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781551529653
“The Deerholme Foraging Cookbook proved to be truly inspiring. This book will appeal to well-established foragers, but also to those, like me, who want to think outside the supermarket norm.” Trish Bowering reviews The Deerholme Foraging Cookbook: Wild Ingredients and Recipes from the Pacific Northwest, revised and updated, by Bill Jones (Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2024) $40 / 9781771514378
“Genius loci, roughly translated as ‘spirit of the place,’ … This was the concept explored in the thought-provoking summer exhibition focusing on four modern Westcoast buildings and featured at Victoria’s Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum. The exhibit was the brainchild of museum curator Ben Clinton-Baker.” Martin Segger reviews the recent exhibition From the Ground, into the Light: Architecture and the Island, 1950-2000, at the Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum.
“[Neering] begins the book with some powerful words: ‘More than 30 years ago, wandering the province for a book on small town life in B.C., I sat with one of the Ktunaxa band counsellors on the St. Mary’s reserve near Cranbrook. David talked about ‘that place over there’ —the hated residential school that dominated the centre of the reserve. He described the beatings, the deprivation—but he also described the traditions and rebirth of pride among the Ktunaxa.'” Valerie Green reviews A Traveller’s Guide to Historic British Columbia (revised), by Rosemary Neering (Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2023) $34.95 / 9781770503700
“McGoogan’s histories have often focused on Arctic explorations. Favourites of mine are about the ill-fated Franklin Expedition and Mrs. Franklin’s earnest efforts to find her lost husband. This time, however, he highlights the rise of Spain’s Franco, Italy’s Mussolini, Russia’s Stalin and, of course, Nazi Germany’s Hitler.” Ron Verzuh reviews Shadows of Tyranny: Defending Democracy in an Age of Dictatorship by Ken McGoogan (Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $36.95 / 9781771624244
“…British Columbia’s Songs of the Southern Interior, has Bartlett following in the footsteps of his mentor. The journey shows what time-consuming and labour-intensive efforts are required for such a venture. Bartlett describes his new book as “a companion” to the [Phil] Thomas memoir. He has followed the pattern established by Thomas by travelling widely and actively seeking material ‘made by ordinary people, in ordinary language, for pleasure and not for profit.'” Wayne Norton reviews British Columbia’s Songs of the Southern Interior & Phil Thomas and The Songs of British Columbia by Jon Bartlett (Vancouver: Vancouver Folk Song Society, 2024) $20.00 / 9780987725523
“The text is an accessible reference resource that will be useful to students and budding archaeologists, field technicians working with/for First Nations communities, and any interested visitors traveling through coastal First Nations’ territories.” Bryn Letham reviews Indigenous Heritage Features Handbook by A. Mackie, R. Inglis, Qixitasu (E. White), and K. Neary (The Province of British Columbia and Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative, 2024)
A note from Richard Mackie, publisher, The British Columbia Review. * Dear friends, supporters, and readers, On behalf of the Board of Directors and Advisory Board of The British Columbia Review, I must mention our pressing need for continuing financial support from our reading community. We make this request for private donations annually to keep the… Read more BC Review Annual Fundraiser, 2024
Debut book, a memoir, chronicles a typical middle-class suburban upbringing that’s followed by years of filling an existential “black hole” with harmful choices. —Carellin Brooks reviews Sunrise Over Half-Built Houses: Love, Longing and Addiction in Suburbia, by Erin Steele (Qualicum Beach: Dagger Editions, 2024) $26.00 / 9781773861500
“Understanding this science, is a major step to encourage all of humanity to ‘think carefully about our options, and find a new course.'” Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Runaway Climate: What the Geological Past Can Tell Us About the Coming Climate Change Catastrophe, by Steven Earle, PhD (Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2024) $24.99 / 9780865719897
“…Willes has filled in a lot of the blanks to produce a fascinating team history that gives credence to the ‘curse’ mythology.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Never Boring: The up and down history of the Vancouver Canucks by Ed Willes (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $28.95 / 9781990776892
“…this bounty of a missive both reflects on our contemporary crises and what, practically, can be done to bring health and healing to local communities again.” Ron Dart reviews Save Your City: How toxic culture kills community & what to do about it by Diane Kalen-Sukra (Toronto: Municipal World, 2024) $22.80 / 9780228810872
“On a recent summer hike along Vancouver Island’s Cowichan River, we enjoyed referring to Collin Varner’s flora pocket guide to keystone species, “keystone” being organisms that define and support an entire ecosystem thus filling a vital ecological niche.” Isabel Nanton reviews 50 Keystone Flora Species of Coastal British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest: A Pocket Guide & 50 Keystone Fauna Species of Coastal British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest: A Pocket Guide by Collin Varner (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $19.95 / 9781772034776 / 9781772034943
“Arnett integrates cultural and technical aspects of rock art and rock art sites from start to finish. He insists the paintings in many settings are an interaction between the rock formation, the setting, the paint, and the artist, including the artist’s songs and stories about the site.” Wendy Burton reviews Signs of the Time: Nłeʔkepmx Resistance through Rock Art by Chris Arnett (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024) $39.95 / 9780774867962
“…understanding how everything in a way has life. Inanimate objects, human made things, people of course, and everything else as well. This is how Marks extends her ideas. It’s an incremental change of many philosophical ideas.” Thomas Girard reviews The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos, by Laura U. Marks (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2024) $29.95 USD / 9781478030119
Reissued edition of the acclaimed, award-winning volume also reflects on the pandemic and MAID.—Jodi Lundgren reviews In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying, by Eve Joseph (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2023) $22.00 / 9781772142150
An “accessible, elucidating book that makes a persuasive plea for us to connect data literacy and human rights.” Plus, “a genuine pleasure to read.” —Jessica Poon reviews We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, by Wendy H. Wong (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023) $35/95 / 9780262048576
“Mahtani is truly aiming to accomplish a lot with May it Have a Happy Ending and the threads of family, illness, work, and other elements take their turns in the spotlight, then drift through the background, reminding us that we are always composed of a range of tales, that nothing is exclusive or simple or from which we are easily healed.” Catherine Owen reviews May it Have a Happy Ending: A Memoir of Finding My Voice as My Mother Lost Hers, by Minelle Mahtani (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2024) $34.95 / 9780385675208
“Into his own remarkable life story, he manages to also weave world events in history over the past century, including many human conflicts, criminal justice reform and his own personal reflections as he travels the world from Canada to the United Kingdom, Germany, Uganda, and the Middle East.” Valerie Green reviews Boxing The Compass: A Life of Seafaring, Music, and Pilgrimage by Michael L. Hadley (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $29.95 / 9781772034738
