Mea Culpa: A Plea of Innocence. A Memoir by Bruno Cocorocchio Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $24.49 / 9781039137462 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * The title of Bruno Cocorocchio’s memoir, Mea Culpa: A Plea of Innocence, has an immediate and jarring effect. It sets up a seemingly impossible concurrence of two states of being – “I am…
Read more 1670 An Italian childhood
Wired for Music: A Search for Health and Joy Through the Science of Sound by Adriana Barton Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $32.95 / 9781771645546 Reviewed by Derek von Essen * The afternoon Wired for Music arrived in the post was the same day I tested positive for Covid-19. I wasn’t surprised by the result. While…
Read more 1669 An essential need
Two books reviewed by Ken Favrholdt: Adventure Roads of BC’s Northwest Heartland by Liz Bryan Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772034035 * Pioneer Churches along the Gold Rush Trail: An Explorer’s Guide by Liz Bryan Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $24.95 / 9781772034011 * Liz Bryan, photographer and popular writer, has published two books this…
Read more 1656 On the road with Liz Bryan
The Descendants by Robert Chursinoff Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2022 $24.95 / 9780889714403 Reviewed by W.H. New * I very much enjoyed reading Robert Chursinoff’s first novel, The Descendants. I think it’s a remarkable achievement, one that deserves a wide range of readers, both for the appeal of the story it tells and for the importance…
Read more 1650 Doukhobor affirmations
Psyched: Seven Cutting-Edge Psychedelics Changing the World by Amanda Siebert, with a foreword by Julie Holland Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $21.95 / 9781771648790 Reviewed by Colin James Sanders * While the title of Amanda Siebert’s latest book may be overreaching in its claim that psychedelics are changing the world, psychedelic-assisted therapeutic practices are definitely experiencing…
Read more 1636 Siebert’s seven psychedelics
Heart Work by Susan McCaslin Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771714020 Reviewed by gillian harding-russell * In Heart Work, Susan McCaslin embraces a way of seeing that centres on the heart, both as an image and an idea, and as it shapes consciousness. Just as the cover artist, Betty Spackman, divides her art installation…
Read more 1626 The justice imagination
Love in Vile Places: Military Hospitals as the Site of Care and Nurture by Jo-Anne Fiske * For Remembrance Day 2022 we present a memoir by Jo-Anne Fiske of Fraser Lake, in BC’s north-central interior, of her father Humphrey William Fiske (1886-1959). At the time of his enlistment in Kelowna in 1916, the Norfolk-born Fiske…
Read more 1617 Love in vile places
Spíləx̣m: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence by Nicola I. Campbell Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2021 $32.00 / 9781553799351 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * When my friend, author, singer and educator Karen Lee White went north to celebrate the life of a beloved elder, the family women braided her long silver hair. “That is your…
Read more 1610 A star map to higher ground
Don’t Call It A Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Viking), 2021 $24.95 / 9780735237896 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Be Afraid for Your Daughters: Parents lock the door, if you can, on predators bearing false promise of enlightenment What do…
Read more 1600 Parents, lock the door
Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas by Harley Rustad Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Knopf Canada), 2022 $34.00 / 9780735279469 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * For some readers, stories like this one are a tempting invitation to satire. There is, after all, much fodder for lampoonery…
Read more 1597 Get lost, young man
Jonas and the Mountain: A Metaphysical Love Story by Janis Harper Fort Lauderdale, FL: Sacred Stories Publishing, 2021. For more information about purchasing the book in Canada, contact Janis Harper $20.99 CDN / 9781945026805 Reviewed by Margaret Miller * An eastern mystic and western psychic walk into a bar… Not too much surprises me these…
Read more 1544 A fascinating dance of ideas
Two books reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb: Gidal: The Unusual Friendship of Yosef Wosk and Tim Gidal, Letters and Photos by Alan Twigg (editor) Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $39.95 / 9781771623025 * Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal by Yosef Wosk and Nachum Tim Gidal Jerusalem: Gefen Books, 2020…
Read more 1543 Photos & letters of Tim Gidal
The Acid Room: The Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital by Jesse Donaldson and Erika Dyck Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $18.00 / 9781772141863 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Acid Test in New West: LSD entered the world through the doors of a BC Hospital Before LSD guru Timothy Leary (“tune in, turn on and…
Read more 1524 LSD & Hollywood North
Words from the Dead: Relevant Readings in the Covid Age by Sean Arthur (Art) Joyce Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2022 $25.95 / 9781771714587 Reviewed by Christopher A. Shaw * Capturing the “Landscape of the Imagination” in the Age of Covid No matter where one stands on the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccines, and who’s responsible, the events of…
Read more 1519 Reading the Covid landscape
A tribute to Julian Wake by Richard Mackie and others * It’s a pleasure to provide this tribute to Julian Wake, a friend to me and many others between his arrival in BC in 1966 and his death on January 16, 2022. In recent years Julian embarked on a late career as a book reviewer…
Read more 1497 Tribute to Julian Wake
Mother, the Verb, Swan Sister Treasure Book by Linda Rogers and friends Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $25.00 / 9781039124530 Reviewed Cathy Ford * Upon a time (note dear reader, not “once”), there arrived a beautifully dense green book on my desk. For me, it arrived just in time. As said more often than anyone ever wanted…
Read more 1470 Piecework and peace work
Paradise Road: A Memoir by Marilyn Kriete Atlanta, GA: Lucid House Publishing, 2021 $22.95 / 9781950495115 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * A True Believer: A young woman’s troubled bicycle odyssey ends with a religious tract Remember your reaction when there was a knock at your door and you answered it only to find two nicely…
Read more 1450 A true believer
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada (Oneworld Publications), 2021 $30.00 / 9781786079251 Reviewed by Jessica Poon Note: Ayesha Chaudhry’s The Colour of God was previously reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * I know a journalist who balks at the word memoir. Though it would be easy to cynically quip about the…
Read more 1447 Memoirs, scripts, subtexts
Vancouver’s Most Haunted: Supernatural Encounters in BC’s Terminal City by Ian Gibbs Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2021 $20.00 / 9781771513180 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Ian Gibbs, who has spent years collecting and sharing ghost stories as a Ghostly Walk tour guide in Victoria, British Columbia, has done another impressive job in his second book Vancouver’s…
Read more 1444 Terminal City spooks
An Irish Country Yuletide by Patrick Taylor New York: Macmillan (Forge Books), 2021 $17.99 (US) / 9781250780904 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * With the recent release of Kenneth Branagh’s film Belfast, set during the Troubles in 1969, it’s timely that The British Columbia Review should ask for a review of Salt Spring Island resident…
Read more 1394 A great wee book, so it is