MEMOIR: Writing My Father by Meg Stainsby * After twenty years of carting it around unopened, I unpacked a stale cardboard box stuffed with crackly, yellowed sheets of typescript — some still clinging to their carbons, all faint and fusty — and began a solitary trek across a forty-year expanse of written terrain that my…
Read more #876 Stainsby’s carbons and files
A Match Made for Murder: A Lane Winslow Mystery by Iona Whishaw Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 $16.95 / 9781771513265 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Reading Iona Whishaw’s A Match Made for Murder, Book 7 in her Lane Winslow series, was like being invited to a party where the host had promised me I would have…
Read more #861 Anatomy of a bestseller
SHORT STORY: A Modest Silence by Jennifer Moss For an audio version, see here * A modest silence is a woman’s crown — Euripides, Andromache We are the stories we tell, and we are compelled to create stories to understand ourselves. — Susan Gregory, et al., “Rewrite Your Life,” Psychology Today (May 2, 2016) We…
Read more #853 A Modest Silence
ESSAY: The Will to Pleasure: Hedonism, Ethics, and Aesthetics from the Ancient World to the Present Age by Eryn Holbrook * When Christianity and Marxism end their shared reign, we will need visions of new possibilities. There is always one fixed point: the body. Not a body of Platonic ideas, nor a body cut in…
Read more #847 Hedonism, pleasure, ethics
All My Politics are Poetry by Larry Hannant Victoria: Yalla Press, 2019 $16.95 / 9791999289300 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * Throughout history, poetry has been a marker for monumental events by lyrically capturing emotional and provocative aspects of life, change, disruption, and chaos. It addresses difficult and challenging issues, making pain palatable enough for readers…
Read more #842 Poetry for a better tomorrow
The Guilt Factor: A personal exploration with assistance from Antigone by Al Jones * Experiencing and living with guilt, whether small or big, is part of the human experience, and as I look back on my life I ask myself how guilt has affected me. At times, I am perplexed by how guilt can be…
Read more #834 Lessons from my brother’s room
Footprints of a Foodie by Tanya dePape Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2019 $30.99 / 9781525548307 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * Have you ever felt the need to uproot your life, visit a far off place, and reboot your perspective? Vancouver Island clinical counsellor Tanya dePape, in the wake of a divorce and several failed attempts at…
Read more #829 A pre-Covid foodie flyabout
Conversations in a mountain cave by Havi Neeman * We are pleased to present a literary mashup by Havi Neeman, a former student in the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Simon Fraser University. A mashup is a creative work, such as a short story, novel, or song, that combines or blends pre-existing text or music…
Read more #827 Conversations in a mountain cave
ESSAY: There’s no place like home: our connection to meaningful places by Joanne Crozier * We are pleased to present an essay by Joanne Crozier, There’s no place like home, as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Ormsby Review and Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University, an interdisciplinary program that leads to the…
Read more #822 Home is where the memory is
The Olive Oil and Vinegar Lover’s Cookbook by Emily Lycopolus Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2019 (revised and updated second edition; first published 2015) $45.00 / 9781771513029 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf wrote “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” This maxim…
Read more #781 Oil and vinegar, Italy and Canada
Jennifer Chutter reviews 2 books: 111 Places in Vancouver That You Must Not Miss by Dave Doroghy and Graeme Menzies Cologne and New York: Emons Verlag, 2019 $26.90 / 9783740804947 * The Vancouver Sketchbook: Lush Landscapes, Vibrant Streetscapes, Soaring Skyline by T.K. Justin Ng Vancouver: Whitecap, 2019 $29.95 / 9781770503250 * …
Read more #767 The Vancouver patchwork
So You’re A Little Sad, So What? Nice Things to Say to Yourself on Bad Days and Other Essays by Alicia Tobin Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $17.95 / 9781551527871 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * A delicate manner must be found in comedy to deal with the sad and unfortunate events in our lives. Every…
Read more #743 The umbrella of comedy
The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2018 $25.99 (U.S.) / 9781401954871 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * We live in a world where the culture of buying cheap and…
Read more #687 Less shopping, more clarity
George Garrett: Intrepid Reporter by George Garrett Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $26.95 / 9781550178661 Reviewed by Michael Sasges * George Garrett: Intrepid Reporter is important reading for anyone interested in Vancouver politics and journalism in the last fifty years of the previous century. As a reporter for radio station CKNW from 1956 to 1999,…
Read more #497 Vancouver’s master broadcaster
ESSAY: Universal Technologies and Traditional Innovations: A Comprehensive Perspective for Museums by Yosef Wosk An Ormsby Exclusive, in collaboration with the The Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars First published Feb. 5, 2019 * We are pleased to present an essay by Yosef Wosk about nothing less than mankind’s accumulation and appreciation of shared knowledge and wisdom. This extraordinarily…
Read more #479 On the wings of forever
Codename Project 9: How a Small British Columbia City Helped Create the Atomic Bomb by Ron Verzuh CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018 $13.08 / 9781720820703 Reviewed by Michael Sasges First published Nov. 22, 2018 * Codename Project 9 is a small book that engenders reflections on some big history. Since 1945, journalists and scholars…
Read more #429 Trail, the bomb, and Blaylock
Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir by Chelene Knight Toronto: Book*hug, 2018 $20.00 / 9781771663908 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter First published June 13, 2018 * Amidst the swirl of media reports of rising housing prices, empty houses, and increased property taxes, Chelene Knight’s Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir offers a rare and nuanced view of what…
Read more #320 An East Vancouver childhood
Morrison: The Long-lost Memoir of Canada’s Artillery Commander in the Great War. Major-General Sir Edward Morrison by Susan Raby-Dunne (editor) Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2017 $22.95 / 9781772032147 Reviewed by Michael Sasges First published March 15, 2019 * Edward Morrison was one of no more than fifty general officers who directed Canadian Corps battlefield activities…
Read more #264 From John McCrae to Morrison
The Spitfire Luck of Skeets Ogilvie: From the Battle of Britain to the Great Escape by Keith Ogilvie Victoria: Heritage House, 2017 $22.95 / 9781772032116 Reviewed by Michael Sasges First published Feb. 28, 2018 * The Spitfire Luck of Skeets Ogilvie tells the story of two Canadians who made an ordinary life together after some extraordinary…
Read more #255 Spitfire luck of Skeets Ogilvie
ESSAY: Theatre in Vancouver Today: A Paradox by Carol Volkart First published July 8, 2017 * Everything about the Pacific Theatre is modest — from the low-ceilinged lobby with its island of couches around a coffee table, to its urns of self-serve coffee (regular or decaf), to its 128-seat alley-style theatre where a spectator who…
Read more #148 Pacific Theatre almost homeless