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
ESSAY: Chief Tetlenitsa’s Apples: Commercializing Indigenous Horticulture in British Columbia, 1907-1916 by Michael Sasges First published April 25, 2017 * In 1916, orchardist Chief John Tetlenitsa of Spences Bridge took a wagon of 40 boxes of apples into Merritt, the new town in the Nicola Valley, only to have the Chief Constable seize the apples… Read more #124 Banning Indigenous apples, 1916
ESSAY: For Remembrance Day 2016, Michael Sasges has reconstructed the life of Nicola Valley rancher John Foster Paton Nash. First published Nov. 7, 2016 * Note to Ormsby readers: I have dusted off this essay by Mike Sasges for re-use on Remembrance Day, 2020. I have rewritten the introduction, re-sized and rearranged the photos, and… Read more #39 From Quilchena Creek to Flanders