Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood by Hilary Peach Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781772141955 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * “People love to read about work” — Stephen King The best writers make readers interested in a subject they never imagined they might be compelled by. I think of Cormac…
Read more 1711 Manways and shabby motels
The Transforming Image: Painted Arts of Northwest Coast First Nations. Second Edition by Bill McLennan and Karen Duffek Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2022 in collaboration with the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia (first published by UBC Press, 2000; reprinted by Douglas & McIntyre and University of Washington Press, 2007) $65.00 / 9781773271989 Reviewed…
Read more 1680 Northwest Coast artist archive
Deep, Dark & Dangerous: The Story of British Columbia’s World-class Undersea Technology Industry by Vickie Jensen Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $36.95 / 9781550179200 Reviewed by Dave Flawse * In 1967, when a few cash-strapped Canadians towed their newly built manned-submersible from Vancouver to Washington State, biologists at the University of Washington got the chance…
Read more 1649 BC’s undersea adventurers
Out of the Fire: Metalworkers along the Salish Sea by Pirjo Raits. Photographs by Dale Roth and Michele Ramberg Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $39.95 / 9781772033434 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * The cover image of a book entitled Out of the Fire might be expected to be aflame with oranges and red. Not this one: even…
Read more 1621 Noise, heat, smoke, & smell
Making a Chaputs: The Teachings and Responsibilities of a Canoe Maker by Joe Martin and Alan Hoover Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9780772680273 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * With a Pacific coastline that stretches 25,725 km (15,985 miles), British Columbia has for eons relied on water transport and for centuries First…
Read more 1609 Nuu-chah-nulth high bow canoes
Art, Research, Play: The Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Project by Donald Lawrence, Josephine Mills, and Emily Dundas Oke (editors), foreword by W.F. (Will) Garrett-Petts Lethbridge: University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2021 $39.95 / 9781927770115 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “This is a book that arrests attention but won’t stand still.” Thanks to W.F. Garrett-Petts for this assertion…
Read more 1594 The celebrated camera obscura
The Resistance Dilemma: Place-Based Movements and the Climate Crisis by George Hoberg Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $54.00 / 9780262543088 Reviewed by Stephen Bocking * The climate crisis demands that we break our fossil fuel habit. This implies an energy revolution, rewiring society to rely on renewable electricity. New technologies can…
Read more 1549 Clarifying climate policy
Cordage from the Ozette Village Archaeological Site: A Technological, Functional and Comparative Study by Dale R. Croes with Darby C. Stapp (editor) and Victoria Boozer (publications assistant) Richland, WA: Journal of Northwest Anthropology (JONA) Memoir Number 21, May 2021 $24.99 (U.S.) / 9798504397573 Reviewed by Andrea Laforet * Ozette, a village on Cape Alava on…
Read more 1528 The cords that bind
User experience & Sophocles by Thomas Girard * i. Ideas trapped within us We have ideas within us. They swim through our minds and sometimes move faster than we know what to do with them. A young guy approached me after the event last night and asked me what to do, with all of these…
Read more User experience & Sophocles
man@the_airport: How Social Media Saved My Life. One Syrian’s Story by Hassan Al Kontar New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2021 $23.95 / 9781777010188 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * Given the staggering human toll of the civil war in Syria since 2011 — half a million dead, more than six and a half million internally displaced, another…
Read more 1392 A one-man freedom convoy
White Lie by Clint Burnham Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2021 $18.00 / 9781772141740 Reviewed by Peter Babiak * One of my favourite lines of literary theory is from the mystical German Jewish essayist, Walter Benjamin. A perspicacious man who recognized just how much literary works are indebted to the economic and technological conditions that form their…
Read more 1348 Baffling thrums of reasoning
Coding Democracy: How Hackers are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism by Maureen Webb, with a foreword by Cory Doctorow Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $23.95 / 9780262542289 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * An Unsafe Online World: What happens if do-evil computer nerds overrun do-good ones in the struggle to save democracy?…
Read more 1341 An unsafe online world
Things We Could Design: For More Than Human-Centered Worlds by Ron Wakkary Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $47.00 / 9780262542999 Reviewed by Thomas Girard * Ron Wakkary’s Things We Could Design: For More Than Human-Centered Worlds is a delightful book that brings us into an important conversation taking place in Vancouver,…
Read more 1333 Deep, beautiful, and a little quirky
China Unbound: A New World Disorder by Joanna Chiu Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2021 $24.99 / 9781487007676 Reviewed by May Q Wong * What do we really know about China? For centuries, it was a kingdom unto itself, sealed off by choice to the outside world, shrouded in mystery. For over a century, invaders…
Read more 1328 Money talks on the Belt and Road
Caught on the Trail: Nature’s Wildlife Selfies by Dale Bakken and Sandra Lynch-Bakken Surrey: Hancock House, 2020 $24.95 / 9780888390585 Reviewed by Jocie Brooks * A curious black bear nuzzles the camera on the cover of Caught on the Trail: Nature’s Wildlife Selfies. This book offers “up close and personal” views of BC’s wildlife that…
Read more 1323 Eavesdropping in the bush
Icebergs, Zombies and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century by Matthew Soules Hudson, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2021 $26.95 (U.S.) / 9781616899462 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Everyone says many of the same things about real estate. “That view is worth a million dollars.” “If you want to make money, real…
Read more 1242 Architecture, investment, & greed
Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation by Hannah Turner Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9780774863933 Reviewed by Forrest Pass * On the desk of my home office, I keep a relic of museum cataloguing in days gone by: a McBee Keysort manual punch, model 5201-630. Resembling a standard hole punch, this tool…
Read more 1116 Politics on a punch card
Earth 2020: An Insider’s Guide to a Rapidly Changing Planet by Philippe D. Tortell (editor) Cambridge, UK: Open Books Publishers, 2020 £23.95 (U.K.) / 9781783748457 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * I have felt for some time that the universities are getting dangerously like the early church — James Lovelock.[1] As the well-known photography of Edward…
Read more 1099 A measure of change
Not Yet Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space Telescope Operations by Christopher Gainor Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Communications, NASA History Division, 2020 9781626830615 free eBook (PDF) available here Reviewed by John Hutchings * This is a scholarly but very readable tome that describes — in some 450 pages — the…
Read more 1080 Across the universe with Hubble
Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada by Jonathan Manthorpe Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2019 $24.95 / 9781770865396 Reviewed by Trevor Carolan * Book-length critiques of our national failures of nerve and vision seldom make easy reading. Drug use policies, Quebec-ROC relations, Indigenous reconciliation, housing and environmental issues — on and…
Read more 1056 Beijing in Canada