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
Chasing Rivers: A Whitewater Life by Tamar Glouberman Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $26.95 / 9781771623414 Reviewed by Ryan Mitchell * Montreal film student turned rafting guide adventurer, Tamar Glouberman’s journey weaves like a winding river. Floating from eastern to western Canada and then beyond, she recounts her beginnings in the rafting world after…
Read more 1648 In safe hands with Tamar
Wildlife For Idiots: And Other Animal Cartoons by Adrian Raeside Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $16.95 / 9781550179323 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * So how do you review a book of cartoons by sardonic, irreverent, witty Adrian Raeside — standup comedian of the literary world. Born in New Zealand in 1957, Raeside came to Canada…
Read more 1642 Raeside outdoors
The Okanagan Wine Tour Guide Updated & Expanded by John Schreiner and Luke Whittall Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 (6th edition) $25.00 / 9781771513241 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * When we last visited Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars on a hot June day in 2021, the owners were protecting from Covid their 17 seasonal workers from…
Read more 1640 An Okanagan classic
A Time of Light and Shadow: To Asia, Africa, and the Long Way Home by Ella Harvey Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $28.00 / 9781771605694 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * Come come, whoever you are Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. — Rumi Ella Harvey’s life…
Read more 1616 Nurse on the front line
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
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
Vancouver, Howe Sound & the Sunshine Coast, Including Princess Louisa Inlet & Jedediah Island. New, Revised Fourth Edition. A Dreamspeaker Cruising Guide No. 3 by Anne Yeadon-Jones and Laurence Yeadon-Jones Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $49.95 / 9781550179859 Reviewed by Kenneth Campbell * To explore British Columbia’s intricate coastal waterways safely and enjoyably by boat…
Read more 1576 South coast cruising
Meet Me in Cairo: Tales of Hitchin’ in the ’60s by Jim Kerr Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $26.95 / 9781989467527 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Jim Kerr’s story of hitch hiking around North America, Europe, North Africa, and the Levant is truly a tale from another age. An era when one could count…
Read more 1574 From Kelowna to Casablanca
Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade by Rosemary-Claire Collard Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2020 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781478010920 Reviewed by Susan Nance * The traffic in wild and captive-bred exotic animals is estimated to be the world’s fourth largest illegal trade—after drugs, human trafficking, and counterfeit products — in…
Read more 1558 Animal farms
An Accidental Odyssey by kc dyer Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Berkley), 2021 $22.00 / 9780593102060 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * Though Homer’s Odyssey is a staple of the literary canon and serves as a foundation for countless interpretations and revisions, kc dyer’s An Accidental Odyssey rejects all the predictability of this territory. Instead, An…
Read more 1550 Epic quest, new narrative
Queasy: a wannabe writer’s bumpy journey through England in the ’70s by Madeline Sonik Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9781772141894 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * “There be dragons,” warn words in the corners of some old maps. The warning is really, of course, an invitation both to the intrepid to investigate remote lands and…
Read more 1535 An English chambermaid
New Delhi & Lahiri & Strang & Carson by Thomas K. Girard * Ghandi Airport Night was day when I arrived in Delhi, at Ghandi. I packed safely, but quickly found my water bottle missing as I pushed through the crowd and approached a Delhi walla. My eyes adjusted. I tried to get a read…
Read more Notes from a year in Delhi
MEMOIR: Along the empty corridor of British Columbia by Richard Mackie * In January 1989, while researching in Winnipeg as part of my doctoral dissertation in Canadian history and historical geography, I had a vivid and unusual dream. My hosts, John and Katherine Selwood, had turned the sunroom at the back of their house in…
Read more 1523 Along the empty corridor of British Columbia
Canadian Pacific Trackside 1977 to 2012 with Conductor John Cowan by John Cowan Avon-By-The-Sea, New Jersey: Morning Sun Books, 2022 $69.95 (US) / 9781582487854 This book is available from Kelly’s Kaboose, The Railway Store, in Savona, and Central Hobbies in Vancouver — or order a copy from your local independent bookstore or directly from the…
Read more 1486 Canadian Pacific calling
Writing the Empire: The McIlwraiths, 1853-1948 by Eva-Marie Kröller Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021 $110.00 / 9781487507572 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * In her story of the McIlwraith family, Scottish immigrants to Australia and Canada, Eva-Marie Kröller illuminates the lives of the members of a nineteenth century middle-class family, albeit one with its peculiarities…
Read more 1467 Background to Bella Coola
When Trains Ruled the Kootenays: A Short History of Railways in Southeastern British Columbia by Terry Gainer Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $25.00 / 9781771604017 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Trainspotting in the Kootenays: Did we miss the train as a better way to travel in the 21st century? When I was a kid growing…
Read more 1460 Kootenay trainspotting
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
Disappearing in Reverse by Allie McFarland Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2020 $24.99 / 9781773851433 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * The unnamed protagonist of Allie McFarland’s debut novel, Disappearing in Reverse, is no stranger to death. In fact, as the novel opens on bustling Saanich Road, on the northern edge of Victoria, she is in…
Read more 1424 Till death do us join
Return: Why We Go Back to Where We Come From by Kamal Al-Solaylee Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2021 $32.99 / 9781443456159 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Some books take their readers across vast distances; some through sweeps of time. One of the most remarkable effects of Return, by journalist and author Kamal Al-Solaylee, currently Director of the School…
Read more 1393 Yearning for a house in the hills