Beep Beep Bubbie by Bonnie Sherr Klein (text) and Élisabeth Eudes-Pascal (illustrations) Vancouver: Tradewind Books, 2020 $19.95 / 9781926890234 Reviewed by Elizabeth Bassett Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that Beep Beep Bubbie by Bonnie Sherr Klein (text) and Élisabeth Eudes-Pascal (Tradewind Books) has been shortlisted for the Christie…
Read more 1101 Through Vancouver by scooter
Outside In: A Political Memoir by Libby Davies Toronto: Between The Lines, 2019 $26.95 / 9781771134453 Reviewed by Alex Netherton * Libby Davies’ Outside In is an extraordinary political memoir that chronicles and reflects upon her life and political career first as an urban activist and then eventually as the Deputy Leader of the NDP…
Read more 1096 A master of urban politics
ESSAY: The Militant Mothers: Civil Disobedience in Raymur Housing Project by Meg Stainsby * The 1971 actions of the “Militant Mothers of Raymur” was one of the first direct action campaigns in Vancouver history. The successful, swift campaign ran from early January through late March. It has been documented and celebrated in newspaper and radio…
Read more 1093 The militant mothers of Raymur
Battleground Grandview: An Activist’s Memoir of the Grandview Community Plan, 2011-2016 by Jak King Vancouver, The Drive Press, 2020 $25.00 / 9780986778209 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Planning for housing in Vancouver is a contentious issue due to conflicting ideas of where increased density should take place, what styles of housing are needed, and who…
Read more 1091 In praise of city neighbourhoods
No Ordinary Seaman: A Memoir by Gary H. Karlsen Victoria: First Choice Books, 2018 $22.95 / 9781775266907 Reviewed by Eric W. Sager * There are many paths into adulthood. One way is to leave home and go to sea. It is an old path, followed by many young men (and women too) through the ages,…
Read more 1084 The education of a seafarer
Lonely Planet Vancouver and Victoria (8th edition) by John Lee & Brendan Sainsbury London: Carlton, 2020 $21.99 (US) / 9781787013612 Reviewed by Lauren Harding * Every time I open the familiar blue cover of a Lonely Planet book, I feel a wave of warm nostalgia. I came of age at the time nearly twenty years…
Read more 1081 A pre-pandemic Lonely Planet
Covid 19: Living the Blues by Teresa Stolarskyj * Dear friends, In the days before Covid-19, indeed, for many years before it, I held residency on Saturday afternoons at Vancouver’s Railway Club. Immersing into the blues and rock n’ roll for a few hours a week, as regulars and newcomers alike took turns on the…
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 26: Living the Blues
MEMOIR: The Sonics at The Grooveyard: My Loud Baptism of Fire by Grahame Ware * On reviewing Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019), I was flooded with memories of my youth and the venues where I first learned the power and pull of nightclubs. My realization of this, my baptism of fire moment,…
Read more 1066 The Sonics at the Grooveyard
Falling into Flight: A Memoir of Life and Dance by Kaija Pepper Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2020 $19.95 / 9781773240831 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * In the early 1930s two dancers from British Columbia were invited to join the corps de ballet of Basil’s famous Ballets Russes. The offer came with one condition: Patricia Meyers from…
Read more 1062 Pepper’s ballet and dance
Pioneer Churches of Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea: An Explorer’s Guide by Liz Bryan Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $24.95 / 9781772033052 * Here & Gone: Artwork of Vancouver & Beyond by Michael Kluckner Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2020 $19.95 / 9781988242385 Both books reviewed by Martin Segger * Gazing out from our COVID-induced shut-ins…
Read more 1060 Watercolours & wooden churches
In Search of a Happy Ending by Rosa Jordan Martinsville, VA: Propertius Press, 2020 $18.95 (U.S.) / 9781716707919 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Cheesecake and Castro’s Confidant: Rossland novelist offers musings on relationships, the environment, and social justice issues “People love happy endings,” says a character in Rosa Jordan’s third novel. But “they will gladly…
Read more 1058 Cheesecake and Castro’s confidant
Fool’s Gold: The Life and Legacy of Vancouver’s Official Town Fool by Jesse Donaldson Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2020 $18.00 / 9781772141467 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * In the spring of 1967, if you went to the courthouse in downtown Vancouver between 2 and 3 p.m., you might have encountered a strange sight: a thirty-something man…
Read more 1051 The enigmatic Joachim Foikis
A Paramedic’s Tales: Hilarious, Horrible and Heartwarming True Stories by Graeme Taylor Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $24.95 / 9781550179026 Reviewed by May Q Wong * I can almost hear him say “Have I told you about the time…?” These are the kind of adventure stories one might hear around a campfire, a family dinner…
Read more 1047 Vignettes from the front line
The Plant-based Foodie Vancouver by Brad Hill and Chris Dagenais; foreword by Erin Ireland and Anna Pippus Vancouver: Brad Hill Imaging Ltd., 2018. Available here, here, and here $28.95 / 9780994919540 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * There are two kinds of recipes: aspirational and accessible; they are not mutually exclusive, although they can be. The…
Read more 1043 In the mood for purple
The Elms by Katherine Krampol * Dearest V., Too long without words — forgive me. It was such an effort adjusting to this new life of perennial solitude and I lost myself in it. But today, the air is fresh and hopeful — Spring is coming! You were the first I thought to write to….
Read more Letters from the Pandemic 24: The Elms
People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point by Robert D. Watt Vancouver: Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing in collaboration with UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2019 $50.00 / 9781773270425 * Susan Point: Spindle Whorl by Grant Arnold and Ian Thom (editors), with a foreword by Kathleen Bartels Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and London: Black Dog Press,…
Read more 1039 Outward from Musqueam
Two books reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb: The Girl Who Stole Everything: A Novel by Norman Ravvin Montreal: Linda Leith Éditions, 2019 $21.95 / 9781773900278 * Prisoners of Hope: Rising from the Ashes of the Holocaust: An Eyewitness Account of Life in the Auschwitz Extermination Camp and Two Slave Labour Camps (1944-1945) by George L. Pal…
Read more 1019 Prisoners of hope & memory
ESSAY: Walking in the time of Corona by Nina Watts * It was a Friday morning in May and I had arranged to meet my friend on a street corner close to her home in the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver. We were planning an urban wander with no particular destination. As I walked west from…
Read more 1015 Letters from the Pandemic 18: Walking in the time of Corona
ESSAY: Letters from the Pandemic 13: A window with a view by Adam Karolewski * Unless your income reaches the top 1 percent per mil, so you can afford a penthouse with a helicopter pad, living in downtown Vancouver doesn’t necessary come with a spectacular view. Often the view is of the side of the…
Read more 1001 Letters from the Pandemic 13: A window with a view
LETTER: Dear Readers of History, and all that Jazz by Mariken van Nimwegen * What does the Oxford historian Peter Frankopan’s hefty 2015 book The Silk Roads have in common with “Vancouver man about town,” Andreas Nothiger’s skinny 1984 synchronoptical World History Chart? I think I have a case, and a story. Frankopan gives us…
Read more #994 Letters from the Pandemic 8: Dear readers of history