Property Values by Charles Demers Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $17.95 / 9781551527277 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw First published Feb. 4, 2019 * We need to talk about … Burquitlam. It’s liminal. Which is a scholarly word meaning it occupies “a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” (Thank you,…
Read more #478 Land deals in Burquitlam
Out of the Woods: Woodworkers along the Salish Sea by Pirjo Raits (text) and Dale Roth and Michele Ramberg (photos) Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $34.95 / 9781772032604 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published Feb. 3, 2019 * There are trees … which in their single lives have spanned the entire history of civilized man. We…
Read more #477 Art of the forest & turbulent sea
BC Books Spring 2019 compiled by Susan Safyan, BA, MLS First published Feb. 1, 2019 * Here is a new feature from The Ormsby Review! A comprehensive preview of almost 150 forthcoming books (spring 2019) from BC publishers, plus selected books about BC topics by other publishers. Entries are listed alphabetically by author surname. Title…
Read more #476 BC Books Spring 2019
Take the Torch: A Political Memoir by Ian Waddell Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2018 $22.95 / 9780889713475 Reviewed by Rod Drown First published Jan. 30, 2019 * In Take the Torch, long-time British Columbian New Democratic Party politician Ian Waddell tells, in detail and with humour, the story of how a Scottish boy made good in…
Read more #475 Ian Waddell’s front row seat
How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War by Allen Packwood Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Books, 2018 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9781473893894 Reviewed by Peter Clarke First published Jan. 29, 2019 * Each new book about Winston Churchill inevitably faces the question of whether it is really necessary, since there…
Read more #474 Decisions, decisions
Michael Lait reviews two books: Small Cities, Big Issues: Reconceiving Community in a Neoliberal Era by Christopher Walmsley and Terry Kading (editors) Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2018 $37.95 / 9781771991636 Free pdf available here. * No Straight Lines: Local Leadership and the Path From Government to Governance in Small Cities by Terry Kading (editor) Calgary:…
Read more #473 Small cities take centre stage
Trail North: The Okanagan Trail of 1856-68 and its Origins in British Columbia and Washington by Ken Mather Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $22.95 / 9781772032307 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch First published January 24th, 2019 * The British Columbia grasslands became cattle country, between 1858 and 1868, largely through the effects of a cattle route called…
Read more #472 Okanagan trade & cattle trail
Listening to the Bees by Mark L. Winston and Renée Sarojini Saklikar Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2018 $24.95 / 9780889713468 Reviewed by Michael Picard First published January 24, 2019 * This is a book about bees, so the title does not disappoint. But it is also a personal memoir of a life in science by an eminent…
Read more #471 The bard and the bees
Twin Studies by Keith Maillard Calgary: Freehand Books, 2018 $24.95 / 9781988298313 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published January 22, 2019 * We can never say what spark lies behind the gestation of a novel — a character, an incident, a storyline, perhaps a social or political issue. Some novels read as if they sprang…
Read more #470 Gender, manga, and teen idiom
A Piece of the Continent by Paul Nicholson Victoria: Paul Nicholson, 2018 $24.50 / 9781775192305 Available from Amazon.ca and from the author Reviewed by Valerie Green First published January 19, 2019 * It is obvious from the first page of Paul Nicholson’s book that he is passionate about the two topics he covers in A…
Read more #469 From Passchendaele to Paris
Costly Fix: Power, Politics and Nature in the Tar Sands by Ian Urquhart Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018 $39.95 / 9781487594619 Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming by Kevin Taft Toronto: Lorimer, 2017 $29.95 / 9781459409972 The Big Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks…
Read more #468 Power, petroleum, and pipelines
End of the Rope: Mountains, Marriage, and Motherhood by Jan Redford Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada, 2018 $21.00 / 9780345812322 Reviewed by Cherie Thiessen First published January 17, 2019 * With the subtitle Mountains, Marriage, and Motherhood, Jan Redford‘s End of the Rope alerts us to the fact that her memoir merges two subjects—ferocity and…
Read more #467 Mountains and motherhood
INTERVIEW: Shelagh Rogers by Starlight: CBC’s Host of The Next Chapter Shines a Light on Indigenous Authors by Margot Fedoruk * Shelagh Rogers walks in with an air of authority and greets everyone warmly as she stands in line at the local coffee shop on Gabriola Island. Rogers wears the iconic pointy blue glasses that…
Read more #466 A tribute to Richard Wagamese
White by Deni Ellis Béchard Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772012088 Reviewed by Paul Headrick First published Jan. 15, 2019 * The narrator of White has a dramatic CV: freelance war reporter, novelist, and memoirist. It’s a background that closely matches the author’s, even down to the contents of their memoirs. Béchard’s explores his difficult…
Read more #465 Flight to the Congo
The Splendour & The Suffering/El Esplendor y el Sufrimiento: Poems and Travels in Mexico by Doug Beardsley, translated by Celso Cambiazo Victoria: Island Blue Book Printing, Arcos Spanish Translations, 2018. Available from Amazon.ca $19.95 / 9781999442200 Reviewed by Ron Dart First published Jan. 13, 2019 * A turbulent yet alluring place, Mexico has a long…
Read more #464 A turbulent, alluring place
Starlight: An Unfinished Novel by Richard Wagamese Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2018 $19.95 / 9780771070877 Reviewed by Eldon Yellowhorn * Wagamese divides his straightforward narrative into a prologue and three sections, though the last is truncated by his death. The publisher then provides a note explaining the decision to release Starlight as…
Read more #463 Escape from the Nechako Valley
Re-awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry: Fifty Years of Basketry Studies in Culture and Science by Ed Carriere and Dale R. Croes Richland, WA: Journal of Northwest Anthropology (JONA), Memoir Number 15, January 2018 $54.95 (U.S.) / 9781973968221 Available from Amazon.com through CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Reviewed by Andrea Laforet First published Jan. 8, 2019 * In this…
Read more #462 Baskets across the border
Shoelaces are Hard & Other Thoughtful Scribbles by Mike McCardell Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $29.95 / 9781550178487 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb First published Jan. 5, 2019 * Mike McCardell likes editors. Oh, not the sort of editor who tells you what you mustn’t end a sentence with. No, he likes editors who give him…
Read more #460 An island without Velcro
ESSAY: Old Friend in a New Land: English Songbirds in British Columbia by Richard Somerset Mackie * Because the road is rough and long Shall we despise the skylark’s song? — Charlotte Bronte[1] * Introduced from England in 1903 and 1913, Eurasian skylarks took hold in Vancouver Island’s older agricultural districts, to which they were…
Read more #459 Skylark: old friend in a new land
Powell Street Diary: A Remembrance of Life before Internment by Jesse Nishihata, foreword by Junji Nishihata Montreal: Tombo Communications, 2017 $20.00 / 9781387054060 Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy First published Jan. 1, 2019 * In the foreword to this fascinating little book, Junji Nishihata explains that it began when his late father, the award-winning documentary film-maker…
Read more #458 From Powell Street to Tashme