Wild Fierce Life: Dangerous Moments on the Outer Coast by Joanna Streetly Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $22.95 / 9781987915655 Reviewed by Lauren Harding First published November 8, 2018 * This book moved me in unexpected ways. Having spent a good deal of 2013 and 2014 living and working on the west coast of Vancouver…
Read more #417 Living wild in Clayoquot Sound
Klee Wyck Journal: The Making of a Wilderness Retreat by Lou McKee Fairbanks, Alaska: Epicenter Press, 2017 9781935347750 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published November 07th, 2018 * Pantheism has a long and storied history. Nature exalts in a way that is simultaneously nameless and named; unconditional and conditional; joyous and painful. But many people…
Read more #416 Nootka Nirvana
Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer by Eve Lazarus Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $21.95 / 9781551527468 Reviewed by Larry Hannant First published November 6, 2018 * True crime “may be the dominant genre of our time,” according to Globe and Mail media writer Simon Houpt. And…
Read more #415 Murder by Milkshake
Ken Foster’s Vancouver: Life, Art and Alleyways by Sean Nosek and Ken Foster Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2018 $49.95 / 9781926991917 Reviewed by Robert Amos First published November 05, 2018 * I like this book. I like the energetic paintings, I like the way the writer presents the artist’s unique life story, and I admire…
Read more #414 Good art & bad habits
Angela of the Stones by Amanda Hale Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781771871655 Reviewed by Linda Rogers First published November 3, 2018 * Appropriately, “La Huelga,” The Strike, the first story in the collection Angela of the Stones, begins with a raised fist, the collective slogan SEREMOS COMO EL CHE now applied to transforming…
Read more #413 Cuban saints and stones
Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Cub and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and ‘60s by Marian Jago, foreword by Don Thompson Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $29.95 / 9780774837699 Reviewed by Brian Fraser First published November 02, 2018 * Good books on jazz are filled with intriguing stories about the relationships…
Read more #412 Vancouver jazz scene
ESSAY: A Person of Some Consequence: Attorney-general George Hunter Cary (1832-1866) by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor First published October 31st, 2018 * Victoria historian Robert Ratcliffe Taylor previously contributed an essay to these pages on the career of the forgotten architect Hermann Tiedemann (The Ormsby Review no. 211, November 26, 2017). Now Taylor turns his attention…
Read more #411 The boy Attorney-General of B.C.
Ordinary Strangers by Bill Stenson Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2018 $23.95 / 9781896949710 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published October 30th, 2018 * The title is the key. This is a novel about the ordinary, yes, but also about people who are, in many different ways, “strangers:” within the first few pages an…
Read more #410 Journey to Fernie
A Not-so-Savage Land: The Art and Times of Frederick Whymper, 1838-1901 by Peter Johnson, foreword by Robert Amos Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $24.95 / 9781772032208 Reviewed by Michael Layland First published October 29th, 2018 * The English artist Frederick Whymper (1838-1901) spent the years 1862-66 in colonial Vancouver Island and British Columbia, producing technical and…
Read more #409 With Whymper to the Pacific
Gracie by Joan MacLeod Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $16.95 / 9781772012026 * Thanks for Giving by Kevin Loring Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772012187 Both books reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy First published October 26, 2018 * Editor’s note: Ginny Ratsoy reviews the latest work of two of B.C.’s top playwrights, Joan MacLeod (born 1954) and Kevin…
Read more #408 Grizzly twins & latter-day saints
The Aging of Aquarius: Igniting Passion and Purpose as an Elder by Helen Wilkes Gabriola Island: New Society, 2018 $17.99 / 9780865718944 Reviewed by Alan Belk First published October 26th, 2018 * “Elderhood is not conferred by virtue of age; there is no greeting card, no welcoming party,” muses Ormsby reviewer Alan Belk after reading Helen…
Read more #407 Celebrating age and wisdom
Not Extinct: Keeping the Sinixt Way by Marilyn James and Taress Alexis Nelson: Maa Press, 2018 $30.00 / 9780968530283 Reviewed by Paula Pryce First published October 24, 2018 * Editor’s note: Anthropologist Paula Pryce, author of the pathbreaking Keeping the Lakes’ Way (1999), revisits the Sinixt people, previously known as the Lakes people, whose traditional territory comprised…
Read more #406 The Sinixt are not extinct
Crow Jazz by Linda Rogers, illustrated by Rick Van Krugel Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2018 $23.95 / 9781896949659 Reviewed by Paul Headrick First published October 22nd, 2018 * Linda Rogers’s Crow Jazz is a challenging, perplexing, and glorious collection of stories, perhaps just what we would expect from a poet whose startling juxtapositions…
Read more #405 Crows and crime scenes
Some End / West Broadway by George Bowering and George Stanley Vancouver: New Star Books, 2018 $18.00 / 9781554201457 Reviewed by Danny Peart First published October 21st, 2018 * Two of BC’s senior poets, George Stanley (born 1934) and George Bowering (born 1935) contribute opposite halves to a flip or tumble book from New Star…
Read more #404 A tumble with George
First published October 19th, 2018. All Together Healthy: A Canadian Wellness Revolution by Andrew MacLeod Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2018 $22.95 / 9781771621885 Reviewed by Trevor Hancock * Governments in Canada, argues Andrew MacLeod, choose to prioritize spending on medical care, which is akin to treating the symptom and not the disease. Ormsby reviewer…
Read more #403 Health before healthcare
Gypsy Fugue: An Archetypal Memoir by Marlene Schiwy Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $24.95 / 9781987915594 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve First published October 18, 2018 * Readers might recall The Manticore (1972), the second in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy, in which David Staunton dreams of a gypsy the night before starting Jungian therapy in Zurich….
Read more #402 Roma and other Gypsies
First published October 16, 2018 Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska by Stephen R. Bown Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $34.95 / 9781771621618 Reviewed by Robin Inglis * The Great Northern Expedition of 1733-1743, initiated by Emperor Peter the Great, extended Russian influence to the Aleutian Islands…
Read more #401 Legacy of Vitus Bering
Ranch in the Slocan: A Biography of a Kootenay Farm, 1896-2017 by Cole Harris Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $24.95 / 9781550178234 Reviewed by Daniel Clayton * The Bosun Ranch, in reality a farm just south of New Denver on Slocan Lake, has been in the Harris family since 1896. “The ranch has always been…
Read more #400 The useful people’s ranch
First published October 14, 2018. Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion World Tour: 30 Years Later – A Celebration of Courage, Strength, and the Power of Community by Jake MacDonald, foreword by Rick Hansen Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2017 $34.95 / 9781771643443 Reviewed by Brian Fraser * The adventure thrilled the world. A man in a wheelchair…
Read more #399 Highways of courage
Oldness; or, the Last-Ditch Efforts of Marcus O by Brett Josef Grubisic Surrey: Now or Never Publishing, 2018 $19.95 / 9781988098630 Reviewed by Dustin Cole First published October 13, 2018 * I am 37. When I think about being 65, different things come to mind. There is hope for both artistic fulfillment and recognition. There are…
Read more #398 Boldness about oldness