“Now, we have an easy-to-read and -digest book that goes to great lengths to explain medical basics and put this pandemic in perspective relative to past (and inevitably, future) diseases.” Tom Koppel reviews The Hidden Zoo Inside You: An illustrated guide to pesky organisms and pandemics
by Allen Jones, M.D. (Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2024) $39.95 / 9781989467664
“The book is also unique in that it provides first-person accounts from a socially and ethnically diverse group of professionals, including several chapters penned by women who openly share their lived experiences in a changing professional environment.” —Ryan Mitchell reviews The Role of Canadian City Managers, edited by Michael Fenn, Gordon McIntosh and David Siegel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023) $44.95 / 9781487552329
“As I pull off the road and down the drive toward my home on Sumas Mountain, where I will take a walk in the woods, there is one thinker’s phrase that nags as I come to terms with the reality of this doublethink, doublespeak, society. Thoreau’s prophetic statement in an 1860 letter to Harrison Blake, is all too relevant– ‘What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?’ Author and essayist Natalie Virginia Lang writes the timely essay “Living with Oil?”
“The book suggests that future efforts should prioritize rebuilding Lytton with a strong focus on sustainability and resilience. This involves implementing policies that address the root causes of vulnerability, such as historical injustices and environmental degradation.” Amy Tucker reviews Lytton: Climate Change, Colonialism and Life Before the Fire by Peter Edwards and Kevin Loring (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024) $36 / 9781039006157
“In a regionalized case of a murder that occurred in the heart of British Columbia, deep in its rural country, Warren asks his readers to draw upon universal empathetic feelings of disgust at the crimes of Shearing and sympathy for those impacted.” —Matthew Downey reviews Murder Times Six: The True Story of the Wells Gray Park Murders, by Alan R. Warren (Self-published, 2020) $20.00 / 9781989980132
Warland is convinced that as writers, “we must learn to live with profound vulnerability.” In doing this, we are filling in the lack of stories that others have been too afraid to tell. We become more resilient in ourselves as we learn from ourselves—our fears and identities—and we can start to tell authentic narratives that our world, culturally and socially, so desperately needs.” —Natalie Virginia Lang reviews Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing, by Betsy Warland (Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2023) $24.95 / 9781770867031
“Though the novel is neither a traditional detective story nor a thriller, the ongoing discoveries and displacements are reminiscent of those genres, but with a rarefied literary focus that makes for a worthwhile page turner.”
—Jessica Poon reviews The Mythmakers, by Keziah Weir (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024) $24.00 / 978077100029
A thriller compels with “epic marriage baggage, a classically bratty stepdaughter, and theatrically terrible weather even by Pacific Northwest standards.” —Jessica Poon reviews The Off Season, by Amber Cowie (Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2024) $24.99 / 9781668023518
“Once people see the inequities in the world, it is hard to unsee them – Dr. Mayhew’s descriptions bring a humanity and familiarity in a way to a very different culture.” Dr. Laura Sauvé reviews Hand on My Heart: A Canadian Doctor’s Awakening in Afghanistan by Maureen Mayhew (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023) $26 / 9781773861029
The trio of cases of a sleep-deprived, hard-drinking ‘terrible detective’ also reveal a man “in a modern world that he seems not to fully understand nor relate to.” —Logan Macnair reviews Stasio: A Novel in 3 Parts, by Tamas Dobozy (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2024) $22.00 / 9781772142266
“These are fully realized observations, absolute and searing impressions of the profoundly joyful, as well as the unavoidably difficult.” —Cathy Ford reviews Islander, by Mona Fertig (Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2024) $22.00 / 9781896949895
“Butler’s story is riveting and very powerful as she describes being different from everyone else while trying to find her true self.” Valerie Green reviews Apocalypse Child: Surviving Doomsday and the Search for Identity at the End of the World by Carly Butler (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781773861326
“As our current news media make painfully clear, claims and counter claims over national boundaries often lead to devastating violence. It is a prompt to reflection, therefore, to consider the border disputes in the past, distant world of this book.” Theo Dombrowski reviews Arctic Patrol: Canada’s Fight for Arctic Sovereignty by Eric Jamieson (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2024) $28.00 / 9781773861333
The closing novel of the McBride Chronicles tetralogy mulls over past and future as it introduces a host of contemporary social issues. —Vanessa Winn reviews Tomorrow, by Valerie Green (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397843
“Thomson casts a fictional net over the special hell of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the 1970s and early 1980s.” Larry Hannant reviews The Struggle Continues: An arduous journey of hope by Christopher Thomson (Victoria: FriesenPress, 2023) $19.49 / 9781039157613
“If all you do is read the textile manifesto, you’ll come away with a lot to think about. But this book really shines in later sections, where McCabe brings us the stories of the people who work on the land and share relationships with their fibre, all combined with useful reference material.” Sarah Thornton reviews Fleece and Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands by Francine McCabe (Victoria: Heritage House, 2023) $34.95 / 9781772034530
“It seems to me that Kevin’s book documents his research into myriad formal and semantic possibilities, engaging in a practice that endeavours to stretch poetic narratives and structures.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews A Bouquet Brought Back from Space, by Kevin Spenst (Vancouver: Anvil Press Publishers, 2024) $18.00 / 9781772142259
A meister with horror tropes, a debut novelist turns terror-at-home into a mind-bending, spine-tingling entertainment. —Zoe McKenna reviews We Used to Live Here, by Marcus Kliewer (New York: Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2024) $34.99 / 9781982198787
A poet’s pensive and playful debut volume is also “probing, inventive, clever, fun, provocative, and challenging.” —Steven Ross Smith reviews [about]ness, by Eimear Laffan (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2023) $19.95 / 9780228019022
In an illustrated history of the Pacific Northwest, the venerable Columbia River recalls the ups and downs of its 20-million-year lifespan. —Ron Verzuh reviews The Heart of a River, by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes (illustrated by Nichola Lytle) (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2024) $25.00 / 9781771606998