You Might Be Sorry You Read This by Michelle Poirier Brown Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2022 $19.99 / 9781772126037 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * In many cases, the titles for books of poetry come from the poems themselves, whether a title of one or a line from within one. In Michelle Poirier Brown’s…
Read more 1619 The thing about snow
The Save of My Life: My Journey Out of the Dark by Corey Hirsch, with Sean Patrick Conboy Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2022 $32.99 / 9781443461092 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * It must be hard to write a good topical hockey book these days. The goalposts, as it were, keep shifting on the zeitgeist as Canada’s…
Read more 1618 Goaltender, heal thyself
Love in Vile Places: Military Hospitals as the Site of Care and Nurture by Jo-Anne Fiske * For Remembrance Day 2022 we present a memoir by Jo-Anne Fiske of Fraser Lake, in BC’s north-central interior, of her father Humphrey William Fiske (1886-1959). At the time of his enlistment in Kelowna in 1916, the Norfolk-born Fiske…
Read more 1617 Love in vile places
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
Bent Back Tongue by Garry Gottfriedson Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 20.00 / 9781773860961 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Garry Gottfriedson is a Secwépemc rancher and teacher. He got started in poetry by performing at pow-wows many decades ago. In Bent Back Tongue, he moves in a space that is anger and love joined in…
Read more 1615 Laying down a trickster beat
Art of the Northwest Coast: Second Edition by Aldona Jonaitis Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 (first published by Douglas & McIntyre, 2006). Also published by University of Washington Press, 2021 $38.95 / 9781771623063 Reviewed by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa * We entered the digital age 30 years ago this year when the Internet became a public…
Read more 1614 The hand reaches out
The Tree Farm: The Evolution of Canada’s First Community Forest by Michelle Rhodes Vancouver: Page Two Books, 2021 $35.00 / 9781989025680 Reviewed by David Brownstein * Michelle Rhodes’s The Tree Farm celebrates what was once an anomaly. Whereas local community-directed forest management used to be rare in British Columbia, with each passing day, this model…
Read more 1613 A forest with a mission
When We Are Broken: The Lake Elegy by Luanne Armstrong New Denver: Maa Press, 2020 $30.00 / 9780987838414 Reviewed by Diana Hayes * Luanne Armstrong, a prolific writer who has published twenty-five books of fiction, memoir, and poetry, has crafted a soulful and meditative narrative in her book, When We Are Broken – The Lake…
Read more 1612 An age bigger than adolescence
Thirty-Three Years: The Unfiltered Memoir of a Cop by Rob G. Rothwell Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $24.49 / 9781039123427 Reviewed by Jaime Smith * There is no crime without laws. An inborn human drive to compete against others promotes individual greed, usually suppressed or diverted by shared ethical standards. Some always will ignore the law, resulting…
Read more 1611 A life with crime
Spíləx̣m: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence by Nicola I. Campbell Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2021 $32.00 / 9781553799351 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * When my friend, author, singer and educator Karen Lee White went north to celebrate the life of a beloved elder, the family women braided her long silver hair. “That is your…
Read more 1610 A star map to higher ground
Making a Chaputs: The Teachings and Responsibilities of a Canoe Maker by Joe Martin and Alan Hoover Victoria: Royal BC 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 Nations’…
Read more 1609 Nuu-chah-nulth high bow canoes
All the Bears Sing: Stories by Harold Macy Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $24.95 / 9781990776007 Reviewed by W.H. New * Readers who enjoy tales of living and working in the BC woods and in small Coastal communities will find much to appreciate in Harold Macy’s collection of 23 tales and stories. Macy writes out…
Read more 1608 The vernacular of the country
Confessions with Keith: Extracts from the Journals of Vita Glass by Pauline Holdstock Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $22.95 / 9781771964975 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * Vita Glass, the character at the centre of Pauline Holdstock’s latest novel, lives in an extreme amount of chaos. It’s no wonder as she has four children, a dog, a cat,…
Read more 1607 A year in a life
A Century in the North Peace: The Life and Times of Anne and John Callison by Erín Moure, with Anne Callison Montreal and Vancouver: Zat-So Productions, 2018 $22.79 / 9780986759529 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * Poet and translator Erin Moure with her 96-year-old aunt Anne Callison in 2018 wrote a remarkable, lovingly composed, and detailed…
Read more 1606 Peace River portraits
Five Moves of Doom by A.J. Devlin Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2022 $22.95 / 9781774390559 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * In the professional wresting world, the words “five moves of doom” can cause a tidal wave of excitement. It’s a series of signature moves unique to each wrestler that, often, dictates how the match will go…
Read more 1605 Fringe sports & epic fights