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New uses for the slash chord

“Existing Music is a deeply layered and memorable work of poetic metaphor and imagery, and Nick Thran succeeds in playing with sound and shapeshifting, or transposition, to evoke an ‘Oh’ in the reader as we look over his shoulder.” —Joe Enns reviews Existing Music, by Nick Thran (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2025) $19.95 / 9780889714861

‘Becalmed / flatlined / a cypher / a code’

Personal darkness and a generational chasm are examined in an urgent long poem—where a grandmother reaches out to a youth immersed in video game realities. —Isabella Ranallo reviews Encrypted, by Arleen Paré (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025) $20.00 /9781773861647

Henry Yu – Chinese Canadian historian

“Henry Yu is a history professor at The University of British Columbia. He tells The British Columbia Review about how his path to becoming an historian was shaped by the exclusion and challenges of his Chinese Canadian ancestors in BC.” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with historian and UBC professor Henry Yu

Blackberry, salal, murder

“Wright’s psychological exploration—her emphasis on the ‘why was it done?’—takes us into territory beyond the cozy mystery that a series set in a small town and complete with an ongoing romance might invite.” —Ginny Ratsoy reviews Sleep While I Sing: Murder in a Small Town, by L.R. Wright (New York: Felony and Mayhem Press, 2024) $26.95 / 9781631943171

Draft dodgers, flower children, murder

Although a few missteps are in evidence, a Vancouver Island author’s debut novel—set near Tofino in 1968—introduces a “worthy mystery with a captivating setting.” —Valerie Green reviews Fake Out, A Long Beach Mystery, by Faye Bayko (Victoria: Tellwell Publishing, 2025) $26.99 / 9781779624789

Family custodians of a heritage home

“…Mather devotes the majority of the book to recounting the lives of the inhabitants of the house. This is both haunting and compelling. While all the families had ‘privileged lives’ based on their economic and social standing, they were subject to the joys and sorrows of ordinary living. Adriana A. Davies reviews Coldstream Lake House: A storied landmark of the Okanagan, by Ken Mather (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397690

Was there a Canadian genocide?

“Adam Jones’s book can help each of us in reaching a principled position, in articulating it, and in understanding why others might rationally have arrived at and articulated a different view.” Richard Butler reviews Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (4th ed.), by Adam Jones (New York: Routledge, 2024) $61.99 / 9781032028101

Living ‘in a state of poetry’

A Griffin Prize winner, a Vancouver poet’s translation of a preeminent Mexican poet’s work is “a rich, complex, and challenging book” that proposes a “wall of poetry” against the insistent iniquities of the world. —Gary Geddes reviews Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, by Homero Aridjis (translated by George McWhirter) (New York: New Directions, 2023) $28.95 / 9780811231732

Where change is the only constant

“In a collection that dives again and again into the motivations behind actions that sometimes seem incomprehensible, the author gives us a deeply meaningful way to get lost.” —Ryan Frawley reviews Born of the Storm, by Don McLellan (Vancouver: Page Count Press, 2025) $20.00 / 9781777361617

Containing and releasing family history

“300 Mason Jars: Preserving History is a book to be treasured. Beautifully presented in colour, the delightful poems and contents of the mason jars can be savoured and preserved for years to come.” Valerie Green reviews 300 Mason Jars: Preserving History, by Joanne Thomson (Victoria: Heritage House, 2024) $34.95 / 9781772935162

A ‘wading into a rushing stream’

In an established writer’s first novel, new information affects a parent’s grief; it’s fiction that suggests “the uncomfortable, murky place that we sometimes inhabit in the midst of change can be a fine place to rest, and begin again.”
—Trish Bowering reviews Blue Hours, by Alison Acheson (Calgary: Freehand Books, 2025) $24.95 / 9781990601897

‘Such hellish trouble’

“The gift of a small community is that everyone knows everyone; it’s also a bit of a curse. In Gaston’s hands, it’s mostly a gift as closeness seems to create a sense of balance.” —Candace Fertile reviews Tunnel Island, by Bill Gaston (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2025) $24.95 / 9781771872683

The stories that shape us

“The Stories That Shape Us is a gift for readers at any stage of historical or personal exploration. It speaks to the quiet strength of every family story and the importance of listening before it’s too late. It urges us to view immigration as a policy and a lived reality. Moreover, it reminds us that history is not just something that happens—it is something we carry.” Amy Tucker reviews Lost Legacies: Learning from Ancestral Stories for Inspiration and Policy-Making Today, by Margaret V. Ostrowski (Montreal West: DC Books, 2024) $21.95 / 9781927599624

More breaking news…

“The newspapers of our day seem to be in disarray, crumbling from lack of readers and funding. Struggling to continue while the government attempts to step in and help. There is always apprehension when a powerful organization steps in offering financial assistance since news organizations know there is usually a caveat.” Jeffrey Stychin reviews Tomorrow’s News: How to Fix Canada’s Media, by Marc Edge (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2024) $21 / 9781554202140

On the far horizon: food

“It is a tremendously rare short story collection where I could honestly say that I loved all of them equally—I daresay, it is a phenomenon that has never stricken me, and this collection is no exception.”—Jessica Poon reviews Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food, edited by Jeff Dupuis and A.G. Pasquella (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2025) $24.99 / 9781459754980

A guide celebrating BC biodiversity

“This book offers a whole new adventure for naturalists, botanists and all those who love the natural world, luring all of us into the outdoors, to check out the plant relationships reflected in the different sections, to see those plants we are familiar with as parts of a larger complex, and to get to know the smaller, perhaps previously overlooked species that have now been introduced to us in such intriguing ways.” Nancy J. Turner reviews Native Plants of British Columbia’s Coastal Dry Belt: A Photographic Guide by Hans Roemer and Mary Sanseverino (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2025)
$29.95 / 9781998526000

The ‘capacious, accommodating past’

Shot through with brooding darkness and gothic motifs, a volume features stories that “leave the sense that people’s lives, ordinary people’s lives, can have troubling undercurrents weaving through their very humanity.” —Theo Dombrowski reviews Graveyard Shift at the Lemonade Stand, by Tim Bowling (Calgary: Freehand Press, 2025) $22.95 / 9781990601866

A fine BC political poet

“The more we are immersed in the life, activism, and writings of Tommy Douglas and Milton Acorn, the more we will be walked into a unique Canadian synthesis of faith, literature, and politics that has still much to commend it.” Ron Dart contributes an essay on the work of the late poet and storyteller, Milton Acorn.

Yasuko Thanh – What is home?

“As a child of immigrants, novelist and memoirist Yasuko Thanh asks the question: What is home?” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with Yasuko Thanh.

The writing of Rodger Touchie

“Many might think of Rodger Touchie as the publisher at Heritage House based in Victoria, but he is also a published history writer. Some of his titles include Bear Child: The Life and Times of Jerry Potts, Edward S. Curtis: Above the Medicine Line, and Vancouver Island: Portrait of a Past…” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with publisher, and writer of BC history titles, Rodger Touchie.

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