The Oysters I Bring to Banquets by Gary Geddes Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2022 $22.00 / 9781771837101 Reviewed by Doug Beardsley * Opening Gary Geddes’ new book of poems, The Oysters I Bring to Banquets, I am reminded of something Irving Layton said some thirty years ago, when he intuitively discussed the essential characteristics of the…
Read more 1712 Liberating the ordinary
Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood by Hilary Peach Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781772141955 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * “People love to read about work” — Stephen King The best writers make readers interested in a subject they never imagined they might be compelled by. I think of Cormac…
Read more 1711 Manways and shabby motels
River of Mists: People of the Upper Skeena, 1821-1930 by Geoff Mynett Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $26.00 / 9781773860930 Reviewed by Tyler McCreary * Geoff Mynett has quickly emerged as the leading public historian of the Upper Skeena region of British Columbia. A remarkably proficient and prodigious author, he has now published his fourth…
Read more 1710 Mynett’s Skeena stories
The Geography of Memory: Reclaiming the Cultural, Natural and Spiritual History of the Snayackstx (Sinixt) First People by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 (first published by Kutenai House Press, 2002) $30.00 / 9781771605212 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Extinct No More: The Sinixt People of the Kootenays have much to teach us…
Read more 1709 Extinct no more
Sisters of the North: A modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility by Emily Kirkham Edmonton: Dragon Hill Publishing, 2022 $21.95 / 9781896124803 Reviewed by Cara Faganello * Sisters of the North: A Modern Retelling of Sense and Sensibility by Emily Kirkham is a delicious reimagining of Jane Austen classic’s classic novel of 1811. Fans…
Read more 1708 Timmys, truckers, strippers
A Dancer’s Pilgrimage by Lolla Devindisch Salt Spring Island: Rainbow Publishers & Invocation Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9781778160301 Reviewed by Wendy Judith Cutler * I was born beside the smouldering flames of the Mexican volcano Popocatépetl (p. 9). This was how eight-year-old Lolla Devindisch began her memoir at the time. Decades later she returned to her…
Read more 1707 From Popocatépetl to Salt Spring
Principled Governance: When Everything Matters by David S. Fushtey, edited by Richard Littlemore and Moura Quayle, foreword by Moura Quayle Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing, 2021 $45.04 (US) / 9781648026546 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * “It’s like the setup for a bad joke: an economist, an MBA, a lawyer, a bureaucrat, an activist, a…
Read more 1706 Dave’s boardroom etiquette
Deadly Triangle: The Famous Architect, His Wife, Their Chauffeur, and Murder Most Foul by Susan Goldenberg Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2022 $23.99 / 9781459750302 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Anyone who lives in British Columbia’s capital city or has visited the beautiful city of Victoria and admired the Parliament buildings and the world-famous Empress Hotel in…
Read more 1705 Scandal of the century
Our Homes on Indigenous Lands: Stories of My Ancestors Across Turtle Island by Mali Bain Surrey: Hancock House, 2022 $24.95 / 9780888397416 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * Our Homes on Indigenous Lands: Stories of My Ancestors Across Turtle Island is a deceptively lean book about family history but entails a broad canvas that spans over…
Read more 1704 Turtle Island chronicles
Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed by Marsha Lederman Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2022 $35.00 / 9780771049378 Reviewed by Charlotte Schallié * “Kiss the Red Stairs. The Holocaust, Once Removed” is a deeply resonant memoir exploring the interconnectedness of history, memory and lived experience in the aftermath of the…
Read more 1703 The Holocaust past and present
Holden After and Before: Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose by Tara McGuire Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781551528939 Reviewed by Colin James Sanders * Human beings, not unlike other creatures, contend with the death of loved ones, navigating grief and mourning in varying ways. Tara McGuire of Vancouver channeled her…
Read more 1702 Fragments of grief & mourning
Random Walks: New West from the Street by Alan Haig-Brown White Rock: Image West Productions, 2022 $36.95 / 9780994817525 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * When I first saw this book available for review, I snapped it up right away. I love going for walks in New Westminster, where I live, and was eager to compare notes…
Read more 1701 Wandering the haunted city
An essay by Brian Smallshaw: Out of Options with the Freedom Convoy? * Whatever you think about the Freedom Convoy’s occupation of Ottawa and the blocking of border crossings in Windsor and Coutts, the Canadian government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to shut down a protest should be of concern to every Canadian who…
Read more 1700 Freedom Convoy: out of options?
Rescue Me: Behind the Scenes of Search and Rescue by Cathalynn Labonté-Smith Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $26.00 / 9781773860947 Reviewed by Mike Starr * “Behind the Scenes of Search and Rescue” is what the subtitle promises and is exactly what you’ll get with Rescue Me. Author Cathalynn Labonté-Smith did over 60 interviews with Search…
Read more 1699 Many a life line
Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene by Alessandra Naccarato Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2022 $23.00 / 9781771667753 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * In the 1870s, John Ruskin, Slade Professor of Fine Art in the University of Oxford, initiated a scheme to improve the rough and muddy path into the village of North Hinksey on the outskirts…
Read more 1698 On Ruskin’s road
Ordinary Monsters: A Novel by J.M. Miro Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2022 $39.95 / 9780771000027 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * I have absolutely no talent for world-building; most of the stories I write involve no more than three people and find themselves in situations that could be described as a poor…
Read more 1697 Words and world-building
Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867-1945 by Andrea Geiger Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022 $35.95 / 9780774867993 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * When Empires Collide: How the Pacific Northwest was won, lost and sold Andrea Geiger takes readers to an early moment in Pacific Northwest history, one that sheds much light…
Read more 1696 When empires collide
Following the Telegraph Trail: A Trek of a Lifetime by Irene J. Huntley Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $14.99 / 9781039110441 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Irene J. Huntley has written a worthy little book — Following the Telegraph Trail — which documents the adventurous trek taken by her father, Don Huntley, and his friend, Gunnar Nillson,…
Read more 1695 South to British Columbia
Michael Turner reviews In My Day by Rick Waines Produced by Norman Armour, Rick Waines and Zee Zee Theatre presented by The Cultch Theatre, Vancouver December 02-11, 2022 * As a late-born North American Baby Boomer, I am not old enough to remember all the defining moments assigned to my generation. I was barely fifteen…
Read more 1694 A history play for the ages
Blue Communion by Sean Arthur Joyce Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2023 $23.95 / 9781771714884 Reviewed by Gary Geddes * In “Words on the Wing,” Sean Arthur Joyce elegantly poses the question many poets face when they decide to sit down to write something: “How light must my touch be / not to snap bone, lose an…
Read more 1693 A poet’s light touch