A Bicycle Story by Dave Steen Thetis Island: Thetis Island Publishing, 2022 $12.99 / 9798409188085 A Bicycle Story is available on Amazon.ca Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Dave Steen’s mystery novel about old crimes and old age might well have been entitled A Tale of Many Bicycles or A Tale of Many Cyclists. All…
Read more 1677 The rough side of cycling
A Season on Vancouver Island by Bill Arnott Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $20.00 / 9781771605779 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * In A Season on Vancouver Island, Bill Arnott gives a romantic account of our familiar Vancouver Island land and seascapes, seeking out and indulging in the minute natural dramas that may be found on…
Read more 1676 Hot & wistful on Vancouver Island
The Bob Dylan Albums 2nd Edition by Anthony Varesi Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2022 $34.95 / 9781771837590 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * In the autumn of 1964, a precocious Bob Dylan — who had just released his fourth studio album at age twenty-three — told a writer from The New Yorker that he was moving on…
Read more 1675 A catalogue for the ages
Try Not to Be Strange: The Curious History of the Kingdom of Redonda by Michael Hingston Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771964159 Reviewed by Michael Hayward * 1100 km beyond Haiti in the western Caribbean, west of the British Virgin Islands and just visible from the tiny island of Monserrat, lies an even smaller, uninhabited…
Read more 1674 A literary kingdom
Glory and Exile: Haida History Robes of Jut-ke-Nay Hazel Wilson by Robert Kardosh, Robin Laurence, Kūn Jaad Dana Simeon Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2022 $50.00 / 9781773271170 Reviewed by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa * It is always fruitful to go on a journey with a quest and a good book about the destination. The book should tell…
Read more 1673 Hazel Wilson’s Haida robes
Sulfur Heart by Brooke Carter Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2022 $10.95 / 9781459831605 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * Sulfur Heart is a wonderfully dark and gritty story with all the elements readers crave in a noir novel: crime, murder, tragedy, whodunnit, revenge. It took me less than ninety minutes to read, and it will no…
Read more 1672 A noir novel for teens
The Sky and the Patio: An Ecology of Home by Don Gayton Vancouver: New Star Books, 2022 $18.00 / 9781554201945 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Two hundred years ago, the Earth was one-fifth prairie, including much of the Okanagan Valley. Now most of earth’s temperate grasslands are gone. In the Okanagan, there are only tiny…
Read more 1671 The Grass Man Cometh
Mea Culpa: A Plea of Innocence. A Memoir by Bruno Cocorocchio Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $24.49 / 9781039137462 Reviewed by Jane Frankish * The title of Bruno Cocorocchio’s memoir, Mea Culpa: A Plea of Innocence, has an immediate and jarring effect. It sets up a seemingly impossible concurrence of two states of being – “I am…
Read more 1670 An Italian childhood
Wired for Music: A Search for Health and Joy Through the Science of Sound by Adriana Barton Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $32.95 / 9781771645546 Reviewed by Derek von Essen * The afternoon Wired for Music arrived in the post was the same day I tested positive for Covid-19. I wasn’t surprised by the result. While…
Read more 1669 An essential need
Until We Meet Again: Scouting for the CPR’s Crowsnest Line, 1891 by Jan Krijff (translator) and Karen Green (research) Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2023 $24.95 / 9781989467466 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek * I was quite delighted to receive this book to review, as it connects by various tangents to my previous work in constructing walking…
Read more 1668 Long-distance romance, 1891
Fortune Knox Once: More Musings from the Edge by Jack Knox Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $22.95 / 9781772034172 Reviewed by Valerie Green * We all need a little Knox humour in our lives these days and Jack Knox has delivered just that once again in his latest book Fortune Knox Once: More Musings from The…
Read more 1667 The mixture we all need
Of Sunken Islands and Pestilence: Restoring the Voice of Edward Taylor Fletcher to Nineteenth-Century Canadian Literature by James Gifford (editor) Athabasca, Alberta: Athabasca University Press, 2022. $34.99 / 9781771993449 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Here’s a forgotten Canadian poet. Edward Taylor Fletcher. Also a surveyor, an immigrant from England, a cholera survivor, and a onetime volunteer…
Read more 1666 A gesture to Fletcher
Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson by Gary Wyatt with Robert Davidson. Foreword by Karen Duffek Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2022, in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery $60.00 / 9781773271903 Reviewed by Mark Turin * This singularly gorgeous book showcases the extraordinary work of Guud San Glans Robert Davidson, one…
Read more 1665 Reckoning with Robert Davidson
The Science and Spirit of Seaweed: Discovering Food, Medicine and Purpose in the Kelp Forests of the Pacific Northwest by Amanda Swinimer Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $28.95 / 9781550179613 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * I feel guilty for having sat so long on Amanda Swinimer’s book about seaweed. Sure, our island has suffered…
Read more 1664 The seaweed book
A note from Richard Mackie: Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Readers of The British Columbia Review, In February 2022 we changed our name from The Ormsby Review to The British Columbia Review — we are one and the same, though our registered name under the BC Societies Act continues to be The Ormsby Literary Society. The change…
Read more 1663 BC Review 2022 fundraiser
Her Courage Rises: 50 Trailblazing Women of British Columbia & the Yukon by Haley Healey (text) and Kimiko Fraser (illustrations) Victoria: Heritage House, 2022 $22.95 / 9781772034257 Reviewed by Veronica Strong-Boag * In the last half century, women’s history has been a success story in Canada, as in other lands. Whether judged in terms of…
Read more 1662 Missed opportunities
Worth More Growing: Youth Poets Pay Homage to Trees by Christine Lowther (editor) Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781773860978 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * In the spring of 2022 Caitlin Press released their amazing themed anthology, Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees. Edited by Christine Lowther, that book was…
Read more 1661 Poets for the planet
SS Pacific found! by Richard Mackie In April 2017 we posted a story by historian Greg Stott about the short life and BC career of George Skippon (ca. 1833-1875), a farmer, labourer, and worker on CPR surveys who was one of about 275 people to perish in the wreck of the American steamer Pacific, outbound…
Read more 1660 SS Pacific found?
We Have Never Lived On Earth by Kasia Van Schaik Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2022 (Robert Kroetsch Series) $24.99 / 9781772126280 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * In response to a CBC question about the inspiration for her short story “An Ounce of Care,” which was shortlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2017,…
Read more 1659 Into the hoard of life
Cannon in Canada, Province by Province. Volume 5: British Columbia by Harold Skaarup Fredericton: Global Summit House/ Silverhawk, 2021 $29.99 / 9781956515657 Reviewed by David Morgan * The number and variety of vintage cannon preserved in British Columbia is surprising. Harold Skaarup of Fredericton has documented some 58 in his recent book, Cannon in Canada,…
Read more 1658 Wheel out the big guns