Under the Nakba Tree: fragments of a Palestinian family in Canada by Mowafa Said Househ Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, 2021 $24.99 / 9781771992039 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “A nation now deemed to be imaginary, a nation blamed for its stubborn refusal to acquiesce in its own destruction.” Wasn’t that Vladimir Putin’s excuse for invading…
Read more 1473 Hearts across hemispheres
The Bridge: Writing Across the Binary by Keith Maillard Calgary: Freehand Books, 2021 $22.95 / 9781988298788 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * In the imaginative universe that inspired this book, the metaphor of “the bridge” offered Keith Maillard two related themes worth exploring: the socially-constructed divide between the sexes that his younger self struggled for years…
Read more 1472 Girl interrupted … or imagined
Wilson Duff: Coming Back, A Life by Robin Fisher Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $39.95 / 9781550179750 Reviewed by Rob Hancock * A casual observer might be surprised to learn that Wilson Duff’s life had been the subject of two operas and a novel before the first full-length biography was written about him. On the one…
Read more 1471 In search of a deeper meaning
Mother, the Verb, Swan Sister Treasure Book by Linda Rogers and friends Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $25.00 / 9781039124530 Reviewed Cathy Ford * Upon a time (note dear reader, not “once”), there arrived a beautifully dense green book on my desk. For me, it arrived just in time. As said more often than anyone ever wanted…
Read more 1470 Piecework and peace work
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles Toronto, House of Anansi, 2019 $22.95 / 9781487001711 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Everyone has an airplane story; here’s mine: he introduced himself as Alex and he was aggrieved by the state of the world — it was ending, calamitously, and he was…
Read more 1469 Throbbingly three-dimensional
Return to Solitude: More Desolation Sound Adventures with the Cougar Lady, Russell the Hermit, the Spaghetti Bandit and Others by Grant Lawrence Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $26.95 / 9781550179712 Reviewed by Heather Harbord * Grant Lawrence has produced another rollicking good read which is a worthy successor to his earlier Adventures in Solitude (Harbour, 2010)….
Read more 1468 Cabins and characters
Writing the Empire: The McIlwraiths, 1853-1948 by Eva-Marie Kröller Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021 $110.00 / 9781487507572 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * In her story of the McIlwraith family, Scottish immigrants to Australia and Canada, Eva-Marie Kröller illuminates the lives of the members of a nineteenth century middle-class family, albeit one with its peculiarities…
Read more 1467 Background to Bella Coola
Sounds from Silence: Reflections of a Child Holocaust Survivor, Psychiatrist and Teacher by Robert Krell Amsterdam: Amsterdam Publishers, 2021 $21.95 (U.S.) / 9493231488 Reviewed by Peter Hay * From the outside, Robert Krell’s memoirs present us with a man of great humanity who, after a long and distinguished career in medicine and psychiatry, has been…
Read more 1466 A dozen kinds of hiding
Ghost Geographies: Fictions by Tamas Dobozy Vancouver: New Star Books, 2021 $24.00 / 9781554201792 Reviewed by W.H. New * First off: Tamas Dobozy is a friend, so I’m not completely impartial. But I’ve now read this collection of stories three times, and each time I’m more impressed. This is a major book: serious, wryly humorous,…
Read more 1465 Dark Wry
Occupying Chinatown by Paul Wong Vancouver: On Main Gallery, 2021 $80.00 / 9780969477778 Reviewed by May Q Wong * In this limited-edition clothbound book, the reader will share a personal journey with world-renowned artist Paul Wong, who pays homage to his mother and family, and by extension, the early Chinese immigrants who established Vancouver’s Chinatown….
Read more 1464 Chinatown settlers and letters
The Broken Places by Frances Peck Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781774390450 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * This is the novel that many Vancouverites have been half-consciously waiting for– just as they have been half-unconsciously waiting for…The Big One. The earthquake that devastates Vancouver in Frances Peck’s The Broken Places is not the big…
Read more 1463 The act of breaking
The Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival is back — and it will be good by Howard Macdonald Stewart * The Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival is on again this year from July 15-17, with related events beginning July 11. Festival organisers improvised in 2020 and 2021 but now it’s back to our traditional…
Read more 1461 Denman Island calling
When Trains Ruled the Kootenays: A Short History of Railways in Southeastern British Columbia by Terry Gainer Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2022 $25.00 / 9781771604017 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Trainspotting in the Kootenays: Did we miss the train as a better way to travel in the 21st century? When I was a kid growing…
Read more 1460 Trainspotting in the Kootenays
Art Exhibit Review: RABBIT LANE: DOUGLAS COUPLAND At the West Vancouver Art Museum, March 30-May 28, 2022, open Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Between March 30 and May 28, 2022, the West Vancouver Art Museum is hosting an exhibit of photographs, RABBIT LANE: DOUGLAS COUPLAND. Heidi Greco, on behalf of The…
Read more 1459 Rabbit Lane: Douglas Coupland
Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2022 $24.99 / 9781443464437 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * There’s no time wasted getting to the murder scene in Susan Juby’s new mystery. The Prologue to Mindful of Murder gives a brief introduction to the victim, Edna Rodd, and by the fifth page we’ve watched her…
Read more 1458 Death at the Yatra Institute
The Voyage of Freydis: The Vinland Viking Saga, Book 1 by Tamara Goranson Toronto: HarperCollins Canada (One More Chapter), 2021 $23.99 / 9780008495336 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * Two things about the title of this novel, The Voyage of Freydis, struck me when I first came across it. Firstly, that it was a voyage. That…
Read more 1457 Dial the happy endings
The Box in the Closet: A Memoir by Jayne Doxtater West Vancouver: The Self-Publishing Agency, 2021 $23.95 / 9781777642013 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * The Box in the Closet: A Story of Hope Is love enough to keep two people together when your partner’s needs surpass your own? This is one of the questions Jayne…
Read more 1456 Butterflies and affirmation
Providence: A Novel. The McBride Chronicles, Book One by Valerie Green Surrey: Hancock House, 2022 $26.95 / 9780888397393 Reviewed by Vanessa Winn * Historian Valerie Green’s debut novel, Providence, is the first of a family saga trilogy. The engaging story is told from the perspective of two protagonists, settlers who make the arduous journey to…
Read more 1455 Settlers at the edge of empire
Lucy and Bonbon by Don LePan Montreal: Guernica Editions (Miroland): 2022 $20.00 / 9781771837187 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * Lucy and Bonbon unfolds in intriguing stages, each one with characteristics true to the genre. Though the novel’s irreverent conceits — bestiality, unnatural spawn — are the foundation of the premise and might provoke the…
Read more 1454 Clicks and jokes and uproar
Made in Korea by Sarah Suk Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2021 $24.99 / 9781534474376 Reviewed by Michelle Ha * Meet Valerie Kwon, an ambitious young teenager in her senior year at Crescent Brook High, who runs a successful student business, V&C K-BEAUTY, with her cousin Charlie Song. All has been well with their business…
Read more 1453 What would Valerie do?