Solidarity: Canada’s Unknown Revolution of 1983 by David Spaner Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781553806387 Reviewed by Larry Hannant * Solidarity erupted in the very month I arrived in BC. I went straight from a moving van to the streets of Van. For me, Solidarity’s Empire Stadium rally on 10 August was a thrilling…
Read more 1452 Scuttling Solidarity, 1983
Death at the Savoy: A Priscilla Tempest Mystery by Ron Base and Prudence Emery Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $18.95 / 9781771623216 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Star-struck readers will likely savour Death at the Savoy. Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Claude Monet are name-dropped, Luciano Pavarotti and Bob Hope put in brief appearances,…
Read more 1451 Intrigue at the Savoy Hotel
Paradise Road: A Memoir by Marilyn Kriete Atlanta, GA: Lucid House Publishing, 2021 $22.95 / 9781950495115 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * A True Believer: A young woman’s troubled bicycle odyssey ends with a religious tract Remember your reaction when there was a knock at your door and you answered it only to find two nicely…
Read more 1450 A true believer
The Strait of Anian by Rhonda Waterfall Surrey: Now or Never Publishing, 2022 $19.95 / 9781989689325 Reviewed by W.H. New * When I opened The Strait of Anian, I expected to see some allusion to Earle Birney’s poetry collection of the same name, but Rhonda Waterfall’s first novel (second book) goes in a different (though…
Read more 1449 Border crossing
Atlas of Roots by Beth Kope Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2021 $18.00 / 9781773860510 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * What are the roots of an identity for the adopted? In a series of sensitive poems, Beth Kope explores the world of the adopted, from her own quest to find her birth parents to an imagined…
Read more 1448 Unwed mothers & redacted files
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada (Oneworld Publications), 2021 $30.00 / 9781786079251 Reviewed by Jessica Poon Note: Ayesha Chaudhry’s The Colour of God was previously reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * I know a journalist who balks at the word memoir. Though it would be easy to cynically quip about the…
Read more 1447 Memoirs, scripts, subtexts
Noonday Dark: Doctor Annick Boudreau Mystery No. 2 by Charles Demers Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2022 $18.95 / 9781771623285 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * Charles Demers’ new mystery, Noon Day Dark, checks off all the boxes for what I think a successful mystery should include: a strong hook, an engaging sleuth, an atmospheric setting,…
Read more 1446 Annick and the red herrings
Dominion of Mercy by Danial Neil Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2021 $20.95 / 9781774390207 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * Danial Neil’s Dominion of Mercy details a journey across continents and across centuries. Though the events of the novel are firmly set in 1917, few British Columbians will be unable to stop themselves from drawing parallels between…
Read more 1445 One-way ticket to Anyox
Vancouver’s Most Haunted: Supernatural Encounters in BC’s Terminal City by Ian Gibbs Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2021 $20.00 / 9781771513180 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Ian Gibbs, who has spent years collecting and sharing ghost stories as a Ghostly Walk tour guide in Victoria, British Columbia, has done another impressive job in his second book Vancouver’s…
Read more 1444 Terminal City spooks
The Last Show on Earth by Yvonne Blomer Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $20.00 / 139781773860770 Reviewed by gillian harding-russell * Against a backdrop of an environmental crisis, Yvonne Blomer in The Last Show on Earth writes poems that let us listen in on personal sorrow inseparable from love for a son with his unique…
Read more 1443 How to live in history
I Want to Tell You Love: A Critical Edition by Milton Acorn and bill bissett, edited by Eric Schmaltz and Christopher Doody Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2021 $29.99 / 9781773852294 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Early in the 1960s, that fabled age, two poets from the Maritimes encountered each other in Vancouver and planned…
Read more 1442 a carriage that were green
Overcoming the Neutral Zone Trap: Hockey’s Agents of Change by Cheryl A. MacDonald and Jonathon R.J. Edwards (editors) Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2021 $34.99 / 9781772125795 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * To anyone who watches the game with a critical eye, it should not come as news that the mainstream hockey establishment suffers from…
Read more 1441 Oh, the good new hockey game
The Final Voyage of the Valencia by Michael C. Neitzel Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 (first published 1995) $9.95 / 9781772033151 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * SS Valencia Remembered: More than 100 women and children died needlessly in this tragic event off Vancouver Island in 1906 It wasn’t as world stopping as the sinking of the…
Read more 1440 SS Valencia remembered
A Hero of Our Time by Naben Ruthnum Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland and Stewart), 2022 $22.00 / 9780771096501 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Take a popular poll on who best exemplifies a “hero of our time” and you might expect answers to include a Nobel peace prize laureate or a billionaire philanthropist. Pose the…
Read more 1439 The language of the pitch
Bill Holm (1925-2020) An obituary by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa * Think of a slow, gentle, deep-water earthquake. You may have missed it, but think how its waves reverberate for a long long time, repeatedly coming ashore and changing entire landscapes over time. That was American art historian Bill Holm. Bill Holm died in December 2020 at…
Read more 1438 Bill Holm (1925-2020)
A Long Way to Paradise: A New History of British Columbia Politics by Robert A.J. McDonald Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021 $39.95 / 9780774864718 Reviewed by Forrest Pass * British Columbia politics is — and has always been — wacky, right? No other province can boast a premier so eccentric that he legally changed his name…
Read more 1437 Liberals & populists in paradise
Lewis & Clark Reframed: Examining Ties to Cook, Vancouver and Mackenzie by David L. Nicandri, with a foreword by Clay S. Jenkinson Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 2020 $32.95 (US) / 9780874223804 Reviewed by Barry M. Gough * Long before the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with all its patronizing by Steven…
Read more 1436 The northern precedent
A Factotum in the Book Trade: A Memoir by Marius Kociejowski Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771964562 Reviewed by Michael Turner * Vancouver is a city rich in book stores. Could it be richer? Sure. But if it’s more books you want, or a greater variety of them, I’ve had great luck at the…
Read more 1435 Where the magic happens
Silver Rush: British Columbia’s Silvery Slocan, 1891-1900 by Peter J. Smith Ladysmith: Two Daughters Publications, 2020. Also available at many BC bookstores. $39.95 / 9781999045906 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Kootenay Mother Lode: Mammoth Tome offers Detailed Account of Mining History in BC’s Colourful Slocan District A book the size of the old Eaton’s Catalogue…
Read more 1434 Kootenay mother lode
Social media update by Richard Mackie * As most of you will know, we changed our name to The British Columbia Review from The Ormsby Review less than two months ago, on February 10th, and since then we’ve never been busier: we’ve posted 52 book reviews, two essays, one photo essay, and one docuseries review….
Read more 1433 Social media update