305 Lost Buildings of Canada by Raymond Biesinger & Alex Bozikovic Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2022 $22.95 / 9781773102368 Reviewed by Martin Segger * What do we do about dead buildings? In our own time do they just sort of fade in community memory, like the guy in the office several cubicles down the hall…
Read more 1586 Touching down in the past
Sunny Days Inside and Other Stories by Caroline Adderson Toronto: House of Anansi (Groundwood) 2021 $16.99 / 9781773065724 Reviewed by Alison Acheson * Caroline Adderson’s work, whether for adults or children, crackles with vibrancy of language, and colour-filled image and tone. Always. Her recent and covid-inspired collection of connected short fiction for middle-grade readers —…
Read more 1585 Truisms of the quarantine
Damages: Selected Stories 1982-2012 by Keath Fraser, with an introduction by John Metcalf Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2021 $22.99 / 9781771962933 Reviewed by Bill Paul * Last year marked the publication of Keath Fraser’s highly anticipated collection of short stories, Damages: Selected Stories, 1982-2012, with an introduction by John Metcalf. The fiction collected in this volume…
Read more 1584 The mighty Fraser
Beneath the Coal Dust: Historical Journeys Through the Elk Valley and Crowsnest Pass by Wayne Norton Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $26.00 / 9781773860923 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Blowing the Dust Away: A historian digs out unique local stories that shed light on our national history Wayne Norton is a master of footnote history….
Read more 1583 Blowing the dust away
Fire on Headless Mountain by Iain Lawrence Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Margaret Ferguson Books), 2022 $23.99 / 978082344654 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Iain Lawrence’s novels for young readers fit into two sub-genres. In last year’s Deadman’s Castle — winner of the 2022 Silver Birch Fiction Award — as in his earlier swashbuckling trilogies The…
Read more 1582 The art of the possible
Tsqelmucwílc: The Kamloops Indian Residential School – Resistance and a Reckoning by Celia Haig-Brown, Garry Gottfriedson, Randy Fred, and the KIRS Survivors Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022 $22.95 / 9781551529059 Reviewed by Mary Ann Moore * Celia Haig-Brown’s Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School was the first book ever published in Canada about…
Read more 1581 Resistance and resilience
Because of Nothing at All by Paul Sunga Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2022 $24.95 / 9781773102467 Reviewed by W.H. New * On first glance, I thought that the title of Paul Sunga’s new novel, Because of Nothing at All, seemed awkward, but I soon changed my mind. Because the moment you start reading, it’s clear…
Read more 1580 Because matters
Art for Art’s Sake by Maria Tippett Cambridge, UK: Pegasus Publishers (Vanguard Press), 2022 $16.99 / 9781800164130 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * This nonet of stories is unified, as the title suggests, by a focus on visual art — unsurprising given that Tippett is a renowned art historian. The book’s title is sometimes straight up…
Read more 1579 Swindles, scandal, affluence
They Don’t Pay Me To Say No: my life in film and television props by Dean Goodine Victoria: FriesenPress Publishing, 2022 $24.99 / 9781039144316 Reviewed by Valerie Green * If you were asked what a “property master” does for a living, you would most likely assume the job was connected to real estate in some…
Read more 1578 Guns N’ Poses
Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison Toronto: Coach House Books, forthcoming February 2023 $22.95 / 9781552454466. To pre-order, click here Reviewed by Danial Neil * From the very beginning of this novel, there is a sense of something significant at work, an epic, perhaps, or something quite different, but equally triumphant. The table is set…
Read more 1577 Meet Hugh Delgarno
Vancouver, Howe Sound & the Sunshine Coast, Including Princess Louisa Inlet & Jedediah Island. New, Revised Fourth Edition. A Dreamspeaker Cruising Guide No. 3 by Anne Yeadon-Jones and Laurence Yeadon-Jones Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $49.95 / 9781550179859 Reviewed by Kenneth Campbell * To explore British Columbia’s intricate coastal waterways safely and enjoyably by boat…
Read more 1576 South coast cruising
My Indian Summer by Joseph Kakwinokanasum New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2022 $22.95 / 9781990160127 Reviewed by Brett Grubisic * With chapters that share titles with huge seventies radio hits by the likes of ABBA, Kenny Rogers, Nick Gilder, and Captain & Tennille, My Indian Summer appears to point readers in the direction of a wholly…
Read more 1575 The Red Rock chronicles
Meet Me in Cairo: Tales of Hitchin’ in the ’60s by Jim Kerr Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2022 $26.95 / 9781989467527 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Jim Kerr’s story of hitch hiking around North America, Europe, North Africa, and the Levant is truly a tale from another age. An era when one could count…
Read more 1574 From Kelowna to Casablanca
The Dating Plan by Sara Desai Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Berkley), 2021 $22.00 / 9780593100585 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * A software engineer and her brother’s childhood best friend, Daisy and Liam, have a complex history of attraction and heartbreak. When they run into each other after years spent pursuing their own lives and…
Read more 1573 A pick-me-up romance
Larder by Rhona McAdam Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $20.00 / 9781773860831 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Although Canada may be a very big country, its literary community is relatively small. And if you narrow that group further to the community of poets – or, further yet, to BC poets – as a reviewer (and…
Read more 1572 Food for the soul
Skookum Raven by Heather Haley Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $23.95 / 9781771713900 Reviewed by Peter Babiak * I always start my first-year literature class by writing “Poetry” on the whiteboard and asking students what words or phrases the word evokes in them. Typically, their responses are in line with the prevailing public opinion of poetry,…
Read more 1571 Stoking the word engine
Test Piece by Sheryda Warrener Toronto: Coach House Books, 2022 $22.95 / 9781552454497 Reviewed by Michael Turner * Back in the 1990s there existed a tension in Vancouver poetry between language-oriented writers, mostly those associated with the Kootenay School of Writing (KSW), and practitioners of spoken word, some of whom could be found sharing stages…
Read more 1570 A rare and necessary book
Minerva’s Owl: The Bereavement Phase of My Marriage by Carol Matthews Calgary: Freehand Books, 2021 (first published by Oolichan Books, 2017) $17.95 / 9780889823259 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Carol Matthews’ memoir Minerva’s Owl is not a happy book, but it is one full of hope and tenderness told with the author’s beautiful prose skills….
Read more 1569 Loss, wisdom, bereavement
Atacama by Carmen Rodríguez Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing (Roseway), 2021 $22.00 / 9781773634777 Reviewed by Alma Lee * In the north of Chile in the early 1920s, in a small mining town called Tacna, strikes are taking place in response to crushing control by the military and wealthy fascistic oligarchs. Atacama is a historical…
Read more 1568 Lucía and Manuel
What’s in it for Me? by LS Stone Nanoose Bay: Rebel Mountain Press, 2021 $13.95 / 9781999241681 Reviewed by Cassidy Lea * How many teens would like to spend their summer shovelling never-ending piles of elephant manure for free? What, no takers? Not even in a third world country? LS Stone’s main character, fifteen-year-old Nick…
Read more 1567 A Kenyan interlude