man@the_airport: How Social Media Saved My Life. One Syrian’s Story by Hassan Al Kontar New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2021 $23.95 / 9781777010188 Reviewed by Daniel Gawthrop * Given the staggering human toll of the civil war in Syria since 2011 — half a million dead, more than six and a half million internally displaced, another…
Read more 1392 A one-man freedom convoy
The Grey Zone: A Jack Taggart Mystery by Don Easton Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2019 $11.99 / 9781459745308 Reviewed by Jolie Won-Hyang Cho and Corrie Shoemaker * The Grey Zone is a compelling police mystery written by former RCMP officer Don Easton. With twenty years of experience working undercover, including seven years with the RCMP Intelligence…
Read more 1391 Under different aliases
Black Canada: A History. Fiftieth Anniversary Edition by Robin W. Winks, with a foreword by George Elliott Clarke Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021 (second edition; first published by McGill-Queen’s University Press and Yale University Press, 1971) $32.95 / 9780773516328 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Black Canada: What I should have learned in high…
Read more 1390 Black Canada revisited
The Girl with Many Names by S. [Samantha] Knight Cambridge, UK: Pegasus Publishers, 2021 £8.99 (UK) $16.09 (Canadian) / 9781784659912 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * If I had to sum up this novel in one word, it would be potential. Samantha Knight’s The Girl with Many Names is a refreshing take on fairy tale retellings…
Read more 1389 Grimhilda’s journey
Civilizing the State: Reclaiming Politics for the Common Good by John Restakis Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2021 $19.99 / 9780865719439 Reviewed by Stan Markotich * The world as we know it is changing and we may be unable to return to anything familiar. With his thought-provoking Civilizing the State: Reclaiming Politics for the Common Good,…
Read more 1388 Restoration of the commons
Sea Salt, Lizards and Clay: My Ceramics from the Mediterranean to the Rockies by Santo Mignosa, with a foreword by Debra Sloan Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2021 $25.95 / 9781989467329 Reviewed by LiLynn Wan * Sea Salt, Lizards and Clay is both a memoir as well as an oeuvre of Santo Mignosa’s seven decades (and…
Read more 1387 Santo Mignosa & BC ceramics
Hell and Gone: A Wakeland Novel by Sam Wiebe Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $24.95 / 9781550179637 Reviewed by Alma Lee * Dave Wakeland and his partner Jeff Chen run a private investigation agency out of Chinatown in the heart of Vancouver. They are in the midst of expanding, and while Jeff is working at…
Read more 1386 Vancouver’s Ian Rankin
Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future: The Legacy of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples by Katherine A.H. Graham and David Newhouse (editors) Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2021 $31.95 / 9780887558689 Reviewed by Jim Miller * Harry Swain, the deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs when the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP]…
Read more 1385 A Royal Commission DOA
Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens New York: Macmillan (St. Martin’s Press), 2021. Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books $23.95 / 9781250133595 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna Spoiler warning: this review reveals important details of plot development — Ed. * New York Times Bestselling author Chevy Stevens returns after a four-year hiatus with her chilling seventh novel,…
Read more 1384 Terror at Cold Creek
After Elias by Eddy Boudel Tan Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781459746428 Reviewed by Miranda Marini * After reading, reviewing, and thoroughly enjoying Eddy Boudel Tan’s sophomore novel, The Rebellious Tide (2021), I immediately knew that I had to read his debut novel, After Elias (2020). It is, perhaps, a little unconventional to read…
Read more 1383 Wedding at the Ōmeyōcān Hotel
Black Bears in the Carrot Field by Linda K. Thompson Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781896949840 Reviewed by Wendy Donawa * Pygmy owls, rusted-out Fords, and thimble babies that never quite took: humour, nostalgia, and pathos in Black Bears in the Carrot Field Linda K. Thompson handles her poems’ pitch-perfect narrative…
Read more 1382 Humour, nostalgia, and pathos
Elderville by Roy Innes Pensacola, Florida: World Castle Publishing, 2022 $9.99 U.S. / 9781956788303 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Roy Innes used to be an eye surgeon. After 30 plus years of Big City private and academic practice, he retired to Gabriola Island from Vancouver and became a writer of thrillers. From 2005 to 2016…
Read more 1381 A terminal drive on Interstate 5
Forest Green by Kate Pullinger Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Anchor Canada), 2020 $19.95 / 9780385683067 Reviewed by Valerie Green * In her novel Forest Green, author Kate Pullinger has produced a powerful portrayal of a man at various stages of his life from childhood to old age. Her protagonist, Arthur Lunn, is a man…
Read more 1380 Trauma, work, love
…And So…That’s How it Happened: Recollections of Stanley-Barkerville, 1900-1975 by W.M. (Bill) Hong. Originally edited by J.R.S. Hambly, updated by Gordon Lee, edited by Gary and Eileen Seale Quesnel: Spartan Printing, 1978; fifth Printing January 2018 by Blueline Graphics, Coquitlam [price to follow] / 9780987365004 Available at Frog on the Bog Gifts, Wells, BC Review…
Read more 1379 Bill Hong & the Cariboo Mountains
All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2021 $22.00 / 9781990071027 Reviewed by Danial Neil * In his debut novel, Brian Thomas Isaac invites us to bear witness to the life of Eddie Toma. He deftly guides us, shocks us, and in the end informs us of the reality of growing…
Read more 1378 Growing up on Salmon River
In the Plague Year: Poems by W.H. New Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2021 $20.00 / 9781772442366 Reviewed by Gary Geddes * Early on in the first year of the pandemic, I received a letter from my friend Mark Mordue in Australia, to say he’d written a sequence of poems, only available digitally, about the…
Read more 1377 Going viral: plague’s the thing
The new British Columbia Review by Richard Mackie * As of today, February 10th 2022, The Ormsby Review will be known as The British Columbia Review. This change comes with the strong endorsement of the two Boards that have guided The Ormsby Review through the last several years. Named after Margaret Anchoretta Ormsby (1909-1996), a…
Read more 1376 The new British Columbia Review
Yearbook by Seth Rogen Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Viking), 2021 $35.00 / 9780735237995 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * So the editor asks me to review Seth Rogen’s book. Seth who? Do you mean Joe Rogan? No, Seth Rogen, the comedian, actor, voicer of Vancouver’s SkyTrain announcements. Oh, that Seth Rogen. And he’s the one…
Read more 1375 SkyTrain, sex shows, $50 jokes
Rez Rules: My Indictment of Canada’s and America’s Systemic Racism Against Indigenous Peoples by Chief Clarence Louie, with a foreword by Paul Martin Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2021 $34.95 / 9780771048333 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * When I first met Chief Clarence Louie at the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) office in…
Read more 1374 Chief Clarence Louie of Osoyoos
The Ventriloquist: Poems from the Womb of War by Gary Geddes Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781772442403 Reviewed by Art (Sean Arthur) Joyce * The Ventriloquist Speaks: Making Meaning as an Act of Cultural Defiance In this post-everything era, for a writer to seek meaning is practically a revolutionary act. Poet Gary…
Read more 1373 The ventriloquist speaks