Stung by William Deverell Toronto: ECW Press, 2021 $32.95 / 9781770415959 Reviewed by Alma Lee * A new book by William Deverell is always something to look forward to. One only needs to read the back cover blurbs of Stung to know it’s going to be a page-turner. The list of people who have given…
Read more 1293 The good cop of Garibaldi Island
Word Problems: Poems by Ian Williams Toronto: Coach House Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781552454145 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * The title of Ian Williams’ latest poetry may be Word Problems, but it could just as easily have been World Problems. The poems tend to explore how language both prevents and allows communication and how difficult…
Read more 1292 Circling lines & opening spaces
INTERVIEW: Ellie Sawatzky with The Ormsby Review Ellie Sawatzky is a writer originally from Kenora, ON. A finalist for the 2019 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and the recipient of CV2’s 2017 Foster Poetry Prize, her work has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies such as Grain, The Fiddlehead, PRISM International, Best Canadian…
Read more 1291 Interview with Ellie Sawatzky
The Day She Died by S.M Freedman Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2021 $18.99 / 9781459747401 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * The Day She Died tells Eve’s story through the broken pieces of her life as she attempts to rebuild after a terrible head injury. The story weaves through amnesia, a strange marriage, and a terrible shift…
Read more 1290 It pays to pay attention
Satellite Love by Genki Ferguson Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland and Stewart), 2021 $24.95 / 9780771049873 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Lou Reed’s well-known rock song of 1972, “Satellite of love,” a deliciously oddball piece, contains as one of its very few lines, “Things like that drive me out of my mind.” Those familiar…
Read more 1289 Margins, outskirts, outliers
Design Like Nature: Biomimicry for a Healthy Planet by Megan Clendenan and Kim Ryall Woolcock Victoria: Orca Books, 2021 $19.95 / 9781459824645 Reviewed by Jocie Brooks * I opened this book while sitting at the kitchen table beside the head of a giant sunflower cut from my garden, full of seeds ready for harvest. The…
Read more 1288 Burrs and bullet trains
Just One More Drive: The true story of a stuttering homosexual and his race car by Robert James O’Brien New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2021 (2nd edition, first published 2017) $21.95 / 9781990160028 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * The “True Story of a Stuttering Homosexual and His Race Car,” Just One More Drive is Robert…
Read more 1287 Sure was gonna be rough
Island Eats: Signature Chefs’ Recipes from Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea by Dawn Postnikoff and Joanne Sasvari Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2021 $38.99 / 9781773271675 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * For those of you who share Federico Fellini’s sentiment that “life is a combination of magic and pasta” then this may be the book…
Read more 1286 They had me at gnocchi
Pandemic Spotlight: Canadian Doctors at the Front of the Covid-19 Fight by Ian Hanomansing Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2021 $22.95 / 9781771622929 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * For nearly two years we have existed in a time warp. When I see a reference to something which happened in April, and now it is October,…
Read more 1285 From anonymity to spotlight
Mute Swan: Poems for Maria Queen of the World by Lesley-Anne Evans Toronto: The St. Thomas Poetry Series, 2021 $20.00 / 9781928095071 Reviewed by Cole Klassen * Mary and the swan: feminine symbols too often detached from reality 34 years ago, Lesley-Anne Evans was excommunicated from her fundamentalist evangelical church for being engaged to a…
Read more 1284 A voice for the mute swan
Answer to Blue by Russell Thornton Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $18.95 / 9781550179675 Reviewed by Susan McCaslin * Russell Thornton’s Answer to Blue (Harbour Publishing, 2021) is a tour de force of finely crafted, thematically linked poems. Its evocative title is drawn from D.H. Lawrence’s poem, “Flowers and Men” where Lawrence concludes: “Tell me,…
Read more 1283 Talking a blue streak
Growing Dumb: An Autobiography of an English Education by Peter Quartermain Montreal and Vancouver: Zat-So Productions, 2021. Printed by Lulu.com. Also available in Vancouver through Massy Books and People’s Co-op Books $37.97 / 9780986759550 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * The most astonishing part of this book is what isn’t there. Oh, there is lots in…
Read more 1282 The reluctant academician
Restoring Democracy in an Age of Populists and Pestilence by Jonathan Manthorpe Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2020 $24.95 / 9781770865822 Reviewed by Eric W. Sager * We now have a large shelfful of books on the perilous state of democracy in the twenty-first century. These books are responding to an apparent crisis: the decline in the…
Read more 1281 Democracy in danger
The Fight for History: 75 Years of Forgetting, Remembering, and Remaking Canada’s Second World War by Tim Cook Toronto: Penguin Random House (Allen Lane), 2020 $25.00 / 9780735238374 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Editor’s note: On previous Remembrance Days at The Ormsby Review we’ve published moving and personal essays and reflections by Michael Sasges, Howard…
Read more 1280 To end all wars … again
The Environmentalist’s Dilemma: Promise and Peril in an Age of Climate Crisis by Arno Kopecky Toronto: ECW Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781770416093 Reviewed by Mike Starr * The Environmentalist’s Dilemma is not a typical environmental call to action. This book is more difficult to categorize; it is non-fiction, intensely personal, and autobiographical in parts, including…
Read more 1279 Many little acts of rebellion
The York Factory Express: Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay, 1826-1849 by Nancy Marguerite Anderson Vancouver: Ronsdale Books, 2021 $24.95 / 9781553805786 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek * The York Factory Express was an enterprise for transporting Hudson’s Bay Company records, correspondence, and external mail along a water-based route that spanned the continent. This aquatic highway linked…
Read more 1278 Across the continent before GPS
Last Tide by Andy Zuliani Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2021 $21.95 / 97817744390344 Reviewed by Laurie Ricou * In July 2015, the New Yorker published a lengthy documentary piece, meticulously envisioning “The Really Big One,” describing the certain obliteration of the Northwest Coast by an enormous earthquake, and the resulting tsunami. Soon after, Johanna Wagstaffe’s podcast…
Read more 1277 Pre-traumatic stress syndrome
Landings: Poems from Iceland by Harold Rhenisch Regina: Burton House, 2021 $20.00 / 9780994866967 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * I love Harold Rhenisch’s writing. I think it deserves far more attention than it gets. Harold and I have a connection, in a sense, because we both write from and about our beloved places in the…
Read more 1276 In any other country
One Man in His Time… A Memoir by Michael Audain Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 $36.95 / 9781771623001 Reviewed by Maria Tippett * No conventional memoir, One Man in his time. . . allows Michael Audain to roll out his life story in a randomly selected collection of “tales” and “anecdotes” that resemble fireside…
Read more 1275 The making of an art collector
Show Us Where You Live, Humpback by Beryl Young (text) and Sakika Kikuchi (illustrations) Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2021 $22.95 / 9781771645737 Reviewed by Elizabeth Bassett * Beside the bay, a mother and child stand hand-in-hand, the child pointing excitedly toward a kindred duo swimming in the water. “Show us where you live, Humpback,” the child…
Read more 1274 Human child, Humpback calf