Diary of a Pandemic Year by Art (Sean Arthur) Joyce New Denver: Chameleon Fire Editions, 2021 $20.00 / 9780995240162 Reviewed by Roger C. Lewis * The day after Covid, surgical masks lay dead in the gutters, so many leaves riffled into history by the collective sighs of billions – breathe O breathe free at last!…
Read more 1173 Dandelions through asphalt
Pinkerton’s and the Hunt for Simon Gunanoot: Double Murder, Secret Agents and an Elusive Outlaw by Geoff Mynett Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9781773860503 Reviewed by Tyler McCreary * There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the story of the Gitxsan outlaw Simon Gunanoot. Accused of killing two mixed-race men, Alex…
Read more 1172 Gunanoot at large, 1906-1919
The Essential Elizabeth Brewster by Ingrid Ruthig (editor) Erin, ON: The Porcupine’s Quill, 2021 $14.95 / 9780889848788 Reviewed by Susan McCaslin * Ingrid Ruthig’s The Essential Elizabeth Brewster, a new volume in Porcupine Quill’s Essential Poets Series, is a gathering of some of the best and most representative selections from Canadian modernist poet Elizabeth Brewster…
Read more 1171 Elizabeth Brewster: A vital ghost
Murder 101 by Richard Boyer Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $16.99 / 9781525584527 Reviewed by Robin Fisher * I have great admiration for those of my academic colleagues who, after a career of doing empirical work, then change gears and write successful fiction. The President to whom I reported at Mount Royal University, David Marshall, has in…
Read more 1170 A master class in murder
Radical Acts of Love: How we find hope at the end of life by Janie Brown Toronto: Penguin Random House (Anchor Canada), 2021 $22.00 / 9780385694759 Reviewed by Lee Reid * The Cree woman invites her friend to share a covenant: “There comes a time, she said, when the elders must release those stories into…
Read more 1169 Dying with love and compassion
Fishing for Birds by Linda Quennec Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2019 $22.95 / 9781771336130 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * Fishing for Birds tells the stories of three women who live on islands: Kate, a widow in her thirties, has settled in a small cabin on the fictional BC Gulf Island of Britannia; Kate’s mother, Nora, is…
Read more 1168 Islands are for overcoming
The Ku Klux Klan in Canada by Allan Bartley Halifax, NS: Formac Publishing, 2020 $24.95 / 9781459506138 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * In the mid-1920s Canada was a hotbed for KKK recruiters . . . and they’re still here. For almost a century, the racist and often violent Ku Klux Klan has found a home…
Read more 1167 Hate mongering in Canada
Little Resilience: The Ryerson Poetry Chap-Books by Eli MacLaren Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $37.95 / 9780228003496 Reviewed by Carole Gerson * We have long needed this book! For 35 years, from 1925 to 1960, Canadian poets writing in English were sustained by the Ryerson Poetry Chap-Book series, which issued some 200 booklets…
Read more 1166 Canadian poetry: the untold story
Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin by Marion McKinnon Crook Victoria: Heritage House, 2021 $22.95 / 9781772033625 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Delivering healthcare throughout the geographical vastness of B.C. would seem impossible — and yet health professionals and, yes, governments, have been doing just that for generations, since 1869 with the…
Read more 1165 Cariboo truth and invention
Barely Functional Adult: It’ll All Make Sense Eventually by Meichi Ng Toronto, HarperCollins Canada (Harper Perennial), 2020 $21.99 / 9780062945594 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Barely Functional Adult by Meichi Ng is a humorous, insightful salve most millennials will gleefully devour. Rest assured, its entertainment value is by no means restricted by age demographic. As…
Read more 1164 Waiting for life to begin
Ten steps back to the garden: a poetic guide to recovery by Linda Rogers * A blooming branch has emerged from the dark age of lockdown for review, and as we cut the weeds growing around the stone steps into the garden, we are left to consider the moon phases we have endured, the brutal…
Read more 1163 Eleven poets from a plague year
Six Weeks to Live by Catherine McKenzie Toronto: Simon and Schuster Canada (Atria Books), 2021 $27.00 / 9781982159214 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Although Six Weeks to Live begins on a very sombre note and appears to be a book about dealing with imminent death, author Catherine McKenzie soon turns her story into a psychological…
Read more 1162 Six of one, three of another
Heart Work by Susan McCaslin Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771714020 Reviewed by Jessica Walters * While standing in an eco-forest located just outside of Fort Langley, I read one of McCaslin’s poems. Even on a hot day, the Blaauw Eco Forest was cool under a layered canopy of hemlock, western red cedars and…
Read more 1161 If poetry could save the planet
Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty by R. Bruce Macdonald Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781550179286 Reviewed by Hector Williams * Nearly six decades ago I worked in Canada’s North with various government agencies like the CBC Northern…
Read more 1160 Canadian arctic guardians
Inequality in Canada: The History and Politics of an Idea by Eric W. Sager Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021 $37.95 / 9780228005803 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Political economists from the 1770s to the 21st century analyze Canadian inequality and ponder how to address it. Most of us know Stephen Leacock as Canada’s foremost humorist…
Read more 1159 Fighting Canadian inequality
The Four-Faced Liar: Short Stories and Flash Fiction by P.W. Bridgman Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $25.95 / 9781771714143 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Sometimes you read a story and say, Wait, that’s my story: how did the author know about that? The $900,000 windfall, the Vancouver house-buying, the wandering spouse. Has he been spying on…
Read more 1158 Beckon the distant and strange
I will be more myself in the next world by Matsuki Masutani Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781896949871 Reviewed by Ken Madsen * Full disclosure: I know Matsuki Matsutani. I met him almost a decade ago, after my wife Wendy and I moved south from the Yukon to the same small…
Read more 1157 Poetry for the wider world
INTERVIEW: Sarah Mintz with Nathaniel G. Moore Sarah Mintz grew up in Greenwood (BC), Goose Bay, Victoria, Courtenay, Vancouver, Montreal, and Moose Jaw and now calls Victoria home. She’s worked at video stores, thrift stores, pet stores, managed buildings, shovelled snow, and answered the phone. As a recent graduate of the English M.A program at…
Read more 1156 A good deal of handwringing
Under the Midnight Sun: Journey with the Sahtu Dene by Mary-Anne Neal Victoria: Reciprocity Publishing, 2021 $21.95 / 9781928114338 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Under the Midnight Sun is a beautiful memoir of a spiritual journey written by Victoria educator Mary-Anne Neal. It tells the story of an adventure she undertook as a teenager to…
Read more 1155 Journeys with the Sahtu Dene
All That Monk Business by Barry Kennedy Surrey: Now Or Never Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781989689202 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * A novel can’t be everything to everyone, but some novels can be many things to many people. All That Monk Business, by actor, comedian, and writer Barry Kennedy, is one of these. It’s not…
Read more 1154 The elusive shape of life