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
Mining Country: A History of Canada’s Mines and Miners by John Sandlos and Arn Keeling Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2021 $29.95 / 9781459413535 Reviewed by Robert G. McCandless * The introduction to this attractive book says Canada’s mining history is “curiously neglected,” then steps into that gap to present two hundred years of history….
Read more 1273 Ancient craft, long history
The French Baker’s War by Michael Whatling Vancouver: Mortal Coil Books, 2021 $21.99 / 9781777569921 Please order from your local independent bookstore. Also available in Canada through Amazon, Chapters-Indigo, KOBO, Smashwords, Ingram, LSC, Apple, Google, etc. Reviewed by Valerie Green * Michael Whatling has written a deeply moving Second World War story in The French…
Read more 1272 Pâtisserie to page-turner
Linda Rogers reviews two books: The Collected Poetry of Carol Shields by Carol Shields and Nora Foster Stovel (editor), with a foreword by Jan Zwicky Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021 $34.95 / 9780228008873 * Witchcraft Therapy by Mandi Em Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2021 $21.95 / 9781507215838 * Disclaimer: I do not…
Read more 1271 Kitchen windows & witches
Scofflaw by Garry Thomas Morse Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2021 $18.00 / 9781772141726 Reviewed by Danny Peart * Scofflaw has been described as a long poem, a playful exploration of Indigenous-Settler relations and globalized pressures. The long poem is divided into 14 poems, to give us a breather in between, in a paperback edition of 72…
Read more 1270 Scofflaw & the corn-fed media
Lost Kootenays: A History in Pictures by Greg Nesteroff and Eric Brighton Lunenburg, NS: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing, 2021 $29.95 / 9781772761641 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh Editor’s note: the full photo captions below are taken directly from Lost Kootenays. * Kootenay Home: A prize collection of historic images shares the Kootenays’ rugged past Growing up in…
Read more 1269 A choice Kootenay collection
Light on a Part of the Field by Kevin Holowack Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2021 $21.95 / 9781774390146 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * “We’re free,” Gayle announces midway through the first of eight sections in Edmontonian Kevin Holowack’s likeable debut novel. While Gayle’s speaking in earnest, her insight turns out to be naive and premature….
Read more 1268 Back in Salmon Arm
ESSAY: An “Odd-Man” at Government House, Victoria by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor * For most people, reading another person’s diary is a furtive and shameful act. For historians, however, studying the private journal of a long-dead person can be a valuable and exciting, if occasionally puzzling, endeavour. In 1870, Robert Colston was both the official government…
Read more 1267 Footman at Government House
Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity by Katherine Bowers and Kate Holland (editors) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021 $75.00 / 9781487508630 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Read The Brothers Karamazov, people say. It will teach you the meaning of life. The reviewer has heard this sort of thing before, and read Nietzsche and…
Read more 1266 Talking of Raskolnikovs
No Man’s Land by John Vigna Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2021 $22.95 / 9781551528663 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * I really don’t like violence in fiction — surely there is enough of it in the world around us — but I was drawn into John Vigna’s No Man’s Land because of the powerful beauty of…
Read more 1265 Broken from the beginning
Destination Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia: swimming holes, mountain peaks, waterfalls and more by Stephen Hui, with a foreword by Cecilia Point Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771645300 Reviewed by Ron Dart * I have before me a few first edition books (collectors’ items I assume) that were pioneering guide books in…
Read more 1264 Affirming the trekking tradition