Philip Roth, A Counterlife by Ira Nadel Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2021 $29.95 (U.S.) / 9780199846108 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * In a recent issue of the London Review of Books, James Wolcott gives us some background on an unusual event in publishing: the simultaneous appearance of two major biographies of an…
Read more 1263 Ira Nadel: triumph of the also-ran
Idiolect by P.W. Bridgman Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771714280 Reviewed by Philip Resnick * I have largely refrained from doing book reviews since my retirement from UBC, having paid my dues in this regard on more than one occasion during my years in academia. If I decided to make an exception in this…
Read more 1262 Poetry from a special place
Five Ways to Disappear by R.M. Greenaway (Book 6 in the BC Blues Crime Series) Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2021 $19.99 / 9781459741560 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * As one predisposed to mysteries on the cosy end of the genre spectrum (particularly during a seemingly interminable plague) I shrunk from the first chapter of this police…
Read more 1261 BC blues plague reading
Charity by Keath Fraser Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2021 $17.95 / 9781771963800 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Who would express grief at a beloved’s death by simply saying, “and oh/ The difference to me?” William Wordsworth would, and does, in a short, tragic ballad. Is it just coincidence that Vancouver author Keath Fraser concludes his novella…
Read more 1260 A subtle sequence of allusions
Something Drastic by Luke Inglis Surrey: Now or Never Publishing, 2020 $19.95 / 9781989689080 Reviewed by Heather Graham * In terms of action, Something Drastic is a novel that will not disappoint: six murders, five deaths by misadventure, eco-terrorism, wolf attacks, encounters with Sasquatch. Then there’s the biggest action of all: the apocalypse, the end…
Read more 1259 Hell-bent on self-destruction
Permanent Tourists by Genni Gunn Winnipeg: Signature Editions, 2020 $19.95 / 9781773240800 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * The final page of Permanent Tourists closes with an “ocean of ghosts,” an image simultaneously elusive and evocative. This exploration of emotion without the assumption of clear resolution underlines the entirety of Genni Gunn’s third short story collection…
Read more 1258 Tourists in our own lives
Exporting Virtue? China’s International Human Rights Activism in the Age of Xi Zinping by Pitman B. Potter Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021 $32.95 / 9780774865562 Reviewed by Larry Hannant * With the resolution of the three-year saga of the 3 Ms (the two Michaels and Meng), British Columbians might be thinking they’ll get a break from…
Read more 1257 China’s human rights orthodoxies
Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo by Sue Goyette (editor) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2021 $24.95 / 9780889778016 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * They say our first toy is language, Joyce’s baby tuckoo arranging the universe in a sound poem, later a song, a novel. We are not only amused but also…
Read more 1256 Poems of innocence & endurance
Queen Victoria: This Thorny Crown by Michael Ledger-Lomas Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. (Spiritual Lives Series). $40.00 (U.S.) / 9780198753551 Reviewed by Simon Devereaux * This compact, densely written volume fills a surprisingly large gap in the vast biographical literature on Queen Victoria. The Victorian age is well-known for its public religiosity. It was manifest…
Read more 1255 Victoria’s religion of the heart
INTERVIEW: Matt Rader with The Ormsby Review Matt Rader is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Visual Inspection (2019) — reviewed previously by Paul Falardeau –– as well as a collection of stories and a book of non-fiction. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) and lives in Kelowna….
Read more 1254 Interview with Matt Rader
Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu New York: First Second Books (Macmillan), 2021. Distributed by Raincoast Books. Please order from your local independent bookstore $24.99 (U.S.) / 9781626723566 Reviewed by Carol Matthews * Vancouver poet and novelist Hiromi-Goto’s graphic novel Shadow Life, brilliantly illustrated by Ann Xu, is a vollendungsroman, a story…
Read more 1253 Running away in old age
Joseph William McKay: A Métis Business Leader in Colonial British Columbia by Greg N. Fraser Victoria: Heritage House, 2021 $22.95 / 9781772033403 Reviewed by John R. Hinde * By coincidence, Greg N. Fraser’s biography, Joseph William McKay: A Métis Business Leader in Colonial British Columbia, arrived on my desk the same day that the Tk’emlups…
Read more 1252 J.W. McKay & the Métis mystery
On this day five years ago, October 17, 2016, The Ormsby Review published its first book review. The book was Mark Leiren-Young’s The Killer Whale Who Changed the World, the publisher was Greystone Books with the David Suzuki Institute, and the reviewer was Daniel Francis. Ormsby had started six weeks before, on September 2nd, when —…
Read more 1251 Five years, what a surprise!
Radium Girl by Sofi Papamarko Hamilton, ON: Wolsak & Wynn, 2021 $20.00 / 9781989496268 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * Sofi Papamarko’s Radium Girl is a striking collection of stories that will widen your perspective and haunt your thoughts. Every story contains rich characters that demand your attention and make you listen to them. The loneliness…
Read more 1250 Ghost girls & glow-in-the-dark
Victoria Then & Now: Postcards from the Past by Nick Russell Victoria: Old Goat Press, 2021 (new edition; first published 2014). Contact russcomm@telus.net $18.95 / 9780987788917 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Capital Memories: Old postcards and modern-day images of Victoria sketch social and architectural history When I was sowing my wild oats I would send…
Read more 1249 Capital memories
This Is My Real Name: A Stripper’s Memoir by Cid V. Brunet Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2021 $22.95 / 9781551528588 Reviewed by Linda Rogers * Strippers never have real names, because no one expects to remember them, the “Boys” of the Raj, the dogs of infamy, all of them othered by the entitled children of…
Read more 1248 A master’s course in endurance
The Day the World Stops Shopping: How ending consumerism saves the environment and ourselves by J.B. MacKinnon Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Vintage Canada), 2021 $32.95 / 9780735275539 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * On October 14, 2021, The Day the World Stops Shopping: How ending consumerism saves the environment and ourselves, by J.B. MacKinnon, reviewed here…
Read more 1247 The less, the merrier
The Professor and the Plumber: Conversations About Equality and Inequality by Eric W. Sager, with illustrations by Hanna Melin Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $22.99 / 9781039105553 Reviewed by Jak King * Many would argue that inequality is a defining characteristic of life in the early 2000s. More specifically — since some form of inequality has been…
Read more 1246 Two cousins meet for dinner
handwringers by Sarah Mintz Regina: Radiant Press, 2021 $22.00 / 9781989274477 Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic * A slim volume with a quirky but striking cover, handwringers resists categorization. For example, is Sarah Mintz, its Victoria-based author, writing fiction, non-fiction, or both? Or, is she intending to refuse these categories as irrelevant or unnecessary? “A…
Read more 1245 Running riot with Sarah Mintz
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Three: Letters, 1887 by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 3 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada. Earlier in 2021 we published the Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2….
Read more 1244 Golden City to Tobacco Plains