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When wild creatures know you…

“‘The response we get from these untamed companions is a gentle reminder to relax, drop our troubles, jettison the ego, and find our own better nature’ advises Bumann. Another way into the world of animals is to come up with names for them, and after awhile individuals will begin to respond to their names, even if they are in a herd of animals. Say their name and they will come to you.” DC Reid reviews Eavesdropping on Animals: What We Can Learn From Wildlife Conversations, by George Bumann (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2024) $34 / 9781778400209

What lasts (and what doesn’t)

This memoir, a “whimsical look at the fall of the British Empire,” features anecdotes about the author’s assorted encounters with celebrities over the decades. —Valerie Green reviews Celebrities Who Have Met Me: A Child of the Lost Empire, by John D’Eathe (Vancouver: Adagio Media, 2024) $21.99 9781999433925

Non-typical memoir, non-typical family

“With Farrant’s impeccable talent for language, her story is beautifully detailed…This story will bring back memories to all who remember being a teenager in Greater Victoria in the 1960s.” Valerie Green reviews My Turquoise Years: A Memoir (Twentieth Anniversary Edition), by M.A.C. Farrant (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2024) $21.95 / 9781772016369

A tragedy of generational trauma

“It is the story of her survival expressed through her art, her poetry, and especially through the letters she writes to her grandson telling him stories of where his ancestors came from while hoping for a brighter future for him.” Valerie Green reviews Dear Arlo: letters to my grandson
by Olga Campbell (Vancouver: Jubaji Press, 2024) $21 / 9789981291130)

What’s missing?

“So perhaps it’s not surprising that there is no chapter on the Pacific Province. Oh, there is plenty here on the ‘West,’ but in Globe geography the West stopped at the Rockies.” Ron Verzuh reviews A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada, by John Ibbitson [ed.] (Toronto: Penguin Random House [Signal], 2024) $34 / 9780771006289

Fighting global warming

“At first, I questioned the notion that we could rely on technology to solve the problems caused by technology. It seemed a slippery slope. But McDonald explores ways that using current technology could lead us out of the impending darkness.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis with Today’s Technologies, by Bob McDonald (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2022) $23 / 9780735241961

From oat milk to tarot decks

A “wonderfully varied, worthwhile collection” that features 16 stories by new writers and literary heavyweights, BCS25 “is about as solid as short story collections get.”—Jessica Poon reviews Best Canadian Stories 2025, selected by Steven W. Beattie (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2024) $23.95 / 9781771966344

Ferry wake. Photo by PJ Reece of Gibsons, BC

Thank you, donors!

2024 donors to the British Columbia Review, a thank you from Richard Mackie.

Always with us

“The poor will always be with us. Reverend Al’s book challenges each of us on how we are going to respond. Do we, in Sonia Furstenau’s memorable phrase, continue to ‘drive our Lamborghinis through the tent city on Pandora Avenue?’ We can do better.” Richard Butler reviews Muddy Water: Stories from the Street, by Al Tysick (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers [Resource Publications], 2024) $25 (USD) / 9798385215010

Empowered!

Bold art and great design work together to elevate an already exuberant, well-told tale about Katie Sandwina, a historical strongwoman. —Ginny Ratsoy reviews Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything, by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Jen White) (Naperville: Sourcebooks Kids, 2024) $28.00 / 9781728267814

If you can keep it

“The enduring image provided by Manthorpe – one that bookends On Canadian Democracy – is the comparison of the state of Canada to that of the official home of its Prime Minister. The reader is brought to ponder the neglected crumbling façade of 24 Sussex, overgrown by weeds, infused with mould, and seemingly abandoned by its caretakers.” Matthew Downey reviews On Canadian Democracy by Jonathan Manthorpe (Toronto: Cormorant Press, 2024) $19.95 / 9781770867543

Wastelands

“In fewer than ninety pages, Dobie has produced an incredibly nuanced, eminently readable novel full of insights on being unhoused, a disappearing middle class, and the difficulties of romantic relationships, particularly when both parties have differing communication styles.” —Jessica Poon reviews The Tenants, by Pat Dobie (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2024) $18.00 / 9781772142297

The review he doesn’t need

“I felt, sometimes, as if I had agreed to listen to a storyteller and was met with impatience and anger, as if I, this white woman here reading, had disappointed him or frustrated him. I don’t even know if he would want my review of his memoir. Here it is, anyway.” Wendy Burton reviews Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir, by Danny Ramadan (Toronto: Penguin Canada [Viking], 2024) $26.95 / 9780735242210

What could have been

“Her career has left marks on her stories of her life from beginning to (almost) end. Reading the memories in a collection, I hear her academic voice: wry, witty, reticent.” Wendy Burton reviews A Life in Pieces, by Jo-Ann Wallace (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771872560

Queer cinema lessons from 1919

“This tightly-written, 131-page extended essay contains 11 pages of references well-mined from film theory and queer theory in both English and German. Its three chapters cover the film’s production, including the melodrama between genre cinema and public health discourse…” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others) by Ervin Malakaj (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) $19.95 / 9780228018681

Tested solutions from climate optimist

“Geselbracht, an environmental journalist and lawyer from Nanaimo who has written for Canadian Geographic and The Globe and Mail, has no time for climate denialism. Instead, he’s out to prove that climate action around the globe is making a difference; that there’s been progress in the effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and slow the planet’s warming.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Climate Hope: Stories of Action in an Age of Global Crisis, by David Geselbracht (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771624268

Way beyond Whistler wanders

“Whistler Hiking is divided into three main sections with, understandably so, the front stage given to a detailed, visual, and evocative approach to the shorter, medium, and longer treks in the Whistler area.” Ron Dart reviews Whistler Hiking by Marc Bourdon (Squamish: Quickdraw Publications, 2024) $34.95

A war on knowledge

“Wind sets out the many ways that Israeli institutions of higher education are enlisted in Israel’s settler-colonial project. Some are strategically situated to anchor Israeli territorial expansion, often standing literally on the sites of razed Palestinian villages.” Larry Hannant reviews Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, by Maya Wind (London: Verso, 2024) $39.95 / 9781804291740

‘Cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation’

“Throughout this book, the reader is taught that Yah’guudang (respect) should guide all aspects of daily living, and as the book progresses, we see more specifically how this practice should be carried out while one is out on the land for harvesting and when materials are being processed for basketry.” Sharon Fortney reviews From A Square to A Circle: Haida Basketry by Ilskyalas, Delores Churchill (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $34.95 / 9781990776854

Reviewer picks 2024 (pt. 2)

BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stuck with them. “Eclectic” is our word of the year.

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