Endlings: A Collection of Poems about Extinct Animals by Joanna Lilley Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2020 $18.00 / 9780888016898 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Mary Anning is a name we should recognize, though I’m sure most people don’t. She was the first person (often not credited) to discover ichthyosaur fossils, and did so when she was…
Read more #895 Eulogy for vanished creatures
Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest by Collin Varner Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $22.95 / 9781772033236 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * A book authored by British Columbia horticulturist Collin Varner is always worthwhile. Varner’s latest publication, Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and…
Read more #894 Varner’s wild foods & cures
The BC Wine Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes & Stories from Wineries Across British Columbia by Jennifer Schell, foreword by John Schreiner Toronto: Penguin Random House (Appetite by Random House), 2020 $35.00 / 9780525610366 Reviewed by Harvey De Roo * There’s something special about wine country and its people, and what better guide than Jennifer Schell, former editor…
Read more #893 Schell’s wine and food tour
The Certainties by Aislinn Hunter Toronto: Penguin Random House (Knopf Canada), 2020 $29.95 / 9780735276871 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that The Certainties, by by Aislinn Hunter, has been shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in the 2021 BC and Yukon Book…
Read more #892 The potency of the mundane
Here the Dark by David Bergen Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2020 $21.99 / 9781771963213 Reviewed by William New * Editor’s note: David Bergen’s Here the Dark is one of 11 books in the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2020 longlist, announced on September 8, 2020. * Subtitled “a novella and stories,” David Bergen’s Here the Dark brings together…
Read more #891 Dealing with the dark
ESSAY: Unique ways of prototyping by Thomas Girard * Editor’s note: When asked to define “prototyping” as used in this essay, Thomas Girard replied: When I talk about “prototyping” here, I’m talking about it in part as I’ve learnt it in traditional design education, at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, years ago. In…
Read more #890 Podiums, prototypes, and Plato
All That Belongs by Dora Dueck Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2019 $19.00 / 9780888016812 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Dora Dueck’s book All That Belongs published by Turnstone Press in 2019 is set in Alberta and Manitoba. It tells the story of Catherine, a retired archivist who, on her last day of work, found memories from…
Read more #889 Mennonite roots and shrubs
Close to the Bone by Dorothy Kirk Victoria: Vargas Publishing, 2020 $14.00 / 9781777011802 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * “I have only felt regret and longing,” writes Dorothy Kirk, “for things I never tried, or words I never spoke.” Kirk’s Close to the Bone is an account of her first year of wilderness living on…
Read more #888 Roughing it on Vargas Island
Cataline: Uncovering the Life of BC’s Legendary Packer by Susan Smith-Josephy and Irene Bjerky Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860244 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * This is a book about the making of British Columbia by the simple hard work of carrying industrial material, strapped to the backs of horses and mules, across…
Read more #887 A legend of British Columbia
Lonely Planet Pocket Vancouver: Top Sights, Local Experiences by John Lee London: Carlton, 2020 (3rd edition) (first published 2009) $13.99 (U.S.) / 9781787017573 Reviewed by Randolph Eustace-Walden * On June 24th of this year, the government of British Columbia lifted many of the COVID-19 restrictions within the province. This decision signalled the beginning of Phase…
Read more #886 Lonely Planet Pocket Vancouver
Rue Des Rosiers by Rhea Tregebov Regina: Coteau Books, 2019 Distributed by and available from Wolsak and Wynn $24.95 / 9781550506990 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * On March 12, 2020, Rhea Tregebov’s Rue Des Rosiers was one of five books shortlisted for the 2020 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Winners…
Read more #885 Crossing Rue Des Rosiers
Sonnet’s Shakespeare by Sonnet L’Abbé Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2019 $21.00 / 9780771073090 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * On March 12, 2020, Sonnet’s Shakespeare, by Sonnet L’Abbé, was one of five books shortlisted for the 2020 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Winners will be announced on September…
Read more #884 Decolonizing Shakespeare
Superabundantly Alive; Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine by Susan McCaslin and J.S. Porter Kelowna: Wood Lake Books, 2018 $19.96 / 9781773430355 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Does everyone have their own Thomas Merton? The quiet charisma of the mid-20th-century hermit/ Christian apologist / writer / activist speaks directly and personally to each of his…
Read more #883 Everyone’s Thomas Merton
Forthcoming Books from BC Publishers, Fall 2020 Compiled by Susan Safyan, BA, MLS * Links will take you to the publisher’s website. Is YOUR book missing? Please let us know, and we’ll add it. We strive to include in our bibliography all books that will be published in fall 2020 by BC authors, published by…
Read more #882 Bibliography of BC Books Fall 2020
the broken boat: new poems by daniela elza Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2020 $19.95 / 9781896949796 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * Anyone who has endured the break-up of a marriage or indeed any close long-term relationship will be able to empathize with the settings and themes of these poems. Readers, who might shy…
Read more #881 A gentle terrier of language
Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in Science, Art and History by Martha Black, Lorne Hammond, and Gavin Hanke (editors), with Nikki Sanchez Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2020 $29.95 / 9780772677686 Reviewed by Daniel Francis * During the summer of 2018 an orca named Tahlequah, a member of J pod of the southern resident…
Read more #880 Celebrate the orca
Death of a Doppelganger by Rod Deakin-Drown New Westminster: Silverbow Publishing, 2019 $23.95 / 9781774030714 Reviewed by Ben Matthews * Rod Deakin-Drown’s Death of a Doppelganger is a classic noir mystery set in modern-day Vancouver. It begins with a murder that happens just before we meet the protagonist, Count Jason Kereso. Kereso is a private…
Read more #879 Murder on the Sun Tower
Rolling Thunder by A.J. Devlin Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2020 $18.95 / 9781988732862 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * In 2018 A.J. Devlin’s first novel, Cobra Clutch, won the Best First Canadian Crime Novel at the 2019 Arthur Ellis Awards in Toronto. The mystery novel was jam-packed with pro wrestlers and scuzzy bikers. “Hammerhead” Jed Ounstead, night…
Read more #878 The return of Hammerhead Jed
You Suck, Sir: Chronicles of a High School English Teacher and the Students who Schooled Him by Paul Bae Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press (Robin’s Egg Books), 2020 $19.95 / 9781551528076 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn * A comedian, podcaster, writer, and actor, Paul Bae also taught English at Vancouver’s largest public school. He co-created and co-wrote…
Read more #877 A primer for modern teachers
MEMOIR: Writing My Father by Meg Stainsby * After twenty years of carting it around unopened, I unpacked a stale cardboard box stuffed with crackly, yellowed sheets of typescript — some still clinging to their carbons, all faint and fusty — and began a solitary trek across a forty-year expanse of written terrain that my…
Read more #876 Stainsby’s carbons and files