Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) by Lorna Crozier Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland and Stewart), 2020 $29.95 / 9780771021183 Reviewed by Kathy Mezei * We know of famous, sometimes notorious, writing couples — Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, Simone Beauvoir and Jean-Paul…
Read more #979 A fiery & persevering love affair
Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman by Kate Braid Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860336 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Kate Braid’s new memoir, Hammer & Nail: Notes of a Journeywoman, provides glimpses of her life as a carpenter, primarily in the Lower Mainland, during the 1970s and 1980s. Through a series…
Read more #978 Crazy about lumber
A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene by Heesoon Bai, David Chang, and Charles Scott (editors) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $39.95 / 9780889777569 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Seldom has this reviewer encountered an essay collection that is so topical and as important as A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living…
Read more #977 Tips for the Anthropocene
The Bomb in the Wilderness: Photography and the Nuclear Era in Canada by John O’Brian Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9780774863889 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Seeing past the mushroom cloud: A deeply passionate study of how photography has shaped our view of the Bomb. * Years ago on a visit to China, an…
Read more #976 Seeing past the mushroom cloud
Consent by Annabel Lyon Toronto: Penguin Random House, 2020 $29.95 / 9780345811455 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that Consent, by Annabel Lyon, has been shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Winners will be announced…
Read more #975 Stable women and good wine
A Great Revolutionary Wave: Women and the Vote in British Columbia by Lara Campbell Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $27.95 / 9780774863223 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * Lara Campbell’s A Great Revolutionary Wave is Volume 4 in the UBC Press series Women’s Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy. Other volumes, by various authors, cover the suffrage…
Read more #974 Maternalists, suffragists, elitists
On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia by Jean Barman, edited by Margery Fee Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $34.95 / 9781550178968 Reviewed by Robert Hogg * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space,…
Read more #973 Barman’s BC fundamentals
Takaya: Lone Wolf by Cheryl Alexander, with a foreword by Carl Safina Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $30.00 / 9781771603737 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * When I was a child, I lived far more intensely with animals than I did with people. As the somewhat feral daughter of homesteading farmers, I found animals were far…
Read more #972 Sea wolf of Discovery Island
Show Me the Honey: Adventures of an Accidental Apiarist by Dave Doroghy, foreword by Rick Hansen Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771513227 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * Bees. Those black and yellow winged creatures buzzing about and smelling the roses; perhaps there is more to them than meets the eye. Do they hold the…
Read more #971 Aphorisms from an apiarist
The Weight of Blood by D.B. Carew Edmonton: New West Press, 2020 $18.95 / 9781988732923 Reviewed by Valerie Green * D.B. Carew’s The Weight of Blood, his second Chris Ryder mystery thriller, is a mixture of intriguing thrills and deep psychological insight. The main character, Chris Ryder, is a psychiatric social worker who is once…
Read more #970 Death on Highway 7
An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century by Nicholas Bradley (editor) Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $34.95 / 9780228003373 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * “Purdy,” I say. “Al Purdy. Have you heard of him?” “You mean like the chocolates?” She is probably joking. I am asking people I know outside…
Read more #969 Piquing interest in Purdy
Will you help The Ormsby Review? by Richard Mackie * A message from publisher Richard Mackie and the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society. Advisory Board: Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Cole Harris, Hugh Johnston, Patricia Roy, David Stouck, Graeme Wynn. Board of Directors: Ron Hatch, Eldon Yellowhorn, Imogene Lim, Byron Sheardown, LiLynn Wan, Trevor…
Read more #968 Ormsby Review fundraiser, 2020
Orphans of Empire by Grant Buday Victoria: TouchWood Editions (Brindle & Glass), 2020 $22.00 / 9781927366899 Reviewed by Laurie Ricou * Grant Buday’s exuberant novel contemplates an emerging British Columbia in the second half of the nineteenth century. As his title signals, Buday tests claims of possession and supremacy, in institutions, occupations, and personalities. In…
Read more #967 A great gathering of empire
The E.J. Hughes Book of Boats by Robert Amos Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 $22.00 / 9781771513364 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * For the British Columbia painter E.J. Hughes, who died in Duncan in 2007, the sea was never far away. Hughes wasn’t the only famous Canadian artist to include boats in his canvases — we’ll…
Read more #966 A torrent of collective memory
A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency by Seth Klein Toronto: ECW Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781770415454 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Seth Klein’s Good War is big and dense and not a fun read. But it’s a timely and important book. The more I knew I just had to finish it,…
Read more #965 A call to arms for the planet
A Story of Karma: Finding Love and Truth in the Lost Valley of the Himalaya by Michael Schauch Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771604673 A review essay by Trevor Carolan * Adventure travel goes through phases. In the Sixties you went off to Formentera in the Balearics or Corfu to find yourself. India…
Read more #964 Travelling the higher heights
The Essential Derk Wynand by Derk Wynand, selected by John Barton Erin, Ontario: The Porcupine’s Quill, 2020 $14.95 / 9780889844407 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * To be direct, simple, and yet also powerful in the evoking of strong, intimate emotion is one of the trickiest tasks for any mature poet but Wynand succeeds impressively, even…
Read more #963 If I came back as a flower
Yams Do Not Exist by Garry Thomas Morse Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2020 $19.00 / 9780888016775 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * As yams do exist, it’s clear right from the first page that Garry Thomas Morse’s novel falls into the category of experimental. The 33 chapters or short stories linked by the character of poet Farinata…
Read more #962 Experiments in Morse code
ESSAY: Remembering John Foster Paton Nash by Michael Sasges For Remembrance Day 2020, Michael Sasges presents the life of Nicola Valley rancher John Foster Paton Nash (1866-1916). John Nash’s name is on three Great War memorials. The first is at his school in England, King William’s College on the Isle of Man; the second is…
Read more #961 From Quilchena to Flanders
Tuesdays with Jack: A Grandmother’s Love and a Little Boy’s Brilliance by Pauline Daniel Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2018 $18.95 / 9781926991825 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Author Pauline Daniel, who likes to be known as the “how to follow your heart” coach, is the owner of Coaching Connections, a coaching service for women. She…
Read more #960 Baby boomer granny