Decision Point: An Impossible Choice by Donalda Reid Vancouver: Off the Mountain Publishing, 2019 [price to come] / 9780978472412 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * We’re often warned that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. This sentiment motivates Donalda Reid’s newest novel, Decision Point. Reid is the author of several books,…
Read more #850 Choosing the safest option
Becoming Coastal: 25 Years of Exploration and Discovery of the British Columbia Coast by Paddle, Oar and Sail by Alex Zimmerman Cocoa Beach, Florida: Seaworthy Publications, 2020 $34.95 / 9781948494274 Distributed by Red Toque Books and available at independent bookstores Reviewed by Brian Harvey * Coastlines are elemental. They offer both access and exit, entry…
Read more #849 The BC coast by wooden boat
Ginger: The Life and Death of Albert Goodwin by Susan Mayse Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020; first published by Harbour, 1990 $28.95 / 9781550170184 Reviewed by Dan Hinman-Smith * We’re all working men here, And we drink Lucky Beer, Do we hold a grudge? You bet. — Gordon Carter, “The Day They Shot Ginger Down”…
Read more #848 The ballad of Ginger Goodwin
ESSAY: The Will to Pleasure: Hedonism, Ethics, and Aesthetics from the Ancient World to the Present Age by Eryn Holbrook * When Christianity and Marxism end their shared reign, we will need visions of new possibilities. There is always one fixed point: the body. Not a body of Platonic ideas, nor a body cut in…
Read more #847 Hedonism, pleasure, ethics
The Ballad of Samuel Hewitt by Nick Tooke Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 2020 $19.95 / 9780889844278 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Add Nick Tooke’s The Ballad of Samuel Hewitt to what I am calling the BC Interior anti-Western (as in Old Hollywood Western movie) novel with roaming “heroes” emanating from the hardscrabble and hostile interior…
Read more #846 Ashcroft drought and hunger
The Best of the Great Trail, Volume 2: Northern Ontario to British Columbia on the Trans Canada Trail by Michael Haynes Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2019 $29.95 / 9781773100326 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek * As a trail builder and avid hiker, I was very impressed by Michael Haynes’s Volume 2 of The Best of the…
Read more #845 BC portion Trans Canada Trail
Assembling Unity: Indigenous Politics, Gender, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs by Sarah A. Nickel Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $32.95 / 9780774837996 Reviewed by Chelsea Horton * Assembling Unity is an important book. The first monograph by Tk’emlupsemc, French Canadian, and Ukrainian scholar Sarah Nickel, this historical case study of the Union of BC…
Read more #844 A pan-Indigenous enterprise
Translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories and One Half Truth by Anosh Irani Toronto: Penguin Random House (Knopf Canada), 2019 $24.95 / 9780735278523 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Choosing a title for a book of fiction is an art. Think: The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters. Browsers of bookshelves are likely to…
Read more #843 Stories of a desperate poignancy
All My Politics are Poetry by Larry Hannant Victoria: Yalla Press, 2019 $16.95 / 9791999289300 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * Throughout history, poetry has been a marker for monumental events by lyrically capturing emotional and provocative aspects of life, change, disruption, and chaos. It addresses difficult and challenging issues, making pain palatable enough for readers…
Read more #842 Poetry for a better tomorrow
Stagecoach North: A History of Barnard’s Express by Ken Mather Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $22.95 / 9781772033090 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * Ken Mather’s chronicle of Barnard’s Express, the company that carried freight and passengers between coastal and interior British Columbia during the gold rush years of the mid to late 19th century, connects the…
Read more #841 Frank Barnard’s coach & mail
Tom’s Gray Creek: A Kootenay Lake Memoir. Part I: Early Years to 1945 by Tom Lymbery Gray Creek: Gray Creek Publishing, 2013 $29.95 / 9780992152109 * Tom’s Gray Creek: A Kootenay Lake Memoir. Part II: Years of Change, 1946 to 1980 by Tom Lymbery with Frances Roback Gray Creek: Gray Creek Publishing, 2016 $29.95 /…
Read more #840 Tom’s Kootenay Lake memories
In the Shadow of Elephants: The life of Jimmie Peever, One-armed Goalie and Baseball Player and a Herd of Unruly Elephants by Keith G. Powell Cranbrook: Wild Horse Creek Press, 2019 $21.95 / 9780981214641 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Meet Jimmie Peever. A novel about a one-armed goalie and baseball pitcher doubles as an anecdotal…
Read more #839 Wild elephants couldn’t drag me…
Lost Lagoon / lost in thought: prose poems by Betsy Warland Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $20.00 / 9781773860251 Reviewed by Adrienne Drobnies * As I write this now into a third month of being at home during the Covid-19 pandemic, I think what could be more agreeable than to go for a stroll around…
Read more #838 Finding hope in Lost Lagoon
My Favourite Crime: Essays and Journalism from Around the World by Deni Ellis Béchard Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $24.95 / 9781772012323 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Deni Béchard’s My Favourite Crime is a powerful collection of writing. The book’s cover blurb, not something I usually put much faith in, contains much truth: this really is…
Read more #837 The global frame of Deni Béchard
Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow by Catherine B. Clement, translated by Winnie L. Cheung Vancouver: Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, 2020 $70.00 / 9780993659331 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * Chinatown’s photographer was not just for Chinese. This substantial coffee-table book of photographs tells not one, but…
Read more #836 Yucho Chow’s wide & diverse lens
My yt mama by Mercedes Eng Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2020 $16.95 / 9781772012552 Reviewed by Grace Lau * As I read through Mercedes Eng’s poetry collection, my yt mama, I found myself in a liminal space that is rarely explored in the stories in mainstream culture. How many stories about “yt mamas” and Chinese fathers do…
Read more #835 Songs for crossover Mamas
The Guilt Factor: A personal exploration with assistance from Antigone by Al Jones * Experiencing and living with guilt, whether small or big, is part of the human experience, and as I look back on my life I ask myself how guilt has affected me. At times, I am perplexed by how guilt can be…
Read more #834 Lessons from my brother’s room
Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds by Yvonne Blomer (editor) Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860220 Reviewed by John Swanson * Sweet Water is an important and timely book, about fresh water in all its many forms — lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks and streams, wetlands, marshes, and ground water, the water under the…
Read more #833 A fresh water poetry anthology
Itineraries: An Intellectual Odyssey by Philip Resnick Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781553806028 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Philip Resnick is an old-fashioned Canadian nationalist. I don’t mean harking back to the National Policy of Sir John A. Not that old-fashioned. More the nationalism of the 1970s, the Waffle Movement in the NDP, the…
Read more #832 Marx, Malthus, and Meech Lake
Robert Service: The True Adventures of Yukon’s Favourite Bard by Elle Andra-Warner Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 (first published as Robert Service: A Great Canadian Poet’s Romance with the North, Altitude Publishing, 2004) $9.95 / 9781772033311 Reviewed by William R. Morrison * As an experiment in the lasting influence of poetry in this country, I thought…
Read more #831 Don’t mention the Yukon Poet