Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis by Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky Regina: University of Regina Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9780889775633 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * I am always a little leery about academics and philosophers writing about humans grappling with ideas about the non-human world. There’s always a distance there…
Read more #759 Rewilding the human mind
Fluevog: 50 Years of Unique Soles for Unique Souls by John Fluevog Vancouver: LifeTree Media, 2019 $69.99 / 9781928055532 Reviewed by Elena Siemens * Founded by John Fluevog in Vancouver in 1985, Fluevog Shoes now has 27 stores in North America and Europe. Remarkably, Fluevogs have strong aftermarket value, selling on high-end arts and crafts,…
Read more #758 Fine shoes from the Fluemarket
The Making of Hominology: A Science Whose Time has Come by Dmitri Bayanov in association with Christopher Murphy, with a foreword by David Hancock and Jeff Meldrum Surrey: Hancock House Publishing, 2019 $19.95 / 9780888390110 Reviewed by John Gellard * Have you ever seen a Sasquatch? Have you heard one, or smelled one? Have you ever seen…
Read more #757 Carry on, Sasquatch
We All Need to Eat by Alex Leslie Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781771664196 Reviewed by Vincent Ternida * The popular adage “all our cells are replaced every seven to ten years” led to the notion that as human beings, we become completely new people within that cycle. In the nine stories in Alex…
Read more #756 Lonesome in the City of Glass
Near Miss: Poems by Laura Matwichuk Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2019 $18.95 / 9780889713536 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Worrier that I am, opening to the first pages of Near Miss, I find myself right at home, greeted by a list of dates, from 1700 through to 2012. My paranoid side recognizes these immediately as dates…
Read more #755 Seismophobia and quicksilver
In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience by Helen Knott Regina: University of Regina Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9780889776449 Reviewed by Angie Tucker * Of Dane-Zaa (previously the Beaver people), Nehiyawak (Cree), and Métis ancestry, Helen Knott is a writer, poet, and Indigenous land rights activist from the Prophet River First Nation, situated between…
Read more #754 Hurt & healing at Prophet River
Gatecrasher by Susan Buis Picton, Ontario: Invisible Publishing, 2019 $17.95 / 9781988784267 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * We do not have to wait long with Susan Buis’s first volume, Gatecrasher, to realize that we are in the presence of a formidably original poetic talent. Take the first four lines of the first poem, “Arrowslit:” Quarry…
Read more #753 Pungency and plate glass
Gold Creeks and Ghost Towns in British Columbia by N.L. (Bill) Barlee Surrey: Hancock House, 2018. First published serially by Canada West Publications, 1970-72; first published in a single volume by Hancock, 1980, reprinted 1984, 1988, etc. $29.95 / 9780888399885 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * The mainland of British Columbia was created hurriedly as a…
Read more #752 Updating Bill Barlee
When Trains Ruled the Rockies: My Life at the Banff Railway Station by Terry Gainer Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 $22.00 / 9781771603010 Reviewed by Rod Deakin-Drown * It’s clear, I think, that Terry Gainer’s heart of hearts belongs to the Canadian Pacific Railway Station in Banff, Alberta — especially in his memories of the…
Read more #751 A boyhood at Banff Station
Hunger Moon by Traci Skuce Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2020 $19.95 / 9781988732800 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Of the thirteen stories in Hunger Moon, twelve first appeared separately in various publications, in somewhat different form. What that different form might have been is never revealed, only that they were “earlier versions,” a description bound to…
Read more #750 Thirteen tales of youthful angst
A Literary Biography of Robin Blaser: Mechanic of Splendor by Miriam Nichols New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 $39.99 (U.S.) / 9783030183264 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * The most astonishing section of this book comes when author Miriam Nichols describes Robin Blaser’s time as a teacher at Simon Fraser University. Perhaps it is because…
Read more #749 Robin Blaser in retrospect
Flying to Victory: Raymond Collishaw and the Western Desert Campaign, 1940-1941 by Mike Bechthold Norman, Oklahoma: Oklahoma University Press, 2017 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9780806155968 Reviewed by John Hinde * In his recent book, Flying to Victory: Raymond Collishaw and the Western Desert Campaign, 1940-1941, Mike Bechthold points out that “May 1941 marked a pivotal transitional…
Read more #748 Collishaw of the western desert
Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction by Britt Wray, with a foreword by George Church Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2019 $32.95 / 9781771644723 Review by Tom Koppel * Welcome to the brave new world of 21st century genetics and the quest by a few clusters of audacious scientists to bring back…
Read more #747 The mammoth in the room
The Fourth World: An Indian Reality by George Manuel and Michael Posluns (foreword by Vine Deloria Jr., afterword by Doreen Manuel, introduction by Glen Coulthard) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019 (first published by Collier Macmillan Canada, 1974) $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781517906061 Reviewed by Chris Arnett * When I taught in the First Nations studies…
Read more #746 An Indigenous advocate
Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5’s Secret Nazi Hunter by Robert Hutton London: St. Martin’s Press, 2019. Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books Reviewed by Julian Wake * When I first read Eric Roberts’ Salt Spring Saga, someone here on Salt Spring — my home — told me that he had been an important…
Read more #745 The secret spy of Salt Spring
An Earthling’s Guide to Outer Space: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Black Holes, Dwarf Planets, Aliens, and More by Bob McDonald Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2019 $29.99 / 9781982106850 Reviewed by John Hutchings * Victoria-based Bob McDonald is a Canadian icon of science reporting and a catalyst of informed popular discussion. In…
Read more #744 Bob McDonald leaves the planet
So You’re A Little Sad, So What? Nice Things to Say to Yourself on Bad Days and Other Essays by Alicia Tobin Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $17.95 / 9781551527871 Reviewed by Natalie Lang * A delicate manner must be found in comedy to deal with the sad and unfortunate events in our lives. Every…
Read more #743 The umbrella of comedy
ESSAY: Beyond the Great Western Peninsula by Richard Mackie * I received a doctorate in Canadian history at UBC in 1993 and taught as a sessional lecturer at three colleges or universities on Vancouver Island between 1994 and 2002.[1] To the uninitiated, Canadian history is divided in half, into “pre-Confederation” and “post-Confederation,” shortened to “pre-confed”…
Read more #742 Beyond the Great Western Peninsula
On This Patch of Grass: City Parks on Occupied Land by Daisy Couture, Sadie Couture, Selena Couture, & Matt Hern, with a foreword by Denise Ferreira da Silva, a forward! by Glen Coulthard, & illustrations by Erick Villagomez Black Point, NS, and Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood Publishing, 2018 $30.00 / 9781773630700 Reviewed by Marina La Salle…
Read more #740 Bocce Ball & colonialism
The Eyelash and the Monochrome by Tiziana La Melia Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772011975 * beholden: a poem as long as a river by Rita Wong and Fred Wah Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $24.95 / 9781772012118 Both books reviewed by Candace Fertile * …
Read more #739 Consider the image and the word