Little Fortress by Laisha Rosnau Hamilton, Ontario: Wolsak & Wynn, 2019 $22.00 / 9781928088998 Reviewed by Mary-Ann and David Stouck * What fascinated me as a novelist was how did these women who led these really large lives — these lives that took place all over the world — come to then seclude themselves in…
Read more #686 Exile on Pleasant Valley Road
Voices of Komagata Maru: Imperial Surveillance and Workers from Punjab in Bengal by Suchetana Chattopadhyay New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2018; New York: Columbia University Press, 2019 $35.00 (U.S.) / 9788193401583 Reviewed by Larry Hannant * Many Canadians became aware of the name Komagata Maru only in 2016, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, still in his…
Read more #685 Tracking the Komagata Maru
Rail by Miranda Pearson Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2019 $17.95 / 9780773558946 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * If surprise is a necessary ingredient of good poetry, Miranda Pearson’s fifth volume, Rail, will not disappoint. Those who know her four previous volumes — Prime, The Aviary, Harbour, and The Fire Extinguisher — will recognize…
Read more #684 English views & melting glaciers
Advocates and activists by Graeme Wynn, with Jennifer Bonnell An extract from The Nature of Canada, edited by Colin M. Coates and Graeme Wynn (Vancouver: On Point Press, an imprint of UBC Press, 2019) * Jenny Clayton has reviewed The Nature of Canada for the Ormsby Review — see #603, Deep time to time slipping…
Read more #683 Nature’s advocates and activists
The Hidden Life of Trees: The Illustrated Edition by Peter Wohlleben, translated by Jill Billinghurst, with a foreword by Tim Flannery Vancouver: Greystone Books/ David Suzuki Institute, 2018 $45.00 / 9781771643481 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Scottish-American naturalist John Muir prophetically summarized modern man’s dysfunctional relation to…
Read more #682 Nature as superorganism
Magical Beings of Haida Gwaii by Gid7ahl-Gudsllaay Lalaxaaygans (Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson) and SGaan Jaadgu San Glans (Sara Florence Davidson), illustrated by Judy Hilgemann and Alyssa Koski Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $22.95 / 9781772032963 Reviewed by Molly Clarkson * This review contains words in the Haida Language. Both Gaw Tlagee Xaad Kil (Haida Northern Dialect, which brings…
Read more #681 Haida matrilineal magic
Mad Hatter by Amanda Hale Montreal: Guernica Editions, 2019 $29.95 / 9781771833905 See here for the audiobook Reviewed by Linda Rogers * Don’t judge a book by its cover … at your peril. That’s a song worth listening to but sometimes, and in this case, it is all there, the rabbit’s final bone crushing scream….
Read more #680 All hat and no soapbox
E.J. Hughes Paints British Columbia by Robert Amos Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2019 $35.00 / 9781771513104 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * How can I “review” a book that renders me breathless even before I open it? It takes a while to get past the cover, vibrating as it does with colour. This is the Fraser Valley…
Read more #679 Hughes across the Strait
Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products: How a Sikh Immigrant Created BC’s Largest Independent Lumber Company by Jinder Oujla-Chalmers Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $28.95 / 9781550178890 Reviewed by Gurpreet Singh * Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products is a special interest book for those who wish to learn more about British Columbia’s forest industry,…
Read more #678 A life of lumber and sawmills
Searching for Pitt Lake Gold: Facts and Fantasy in the Legend of Slumach by Fred Braches Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $9.95 / 9781772032765 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Searching for Pitt Lake Gold stands in a long series of popular adventure books that celebrate gold, wilderness, and British Columbia’s adventurous colonial past. This is one…
Read more #677 The lurid lure of lucre
Memory by Philippe Tortell, Mark Turin, and Margot Young (editors) Vancouver: UBC Press (Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies), 2018 $24.95 / 9781775276609 Reviewed by Forrest Pass * Historians think we know memory. “Social memory” — how communities, governments, and private interests understand and give the past meaning — is a well-established focus in my…
Read more #676 A trip down memory lane
The Last Whistle: Hillcrest Lumber Company Ltd. 1917-2018 by Cecil Ashley Self-published, 2018 $29.95 / 9780228500735 Available from Cecil Ashley email address: cecil.ashley@gmail.com and at Volume 1 Bookstore, Duncan Reviewed by Robert Griffin * Cecil Ashley has produced an amazing book that is clearly a labour of love. The Hillcrest Lumber Company represents a major…
Read more #675 Stump to dump at Mesachie Lake
Emily Carr. Fresh Seeing: French Modernism and the West Coast by Kiriko Watanabe, Kathryn Bridge, Robin Laurence, and Michael Polay Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2019, in collaboration with the Audain Art Museum $40.00 / 9781773270913 Reviewed by Robert Amos * Many people have a prejudice about Emily Carr. Crazy lady with a monkey, they say,…
Read more #674 Emily Carr in France
Susan Benson: Art, Design and Craft on Stage by Patricia Flood Richmond Hill, ON: Firefly Books, 2019 $35.00 / 9780228101772 Reviewed by Celia Duthie * Susan Benson has had a charmed career. For over forty years, as a theatre designer and costumer for stage productions in England and North America, she has been a mistress…
Read more #673 Catalyst of creative fantasy
Throw Mama from the Boat and Other Ferry Tales by PJ Reece Gibsons: Rolling West Productions, 2018 $16.95 / 9780995323537 Reviewed by Caileigh Broatch * PJ Reece’s book Throw Mama from the Boat: and other Ferry Tales promises to excite and explore with wild imagination from the word go. This is a collection of thirteen neatly…
Read more #672 Coastal escapes and departures
The Great Happiness: Stories and Comics by M.A.C. Farrant Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $14.95 / 9781772012217 Reviewed by Valerie Green * I’ve learned through the years that book covers can be deceiving. Such was the case with M.A.C. Farrant’s book The Great Happiness, which shows a young girl, some flowers, and a small bird. It enticed…
Read more #671 Connect the dots
The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected by Edwin Wong Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2019 $19.79 / 9781525537561 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * The most interesting observation in this book on tragedy by local author Edwin Wong concerns Hamlet. Hamlet’s problem, says Wong, is that he is obsessed with certainty and can’t…
Read more #670 Novelty at Langham Court
Every Little Scrap and Wonder: A Small-Town Childhood by Carla Funk Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2019 $29.95 / 9781771644662 Reviewed by Candace Fertile * With exquisite detail, Carla Funk brings alive her childhood in Vanderhoof, BC, and by doing so sets off in me a memoryfest of my own, an experience that is likely to happen…
Read more #669 A Mennonite memoryfest
Cedar + Salt: Vancouver Island Recipes from Forest, Farm, Field, and Sea by D.L. Acken and Emily Lycopolus Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2019 $45.00 / 9781771512947 Reviewed by Harvey De Roo * Is it that books published on the Pacific Northwest coast are particularly beautiful, or just any book with the photos of Danielle Acken and…
Read more #668 Eating local on Vancouver Island
Around the World in a Dugout Canoe by John M. MacFarlane and Lynn J. Salmon Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $29.95 / 9781550178791 Reviewed by Mark Forsythe * There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea — Joseph Conrad The Tilikum is legendary in B.C.’s maritime history, and her captain…
Read more #667 Canoeing to London