Dead Flowers by Alexander Laidlaw Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2019 $19.95 / 9780889713550 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Dead Flowers is a collection of eight stories by a young writer who currently calls the Sunshine Coast home. As far as the reader can tell, only one of the stories, “On Gordon Head,” is actually set in…
Read more #598 Alienated and unmotivated
Extraordinary Ornamental Edibles: 100 Perennials, Trees, Shrubs and Vines for Canadian Gardens by Mike Lascelle Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre 2018 $24.95 / 9781771621793 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * This is quite the book — or guide, as the publishers like to refer to it. The author, Mike Lascelle, is currently a nursery manager at…
Read more #597 Lascelle’s ordinary & exotic food
Jim Christy: A Vagabond Life by Ian Cutler, with a foreword by Luis E. Navia Port Angeles, WA: Feral House, 2019 $17.95 (U.S.) / 9781627310741 Reviewed by John Moore * Literary biography is a problematic genre. Ostensibly, its purpose is to illuminate the author’s work, but writing about an author inevitably means competing with a…
Read more #596 Escape from the fish farm
Visual Inspection by Matt Rader Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2019 $18.95 / 9780889713567 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau * I don’t live with an autoimmune disease and probably – hopefully — neither do you. I haven’t had to scramble from doctor to doctor for answers or decode what is different about my body, what is or isn’t…
Read more #595 Mind your imperfection
Collapsible by Tim Conley Vancouver: New Star Books, 2019 $18.00 / 9781554201518 Reviewed by Myshara Herbert-McMyn with Ginny Ratsoy * The author of several previous books of poetry, Tim Conley teaches twentieth-century literature at Brock University, specializing in modernists such as Joyce and Beckett, as well as “experimental novelists and avant-garde poets,” according to his…
Read more #594 Talking feet & werewolf expertise
At the Wilderness Edge: The Rise of the Antidevelopment Movement on Canada’s West Coast by J.I. (Jack) Little Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 $29.95 / 9780773556409 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * Bear with me, please. Shouldn’t “Wilderness” be in the possessive? At the Wilderness’s Edge maybe? If so, this is a shocking…
Read more #593 Wilderness campaigns & cultures
Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants by Ann Hui Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $24.95 / 9781771622226 Reviewed by Imogene Lim * In March 2019, B.C. Bestseller Chop Suey Nation, by Ann Hui, was awarded the 2019 Dr. Edgar Wickberg Book Prize by the Chinese Canadian Historical…
Read more #592 Ginger beef and fried macaroni
breth/th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu pomes n drawings, 1957-2019 by bill bissett Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $29.95 / 9781772012262 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * Looking at my shelves of poetry, I see that bissett books occupy the breadth of an outstretched hand, yet these don’t constitute even half of this prolific poet’s output….
Read more #591 pomes organik n vulnrabul
In His Steps: The Life and Times of Wilberforce Cooper, Vancouver’s Skid Road Priest by Peter J. Cooper Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2019 $27.68 / 9781525544545 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * St. James’s Anglican Church presides over Vancouver’s Downtown East Side — presides over but does not loom over. Described as simultaneously Byzantine, Gothic Revival, and…
Read more #590 Mission to skid row
Trevor Clark (1955-2019) An obituary by Alan Twigg * Born in Toronto in 1955, ex-Vancouverite Trevor Clark died in Montreal on April 4, 2019. Clark, who moved to Vancouver in 2008, specialized in ne’er-do-well characters with vagabond tendencies and volatile relationships. He is survived by his daughter, Jade. A coincidentally novel, Damaged at Daybreak (Now…
Read more #589 Trevor Clark (1955-2019)
On the Curve: The Life and Art of Sybil Andrews by Janet Nicol, with a foreword by Robin Laurence Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $28.95 / 9781987915877 * See with Your Own Eyes: The Sybil Andrews Story by Laura Ellyn Campbell River: Campbell River Arts Council, 2018 $15.00 / 9780981207568 Both books reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb…
Read more #588 Love, labour, and linocuts
Complicated Simplicity: Island Life in the Pacific Northwest by Joy Davis Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $22.95 / 9781772032703 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Joy Davis’s book, she writes, “…focuses on the perspectives and experiences of people who live on Pacific Northwest islands, particularly those not served by ferries…” Life on these islands, she tells…
Read more #587 Islands and ingenuity
an almost hand, beckoning by John Swanson San Francisco: Blurb Books, 2019 $20.00 (Canada and U.S.) / 9781999131302 Reviewed by P.W. Bridgman * Thoughtful, evocative poetry and arresting, transcendent photography, artfully woven together into a complex tapestry of word and image: this is the gift John Swanson has given the world in an almost hand,…
Read more #586 Shortcuts to the heart
SS Minto: The Arrow Lakes’ Longest Serving Sternwheeler by Bruce Rohn Nakusp: Arrow Lakes Historical Society, 2018 $30.00 / 9780969423676 Reviewed by David R. Conn * Bruce Rohn’s book on the SS Minto – named after Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, Canada’s Governor General from 1898-1904 — won the BC Historical Federation’s Community…
Read more #585 Shallow draft on Arrow Lakes
Drawbridge: Drawing Alongside My Brother’s Schizophrenia by Joan Boxall Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9781773860022 Reviewed by Janet Nicol * A memoir told in ten lyrical essays, Drawbridge: Drawing Alongside My Brother’s Schizophrenia is Joan Boxall’s moving tribute to her brother, Stephen Corcoran. In the early 2000s, Joan became co-trustee of Stephen following…
Read more #584 Brother artist at the edge
Cornelius O’Keefe: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of an Okanagan Pioneer by Sherri Field Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $9.95 / 9781772032482 Reviewed by Ian Pooley * Sherri Field’s new book, Cornelius O’Keefe, the Life, Loves, and Legacy of an Okanagan Rancher, is a welcome addition to the short list of serious works about Okanagan history…
Read more #583 From Nepean to Okanagan
Ledi by Kim Trainor Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9781771664479 Reviewed by Jenna Butler * Ledi, by East Vancouver poet Kim Trainor, was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award for poetry books published in 2018. Trainor, who holds a PhD in English Literature from McGill University, teaches at Douglas College in New Westminster —…
Read more #582 Archaeology of a horsewoman
One-Pot Wonders: James Barber’s Recipes for Land and Sea by James Barber Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 (first published 2006) $14.95 / 9781550178715 Reviewed by Derek von Essen * There are few Canadian chefs I could name off the top of my head. In fact, there are only two: the Galloping Gourmet, whose real name…
Read more #581 Cookbook for a dystopian future
At the Centre of Government: The Prime Minister and the Limits of Political Power by Ian Brodie Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780773552906 Reviewed by Hamish Telford * A political scientist by training, Ian Brodie served as Stephen Harper’s first chief of staff, 2006-08, and he is now a professor of…
Read more #580 The power behind the P.M.
Trauma Head by Elee Kraljii Gardiner Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2018 $18.00 / 9781772141221 Reviewed by Yvonne Blomer * Trauma Head, by Vancouver poet Elee Kraljii Gardiner, was long-listed for the Raymond Souster Award and shortlisted for Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, both for books published in 2018 – Ed. * Try to hold mist,…
Read more #579 Poetic memoir and needle biopsy