“In recent times, the image of thousands upon thousands of faces scattered alive and dead along the makeshift routes crossing into Europe, Britain, and the United States. It is easy to build a sympathetic distance from the anonymous crowds, who are often from nations without statehood, fleeing conflicts many Westerners are only vaguely aware of. At times, certain stories can break through the wall of complacency to instill humanitarian outrage. This happened in 2015, when the image of a drowned Syrian toddler, washed up on a Turkish beach after having escaped his country’s civil war, went globally viral. The individual tragedy of that photograph emphasized the human story at the centre of every refugee crisis. In Escape from Siberia, Escape from Memory, Paul Wojdak uncovers just such a story in his own family history.” Matthew Downey reviews Escape from Siberia, Escape from Memory: An Odyssey Across Two Oceans & Nine Countries to Arrive Home, by Paul Wojdak (Victoria: Friesen Press, 2024) $32.99 / 9781039196865
“Farrant picks on the connection in Japan’s Zen Buddhist tradition between noticing and waiting. Reaching back further yet, she points to China’s ancient Taoist oracle the I Ching with its emphasis on patience, and on finding harmony within the timing of notable changes. This attention to noticing has memorable forebears.” Trevor Carolan reviews Seventy-Two Seasons: A Memoir About Noticing, by M.A.C. Farrant (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2026) $22.95 / 9781553807438
“Other times he questions the whole notion of Canadianness: is there such an abstraction as Canada? There’s only a collage of Hudson Bay and the Saguenay, Prince Edward Island and Victoria. But other times he makes it sound like the country is more than a miscellany, more a unified collection, unified by hockey perhaps.” Sheldon Goldfarb reviews Meanwhile, Back in Nokomis: Tales from Canada & Elsewhere, by Will Ferguson (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2026) $24.95 / 9781771624848
“We walk into his past of Rubik’s cubes, Pope John Paul, mullets, rotary phones, and record players and see a young man watching others emanating something he identifies with, but cannot put his finger on it, nor act on his desires at first.” Catherine McNeil reviews Soundtrack: A Lyric Memoir, by Michael V. Smith (Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2025) $24.95 / 9781771669498
“Jesse Winter, based in Vancouver, has covered wildfires and other climate-related disasters since 2018 for a variety of media. His first experience was that year at Peachland in the Okanagan Valley. He was then a ‘wildfire neophyte’ who had no knowledge of what he was getting into. ‘The sheer volume of what I didn’t know has filled this book.'” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Wild Fire: Dispatches from a Country Ablaze, by Jesse Winter (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2026) $36.99 / 9781443475822
“Masuda’s memoir itself takes up most of the space in this slim volume, and reading it transported me to 1945, journeying with this young, displaced soldier whose goal is to either be reunited with his family, living to the north in Sŏngjin, or to cross southward at the 38th parallel to territory controlled by the Americans. What made this a unique reading experience was the personal nature of this piece, written for family and not for publication. It was heartfelt and refreshingly unpolished.” Trish Bowering reviews The Broken Map Home: Escaping Korea, 1945, by Konosuke Masuda (translated by Keiko Honda) (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025) $22 / 9781773861760
“Like Lester’s other American history graphic novels previously reviewed here, Revolution By Fire and Prophet Against Slavery, the action steams off the page through simply wrought black and white scenes that allow readers to literally feel the ‘electric effects’ of the rebellion and its aftermath.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel, by David Lester and Mark Rediker with Paul Buhle (Boston: Beacon Press, 2026) $18.95 / 9780807016909
“Victoria-based historian Michael Layland, for whom this book is a departure in several respects, does a fine job of not only piecing together Philip Hankin’s life using the man’s sometimes sketchy written memoir, but also in associating the major figures and events of the day that have assembled the province we now call home.” Trevor Marc Hughes reviews Turmoil: The Life & Times of Philip Hankin, by Michael Layland (Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2025) $35 / 9781771514712
“The introduction closes with three words that have stayed with me since I turned the final page: “Let’s get kicking.” With the World Cup having arrived in Vancouver and Toronto, with Canada playing on home soil for the first time in its history, that line reads less like a closing sentiment and more like an opening whistle for something we have spent our whole sporting lives waiting to hear.” Amy Tucker reviews Winning Pitch: The Canadian Men’s Soccer Team at the World Cup and Beyond, by Murray Mollard (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2026) $26.95 / 9781998526598
“Thanh, a prize-winning novelist and memoirist, admitted that media technology wasn’t her strength, but agreed to look at the narrative that had been assembled to that point by other sympathetic activists. She also connected online with Kanafani and swiftly established a bond.” Larry Hannant reviews Pizza Before We Die: An Eyewitness Account in Gaza, by Hassan Kanafani, with Yasuko Thanh (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2026) $19.95 / 9781834050324
“As the primary editor Deborah (Devora) Ross-Grayman explains in the book’s preface, the writings here took root as the result of meetings of the Vancouver Second-Generation (2G) Group. All of the twelve writers represented here are the offspring of Holocaust survivors (or, in one instance, a survivor himself).” Heidi Greco reviews Voices of Resilience: An Anthology of Stories Written by Children of Holocaust Survivors, by Deborah (Devora) Ross-Grayman, with Wendy Bancroft & The Writers (eds.) (The Netherlands: Amsterdam Publishers, 2026) $24.95 / 9789493418608
“There are still a few instances of righteous indignation and conspiracy theory, but these are easy to spot and disregard. There is happily much less of the defamatory innuendo about “rent-seeking” which stained too many chapters in Grave Error. The overall tone of Dead Wrong—despite its provocative title, the publisher’s preface, and a couple of other instances—seems much less frenzied. But most important, every chapter of this book contains something British Columbians may not have known and ought to have the chance to think about. Some chapters particularly so.” Richard Butler reviews Dead Wrong: How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong
by C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan (Ottawa: True North, 2025) $22.99 / 9798274120593
“The story of the mistreated tunnel workers may sound familiar. In rough outline, the it begins with an Italian tunnelling company, SELI, tasked with a major project in Vancouver. Finding no Canadians responding to their ads, the company recruited experienced workers from Latin America, attracting them with comparatively high payment and side benefits such as accommodation. As it turned out, the wages, though higher than what they were used to, were a small fraction of Canadian wages for similar work—and significantly lower than those of Europeans subsequently hired by the same company.” Theo Dombrowski reviews A Fight for Justice: The Compelling Story of Temporary Foreign Workers & Human Rights, by Joe Barrett (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2026) $26.95 / 9781553807391
“Memories and anecdotes from the past make their way into many of the essays. He writes about family, high school, friendships, travelling, loneliness, and most significantly his relationship with Litia, his wife. Two of the essays are about the family dog. The author, who lives in Vancouver, is witty, curious, nostalgic, analytical and overly solemn. He has a way of noticing odd details and meaningful moments that pass us by when we are with those closest to us.” Bill Paul reviews Decadence, by Richard Kelly Kemick (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2026) $24.95 / 9781771967136
“Early in Rob Simpson’s affectionate tribute to his co-author/subject, we learn that Bill McCreary (2014) is one of only two NHL on-ice officials inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this century, the other being linesman Ray Scapinello (2008). Is this an indication of both men’s exceptional contributions to the sport, or more a reflection of the sorry state of on-ice officiating since 1999? Or both? Whatever the case, it is fair to say that the gravitas referees once enjoyed in the world’s premier hockey league has diminished since McCreary first put on the NHL zebra stripes in 1984.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Stories from Ice Level: A Great NHL Referee Tells All, by Rob Simpson with Bill McCreary (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2026) $24.95 / 9781771624824
“Who committed the murders and why and what to do about it and what happens later takes up the rest of this remarkable story, the seventh book in what has evolved as author Geoff Mynett’s stand-out series of deep dives into formerly obscure corners of British Columbia history. William Brown is the subject of the author’s previous book in the series, A Gentleman of Considerable Talent.” Steven Brown reviews The Fort George Murders of 1823: Crises and Coexistence in New Caledonia, by Geoff Mynett (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2026) $28.00 / 9781773861791
“…almost everything about this book is careful, measured, and studied. Handling a figure who, as the subtitle suggests, has been subject to speculation and hearsay—but also adulation and condemnation—this book is almost entirely based on careful screening of evidence and extensive documentation.” Theo Dombrowski reviews Oscar Wilde’s Paris: Legends and Legacies, by Collette Colligan and Gregory Mackie (eds.) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2025) $90 / 9781487541415
“Elizabeth May said that COPs are important gatherings because they keep climate change on the map. She entered the forum in 1992 as the executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and attended many COPs. One of her functions was to keep an eye on politicians sent to COPs and then report to environmental activists what she learned.” DC Reid reviews 30 Climate COPs Later: Stories from Canadian Participants, by Thomas Burelli, Alexandre Lillo, Lauren Touchant, Lynda Hubert Ta, and Elie Klee (eds.) (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2025) $24.95 / 9780776645575
“The sisters, oppressed by the patriarchy, whatever their orders and callings, have been the Stepford wives of Jesus, and the authors of Resisting Orders wonder if whispered dissent will succeed in protecting idealistic notions of equality and social justice through the possible dismantling of paternalistic authoritarianism during the decline of neo-capitalism.” Linda Rogers reviews Resisting Orders: Catholic Sisters Contest Their Church, by Christine Gervais, Amanda Watson, and Shanisse Kleuskens (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025) $39.95 / 9780228023708
“Wiley wonders in her memoir who she might’ve been if she hadn’t been ripped away from the only life she’d ever known in Taiwan, versus raising herself in Vancouver. If her parents had known that life would remain stable in Taiwan, would they make the same choices for their children, or were they thinking of their grandchildren and great grandchildren as well?” Cathalynn Labonté-Smith reviews The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street, by Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2026) $24.95 / 9781771624794
