A veteran writer’s new novel is defined by meticulous, expansive, and breathtaking world-building. Sometimes, though, too much is too much. —Zoe McKenna reviews Blackheart Man, by Nalo Hopkinson (Toronto: Simon & Schuster / Saga Press, 2024) $34.99 / 9781668005101
Powering Up Canada A History of Power, Fuel, and Energy from 1600 by Ruth Sandwell (editor) Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016. $37.95 / 9780773547865 Reviewed by Dan Gallacher First published Nov. 7, 2017 Years ago I likened history to a diamond. Each time it is turned in the light, another facet is revealed….
Read more #197 Power to the people
First published November 3, 2017 Mark Bate: Nanaimo’s First Mayor by Jan Peterson Victoria: Heritage House, 2017. $19.95. / 9781772031829 Reviewed by John R. Hinde While industrialist Robert Dunsmuir has long been recognized as the most important figure in nineteenth century Nanaimo, thanks in part to Terry Reksten’s The Dunsmuir Saga (Douglas & McIntyre, 1991),…
Read more #193 Nanaimo mayor rivals Dunsmuir
First published Nov. 1, 2017 REVIEW: Longshoring on the Fraser: Stories and History of ILWU Local 502 by Chris M.V. Madsen, Liam O’Flaherty, and Michelle La Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2016. $29.95 / 9781926991832 Reviewed by Sean Cadigan * Longshoring on the Fraser tells “the story of ILWU [International Longshore and Warehouse Union] Local 502”…
Read more #192 New Westminster at work
First published October 30, 2017 REVIEW: Enterprising Nature: Economics, Markets, and Finance in Global Biodiversity Politics by Jessica Dempsey Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. £19.99 (U.K.). / 978-1-118-64060-9 Reviewed by Juliane Collard * In Enterprising Nature: Economics, Markets, and Finance in Global Biodiversity Politics, UBC geographer Jessica Dempsey considers the problem of biodiversity loss in the modern…
Read more #191 Biodiversity in the boardroom
The Minor Intimacies of Race: Asian Publics in North America by Christine Kim Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2016 $30.00 (U.S.) / 9780252081620 Reviewed by Helen Hok-Sze Leung First published oct. 29, 2017 Christine Kim examines the limitations of Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism by considering Maclean’s Magazine’s 2010 story about “too many” Asians…
Read more #190 Multiculturalism beyond rhetoric
Essay: Refuge of a Scoundrel: Patriotism and William Bowser by Wayne Norton First published Oct. 13, 2017 * In this Ormsby Review exclusive, Wayne Norton reveals that in his brief term in office (1915-16), the Conservative Premier William Bowser fanned the flames of patriotism stoked by mounting Canadian war casualties and the German sinking of…
Read more #180 BC’s Great War internments
Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850s-1990sby Cecilia Morgan Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016$26.95 / 9781442610613 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published October 4, 2017 * Cecilia Morgan’s Commemorating Canada is a good place to start when examining the role of historical commemoration in Canada. The book is part of the Themes in Canadian History…
Read more #177 Monumental tasks
The White Angel by John MacLachlan Gray Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $29.95 / 9781771621465 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy First published Sept. 8, 2017 * The challenges of writing historical fiction are manifold. Writers must capture both the exterior (surface and sociological details of a time they know only through research) and the interior…
Read more #167 Janet Smith & Wong Foon Sing
Cuba from the Inside by Alan Twigg First published September 5, 2017 * For anyone with an abiding love or interest in Cuba, there are many books about the place–more than ten of which are by British Columbians. For instance, when an American professor named Maurice Halperin met Che Guevara in Mexico, prior to Fidel…
Read more #164 Cuba from the inside
British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape by Ben Bradley Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017 $34.95 / 9780774834193 Reviewed by Daniel Francis * In 2013 a septet of Canadian historians calling themselves The Past Collective published a study which contradicted the hoary old cliche that Canadians do not know…
Read more #163 When the rubber hit the road
First published August 28, 2017 REVIEW: Turning Parliament Inside Out: Practical Ideas for Reforming Canada’s Democracy by Michael Chong, Scott Simms, and Kennedy Stewart (editors) Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017. $22.95 / 978-1-77162-137-3 Reviewed by Hamish Telford * By comparison, the current political climate in the United States makes Canada look like Nirvana, but…
Read more #160 Keeping parliament current
REVIEW: Engaging the Line: How the Great War Shaped the Canada-US Border by Brandon R. Dimmel Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016 $32.95 / 9780774832755 Reviewed by Keith Regular First published June 25, 2017 * The permeable nature of borders is of increasing intellectual interest, although the subject is yet to receive sustained attention. Since the crisis…
Read more #143 More than an imaginary line
First published June 17, 2017 REVIEW: Gently to Nagasaki: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, an Exploration Both Communal and Intensely Personal By Joy Kogawa Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2016. $24.95 978-1-987915-15-0 Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy The librarian who provided the Cataloguing in Publication information gave Joy Kogawa’s Gently to Nagasaki a call number in the 800s…
Read more #140 Joy Kogawa’s reflections
The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country: The Centennial of 1967 by Tom Hawthorn Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $26.95 / 9781771621502 Reviewed by Forrest D. Pass First published May 27, 2017 * Tom Hawthorn collects groovy images of 1967 and recreates Canada’s centennial zeitgeist in The Year Canadians Lost Their…
Read more #131 The last great centennial
Fred Herzog: Modern Color texts by David Campany, Hans-Michael Koetzle, Jeff Wall Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2016 €38.00 / 9783775741811 Reviewed by Bill Jeffries First published May 22, 2017 * Fred Herzog, who is 87 years old in 2017, had to wait until 2011 for a substantial book (Fred Herzog Photographs, Douglas & McIntyre) illustrating…
Read more #128 Fred Herzog’s genius
A Great Old Tramp: Letters from a Canadian Sojourner in British Columbia, 1873-1875 by Greg Stott First published April 22, 2017 * Editor’s note, December 9, 2022: The SS Pacific, on which George Skippon met his death in November 1875, may have been found! See this CTV news story and a CTV video here. Editor’s…
Read more #123 Out of this world: George Skippon in BC, 1873-1875
A River Captured: The Columbia River Treaty and Catastrophic Changeby Eileen Delehanty Pearkes Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2016$20 / 9781771601788 Reviewed by John Gellard First published April 20, 2017 * Previously, in her Harnessing The Power: Voices from Two Rivers of the Peace and Columbia (Douglas & McIntyre, 2012), Meg Stanley assessed the land and…
Read more #122 River-as-machine vs ecosytem
White Settler Reserve: New Iceland and the Colonization of the Canadian Westby Ryan Eyford Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016$32.95 / 9780774831598 Reviewed by Emma Battell Lowman and Adam J. Barker First published March 24, 2017 * From B.C. pioneer Gilbert Sproat to k.d. lang, in White Settler Reserve historian Ryan Eyford traces the little-known mass migration…
Read more #108 New Iceland in Canada
Hell’s History: The United Steelworkers’ Fight to Prevent Workplace Deaths and Injuries from the 1992 Westray Mine Disaster through 2016 by Tom Sandborn Vancouver: United Steelworkers, 2016 9780995843707 Out of print in hard copy but free digital copy available here. Reviewed by Ron Verzuh First published Mar. 1, 2017 * Tom Sandborn’s Hell’s History opens…
Read more #97 Getting away with murder