“If they are a choir, Genni Gunn, an Italo-Canadian poet and musician, translator of this volume, lifts it out of sea narrative to angel choir. Her sensibilities, like Maraini’s, bring harmony to the deliverance of a poetically nuanced story to universality.” Linda Rogers reviews The Ship for Kobe, by Dacia Maraini, translated by Genni Gunn (Hamilton: Guernica Editions, 2025) $22.95 / 9781778490019
Evelyn Lau’s “Cursing, Flailing,” selected by Mary Dalton for inclusion in Best Canadian Poetry 2026 (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2025) $24.95 / 9781771966764
A lovely, poetic, and musical novella traces a homeward journey of two Canadians to Ireland. The story offers enchantment for any reader: “This book would make particularly excellent reading for anyone planning a trip there, as well as those interested in Irish history or ancestry.” —Trish Bowering reviews Looking for Cornelius, by Diana Hayes (Eugene: Resource Publications, 2025) $21.00 / 9798385250332
“Myth is the only truth, says Eros, echoing Jung, and perhaps we would be better served by a novel that focused more on myth and less on boring humans.” —Sheldon Goldfarb reviews A Bouquet of Darts: A European Travel Mystery, by Reed Stirling (Drayton Valley: BWL Publishing, 2024) $18.99 / 9780228631309
Journey to Kaho’olaweby Hans Winkler and Cease Wyss (T’uy’t’tanat) Vancouver: Grunt Gallery, 2017$20.00 / 9781988708027 Reviewed by Chris Arnett First published Feb. 13, 2018 * Stories of BC-Hawaiian connections have a certain allure to those of us in the temperate rainforest in that by some past association we may have something in common – and…
Read more #248 Kaho’olawe; 8th Hawaiian island
Finding John Rae by Alice Jane Hamilton Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2017 $21.95 / 9781553804819 Reviewed by Dylan Burrows First published Jan. 11, 2018 * In Finding John Rae, Alice Jane Hamilton upends the standard narrative of mid-nineteenth century Arctic exploration, focussing not on the vainglorious search for the doomed Franklin Expedition but those left in…
Read more #231 The bane of the British Admiralty
Green Mackinaw in Europe, 1954-55 by Alfred H. Siemens Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2017 $25.99 / 9781460295342 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * Green Mackinaw recalls the “brief shining time” that its author spent in Europe in the 1950s. Alfred Siemens, a UBC student in his early twenties, crossed the Atlantic in the fall of 1954 to…
Read more #230 A good year and a good man
Dirty Windshields: The Best and the Worst of the Smugglers Tour Diaries by Grant Lawrence Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $26.95 / 9781771621489 Reviewed by Dustin Cole First published Dec. 6, 2017 * Grant Lawrence’s memoir Dirty Windshields recalls his days and nights as lead singer in the garage rock band Smugglers, Canada’s self-proclaimed…
Read more #214 At home on the road
The Transcontinentalist: Or, The Joys of the Road Manuscript in the Laing Papers at the B.C. Archives, written in 1915 by Hamilton Mack Laing Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes First published Nov. 17, 2017 * Editor’s note: We are delighted that Trevor Marc Hughes has ventured into the voluminous Laing Papers at the British Columbia…
Read more #203 Mack, the life
Heckman’s Canadian Pacific: A Photographic Journeyby Ralph Beaumont, foreword by John Geiger Mississauga, ON: The Credit Valley Railway Company, 2015$60.00 / 9780978440619 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek First published November 9, 2017 * The Canadian Pacific Railway’s in-house photographer Joseph William Heckman (1854-1937) worked between Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island for three decades, photographing every aspect…
Read more #199 What the Heckman
Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America by Paul Kane, edited and with an introduction by Kenneth Lister Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2016 $39.99 / 9780888545077 Reviewed by Grant Keddie First published October 3, 2017 * Between November 1846 and November 1847, the Irish-Canadian artist Paul Kane (1810-1871) visited the Columbia…
Read more #175 Artist among the Songhees
REVIEW: Florence, Dante and Me by Robert Stuart Thomson Godwin Books 2017 9780995876002 Reviewed by Beverly Cramp First published September 18, 2017 * It’s the summer of 1960 and a young UBC student is about to leave Vancouver, then still very much a White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant city. Twenty-year old Robert Thomson had won a scholarship to spend…
Read more #171 Florence, Dante and Me
Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community by Lily Gontard (text) and Mark Kelly (photographs) Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781550177978 Reviewed by Heather Longworth Sjoblom First published September 6, 2017 * 2017 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the construction of the Alaska Highway through British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. Throughout…
Read more #165 Alaska Highway before GPS
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
REVIEW: Surviving Logan by Erik Bjarnason and Cathi Shaw Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, $28 2016 / 9781771601924 Reviewed by PearlAnn Reichwein First published August 16, 2017 * In Surviving Logan, Erik Bjarnason of North Vancouver and his cousin Cathi Shaw of Summerland have joined with Rocky Mountain Books to produce what reviewer PearlAnn Reichwein calls…
Read more #156 Frostbitten on Canada’s Everest
Chilcotin Chronicles: Stories of Adventure and Intrigue from British Columbia’s Central Interior by Sage Birchwater Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $26.95 / 9781987915334 Reviewed by Lorraine Weir First published August 10, 2017 * Sage Birchwater credits playwright Gwen Pharis Ringwood with urging him to keep a record of his travels on the Chilcotin Plateau –…
Read more #151 Taking care of stories
REVIEW: Walking to Camelot: A Pilgrimage through the Heart of Rural England by John A. Cherrington Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2016. $22.95 / 978-1-927958-62-9 Reviewed by John Gellard First published July 12, 2017 John Cherrrington takes a 365-mile hike through southern England on public footpaths. * From Figure 1 comes John Cherrington’s Walking to Camelot,…
Read more #150 Camelot and the waste land
Rails Over the Mountains: Exploring the Railway Heritage of Canada’s Western Mountainsby Ron Brown Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2016. $29.99 / 978145973359Reviewed by Les Kozma First published April 26, 2017 * Over the past twenty years or so Brown has authored a plethora of books about railways and railroading in Canada. Rails Over the Mountains is…
Read more #125 To the end of Ron Brown’s line
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