“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
“This is on the order of Monty Python with its delicious absurdity. Nawrocki is at his best when he spins these deadpan, Buster Keatonesque scenes— moments of truthful memory specific to ‘50s Vancouver. This is what makes the book work. The historical details are unvarnished yet amped up with his telling. But as we go along in Joey’s story, the memoir suffers from editorializing of a predictable nature that gets in the way of the stories despite moments of excellent scenarios.” Grahame Ware reviews The East End Rules: An East Van Memoir, by Norman Nawrocki (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2026) $24.99 / 9781551648347
“Seto, mourning the past and given time to resurrect her creativity, recreated the buildings of memory and left them empty so that memory and desire could replace the ghosts inhabiting them with real lives configured with real information, the sensory details, smells and sounds that gave them life.” Linda Rogers reviews Chinatown Vancouver: An Illustrated History, by Donna Seto (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2025) $29.99 / 9781487011970
“The strength of West Coast Mission is the way that Lockhart has sensitively and wisely heeded and attempted to bring the best out of the varied communities he has focussed on. The weakness of the book is the vast variety of other forms of Christianity he has simply not sat with or listened to in the Vancouver area and they are many.” Ron Dart reviews West Coast Mission: The Changing Nature of Christianity in Vancouver, by Ross A. Lockhart (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024) $34.95 / 9780228022862
In an appealing, ruminative collection of “smart stuff,” a poet looks to own remote past, as well as a city’s past, present, and (possible) future. In imagining and telling new stories, the poetry works to challenge presumptions embedded in colonial history. —Harold Rhenisch reviews Inventing What We Need to Know, by W.H. New (Oakville: Rock’s Mills Press, 2025) $20.00 / 9781772443240
“In fewer than ninety pages, Dobie has produced an incredibly nuanced, eminently readable novel full of insights on being unhoused, a disappearing middle class, and the difficulties of romantic relationships, particularly when both parties have differing communication styles.” —Jessica Poon reviews The Tenants, by Pat Dobie (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2024) $18.00 / 9781772142297
Essay collection relates the “great pleasure of strolling in great cities” and offers an appealing and illuminating “window into a wider world.” —Bill Paul reviews The Coincidence Problem: Selected Dispatches 1999-2022, by Stephen Osborne (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781551529653
“The sheer intellect and sharp-eyed creator in these works has given history and perspective on a time and place of artistically fevering production, forging its own way.” —Cathy Ford reviews Another Order: Selected Works, by Judith Copithorne (edited by Eric Schmaltz) (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2023) $34.95 / 9781772015539
A “bubbly sensibility” blends well with a sobriety in stories that address “the serious matters of our loves and our times.” —Carellin Brooks reviews Disembark, by Jen Currin (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2024) $22.99 / 9781487011895
Sophomore story collection has “a finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary life and delivers trenchant criticisms of human foibles.” —Candace Fertile reviews Last Woman, by Carleigh Baker (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2024) $24.95 / 9780771004148
Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots by Erín Moure Vancouver: New Star Books, 2017 $21.00 / 9781554201419 Reviewed by Claire Sicherman First published April 19, 2018 * It is three weeks after the death of her former lover, Paul Émile Savard, when author Erín Moure learns he is dead, and that he died alone… Read more #290 Grieving with Google
Views of the Salish Sea: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Change around the Strait of Georgia by Howard Macdonald Stewart Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $39.95 / 9781550178036 Reviewed by Peter Grant First published April 7, 2018 * Howard Macdonald Stewart’s Views of the Salish Sea: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Change around… Read more #283 Stewart’s Salish Sea
A Temporary Stranger: Homages, Poems, Recollections by Jamie Reid Vancouver: Anvil Books, 2017 $18.00 / 9781772140989 Reviewed by Andrew Parkin First published April 4, 2018 * In a posthumously published collection by Vancouver poet Jamie Reid (1941-2015), there are poems of homage to a number of famous French poets from Baudelaire to Apollinaire, including Reverdy,… Read more #281 Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Jamie
The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2017 $29.99 / 9780865718395 Reviewed by Jawad Qureshy First published April 2, 2018 * Born in Tennessee in 1954, Joel Solomon was educated at Vassar College, worked as national youth co-ordinator on Jimmy Carter’s election campaign… Read more #279 The wisdom of Solomon
First published March 22, 2018. Canada: Modern Architectures in History by Rhodri Windsor Liscombe and Michelangelo Sabatino London: Reaktion Books, 2016. £20.00 / 9781780236339 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This survey of Modernism in Canada is the thirteenth volume in a series of country-by-country studies of twentieth century architecture. This one has long been anticipated… Read more #270 Starchitects, 1886 onwards
The Plague by Kevin Chong Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781551527185 Reviewed by Joan Givner First published March 21, 2018 * A classic French text invigorates a new tale of rats overtaking Vancouver. Joan Givner compares Kevin Chong’s The Plague, set in Vancouver, with Albert Camus’ work of the same name published seventy years… Read more #269 A plague on our houses
Surrey: A City of Stories by K. Jane Watt Surrey: City of Surrey Heritage Services (Fenton Street Publishing), 2017 $25.00 / 9780973910919 Reviewed by Janet Mary Nicol First published March 16, 2018 * This visually rich book provides a satisfying history of the City of Surrey, the fastest growing in Metro Vancouver, with B.C.’s second… Read more #265 Surrey gets proper billing
Georgia Straight: A 50th Anniversary Celebration by Doug Sarti and Dan McLeod, with an introduction by Bob Geldof and essays by Mike Harcourt, Paul Watson, and Bif Naked Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2017 $40.00 / 9781771602525 Reviewed by Ron Dart First published Mar. 10, 2018 * In February 1967, the name Georgia Straight was hatched… Read more #263 Georgia Straight honoured
Ryga Award announcement, 2018 This year’s Ryga Award winner for Social Awareness goes to Georgia Straight journalist Travis Lupick for Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction. First published March 6, 2018 * “I hope that Fighting for Space receiving this award encourages discussion of Canada’s overdose… Read more #260 Travis’s travail wins Ryga
