Will you help The Ormsby Review? by Richard Mackie * A message from publisher Richard Mackie and the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society. Advisory Board: Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Cole Harris, Hugh Johnston, Patricia Roy, David Stouck, Graeme Wynn. Board of Directors: Ron Hatch, Eldon Yellowhorn, Imogene Lim, Byron Sheardown, LiLynn Wan, Trevor…
Read more #968 Will you help The Ormsby Review?
A Story of Karma: Finding Love and Truth in the Lost Valley of the Himalaya by Michael Schauch Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771604673 A review essay by Trevor Carolan * Adventure travel goes through phases. In the Sixties you went off to Formentera in the Balearics or Corfu to find yourself. India…
Read more #964 Travelling the higher heights
ESSAY: Remembering John Foster Paton Nash by Michael Sasges For Remembrance Day 2020, Michael Sasges presents the life of Nicola Valley rancher John Foster Paton Nash (1866-1916). John Nash’s name is on three Great War memorials. The first is at his school in England, King William’s College on the Isle of Man; the second is…
Read more #961 From Quilchena to Flanders
The Larder of the Wise: The Story of Vancouver’s James Inglis Reid Limited by M. Anne Wyness, with a foreword by Michael Kluckner Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2019 $32.99 / 9781773271187 Reviewed by Mary Leah de Zwart * In The Larder of the Wise: The Story of James Inglis Reid Limited, M. Anne Wyness promises…
Read more #949 Haggis and Scotch pies
Riding the Continent by Hamilton Mack Laing, edited by Trevor Marc Hughes, foreword by Richard Mackie Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2019 $19.95 / 9781553805564 Reviewed by Steve Koerner All B&W photos courtesy of H.M. Laing Collection, Comox Archives and Museum Society * The hit 1969 movie Easy Rider featured two hippies, the self-styled “Captain America” and…
Read more #940 Mack the transcontinentalist
Maison Rouge: Memories of a Childhood in War by Liliane Leila Juma Vancouver: Tradewind Books, 2020 $12.95 / 9781926890302 Reviewed by Howard Stewart * Like many of us, I often find myself reading a couple of books at the same time. So, when I picked up Leila Juma’s thin tome I was also reading another…
Read more #864 Crossing Lake Tanganyika
A Woman in Between: Searching for Dr. Victoria Chung by John Price with Ningping Yu Vancouver: Canadian Chinese Historical Society of British Columbia and UBC Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies, 2019 $30.00 / 9780993659324 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * An immigrant girl, born in Victoria in 1897 and a…
Read more #862 The remarkable Victoria Chung
Chainsaws: A History by David Lee, in conjunction with Mike Acres Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 (updated 2nd edition; first published 2006) $34.95 / 9781550179118 Reviewed by Robert Allen * This book captured my interest right from the beginning with its retro cover showing a 1951 IEL Super Pioneer “one-man power chainsaw,” a 1950s style…
Read more #858 Enter the one-man power saw
Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries by Daniel Pauly, with a foreword by Jennifer Jacquet Vancouver: Greystone, 2019 $34.95 / 9781771643986 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * …fish are in dire peril, and, if they are, then so are we. — Daniel Pauly (p. 24) In a remarkable collection of essays drawn…
Read more #857 Oceans as sustainable commons
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art by Bruno David and Ian J. McNiven (editors) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019 $175.00 (U.S.) / 9780190607357 Reviewed by Chris Arnett * “Rock art,” for those who don’t know, is a general term for Indigenous paintings or carvings found on rock surfaces inside caves,…
Read more #856 Alas, poor British Columbia
ESSAY: The Will to Pleasure: Hedonism, Ethics, and Aesthetics from the Ancient World to the Present Age by Eryn Holbrook * When Christianity and Marxism end their shared reign, we will need visions of new possibilities. There is always one fixed point: the body. Not a body of Platonic ideas, nor a body cut in…
Read more #847 Hedonism, pleasure, ethics
My Favourite Crime: Essays and Journalism from Around the World by Deni Ellis Béchard Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2019 $24.95 / 9781772012323 Reviewed by Howard Stewart * Deni Béchard’s My Favourite Crime is a powerful collection of writing. The book’s cover blurb, not something I usually put much faith in, contains much truth: this really is an…
Read more #837 The global frame of Deni Béchard
Moments of Glad Grace: A Memoir by Alison Wearing Toronto: ECW Press, 2020 $16.99 / 9781770415133 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * This splendid memoir recalls the week that Alison Wearing spent researching family history with her father in Dublin. It is, on the face of it, a beautifully-crafted, bitter-sweet story of an excellent adventure. Anxious…
Read more #825 Alison’s excellent adventure
Civilian Internment in Canada: Histories & Legacies by Rhonda L. Hinther and Jim Mochoruk (editors) Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2020 $31.95 / 9780887558450 * The Stories Were Not Told: Canada’s First World War Internment Camps by Sandra Semchuk Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2019 $34.99 / 9781772123784 * Harry Livingstone’s Forgotten Men: Canadians and…
Read more #823 Canadian internment legacies
Epidemics and the Modern World by Mitchell L. Hammond Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020 $54.95 / 9781487593735 Reviewed by Jody Decker * This textbook by a history professor at the University of Victoria, Mitchell Hammond, focuses on epidemics of infectious diseases which, he argues, have left the greatest impact on the modern world, even…
Read more #819 Pandemics past and present