MEMOIR: Writing My Father by Meg Stainsby * After twenty years of carting it around unopened, I unpacked a stale cardboard box stuffed with crackly, yellowed sheets of typescript — some still clinging to their carbons, all faint and fusty — and began a solitary trek across a forty-year expanse of written terrain that my… Read more #876 Stainsby’s carbons and files
Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood: A Memoir of a Past Lost and Found by Wayson Choy Toronto: Penguin Random House, 2018; first published by Viking Penguin, 1999 $21.00 / 9780735234666 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * When I was six years old, ostensibly as a non sequitur, I announced, “I’m English!” to every family member circling… Read more #875 Chinese but not Chinese
Disabled Voices Anthology by sb. smith (editor), with a foreword by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Nanoose Bay: Rebel Mountain Press, 2020 $18.95 / 9781775301950 Reviewed by Margot Fedoruk * I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way… Read more #872 Making some good trouble
Rebent Sinner by Ivan Coyote Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $19.75 / 9781551527734 Reviewed by Anna Spencer with Heather Simeney MacLeod * On March 12, 2020, Ivan Coyote’s Rebent Sinner was shortlisted for the 2020 Jim Deva Prize (for “writing that provokes”) and was also shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Non-fiction Prize, both of the BC… Read more #866 Beware rainbow-filled Oreos
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
Foxtrot: Notes from the Bear Cave by Jaime Smith Victoria: Friesen Press, 2020 $13.99 / 9781525574726 Available from FriesenPress bookshop or Amazon Reviewed by Peter Ward * An autobiography may seek to explain, to persuade, to justify — or simply to recollect. Foxtrot does the latter and it’s richer for the choice. It’s a short… Read more #860 Astronomy, psychiatry, reflection
Jan in 35 Pieces: A Memoir in Music by Ian Hampton Erin, Ontario: Porcupine’s Quill, 2018 $24.95 / 9780889844131 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve All line drawings below by Ian Hampton * Cellist Ian Hampton is known in British Columbia and elsewhere as a distinguished musician and music educator, but his influence goes deeper and further… Read more #854 A real book about real music
Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road by Kate Harris Toronto: Penguin Random House (Vintage Canada), 2018 $21.00 / 9780345816788 Reviewed by Howard Stewart * Kate Harris’s tale of bicycling the Silk Road of Central Asia, her Land of Lost Borders, came out a couple of years ago and it describes… Read more #852 Plenty of dust but no pilaf
Tom’s Gray Creek: A Kootenay Lake Memoir. Part I: Early Years to 1945 by Tom Lymbery Gray Creek: Gray Creek Publishing, 2013 $29.95 / 9780992152109 * Tom’s Gray Creek: A Kootenay Lake Memoir. Part II: Years of Change, 1946 to 1980 by Tom Lymbery with Frances Roback Gray Creek: Gray Creek Publishing, 2016 $29.95 /… Read more #840 Tom’s Kootenay Lake memories
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
The Guilt Factor: A personal exploration with assistance from Antigone by Al Jones * Experiencing and living with guilt, whether small or big, is part of the human experience, and as I look back on my life I ask myself how guilt has affected me. At times, I am perplexed by how guilt can be… Read more #834 Lessons from my brother’s room
Itineraries: An Intellectual Odyssey by Philip Resnick Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781553806028 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb * Philip Resnick is an old-fashioned Canadian nationalist. I don’t mean harking back to the National Policy of Sir John A. Not that old-fashioned. More the nationalism of the 1970s, the Waffle Movement in the NDP, the… Read more #832 Marx, Malthus, and Meech Lake
The Cure for Hate: A Former White Supremacist’s Journey from Violent Extremism to Radical Compassion by Tony McAleer, with a foreword by Daisy Khan Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $22.95 / 9781551527697 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Fighting Hatred: How a Vancouver Skinhead Reinvented Himself As a Canadian living in the United States, I am… Read more #828 Compassion in a dangerous time
Inside View: The Eye Behind the Lens by Michael G. Varga and Roxanne Davies Victoria: Island Blue (Printorum), 2018 $20.00 / 9781790697366 Reviewed by Timothy Lewis This book is available through Amazon.ca * The perception one gets through the lens of a television camera often allows the viewer to gain perspective on something they would… Read more #826 Lights, action, Michael Varga
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