For an Outstanding Literary Career in British Columbia PHOTO

GEORGE WOODCOCK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia PHOTO

TWIGG CHUCK DAVIS WINNER CHUCK DAVIS’ BIBLIOGRAPHY: History of Metro Vancouver (forthcoming) • Vancouver Then & Now (2001) • Where Rails Meet Rivers: The Story of Port Coquitlam (2000) • The Greater Vancouver Book (Editor-in-Chief) (1997) • Top Dog!: A Fifty Year History of B.C.'s Most Listened to Radio Station (1993) • Reflections: A History of North Vancouver District (1992) • The Greater Vancouver Appointment Book (1990) • Reflections, One Hundred Years: A Celebration of the District of North Vancouver's Centennial (1990) • Vancouver: An Illustrated Chronology (with Shirley Mooney & Henri Robideau) (1986) • ExpoPulse! (1983) • Turn on to Canada (1983) • Chuck Davis' 1982 Vancouver Appointment Book (1981) • Chuck Davis' Vancouver Appointment Book (1980) • Kids! Kids! Kids! And Vancouver! (with Daniel Wood) (1977) • The Vancouver Book (General Editor) (1976) • Two Weeks in Vancouver (with John Ewing) (1976) • Chuck Davis' Guide to Vancouver (1973, 1975)

17TH ANNUAL GEORGE WOODCOCK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR AN OUTSTANDING LITERARY CAREER IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

Since 1995, BC BookWorld and the Vancouver Public Library have proudly sponsored the Woodcock Award and the Writers Walk at 350 West Georgia Street in Vancouver.

FOR MORE INFO SEE WWW. GEORGEWOODCOCK. COM

2 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 people Freedom Fighter AAPPPPYYHAPPENSTANCE GROUNDED never intended Gurjinder Basran AVING BEEN A U S TRAINED SQUADRON HH . .- to write her novel set in Punjabi Vancouver, Everything Was Good- commander fighter pilot in the Shah bye (Mother Tongue $21.95), winner of the inaugural Search for Hof Iran’s air force in the 1970s, Yadi the Great BC Novel Contest organized by Mona Fertig. Sharifad was imprisoned and tortured by Six years in the the new regime of Ayatollah Ali making, Everything Was Khomeini—after he was touted as a Persian Good-bye is the story of war hero in Khomeini’s war against Iraq. a young Indo-Canadian Rescued by sympathetic Kurds after an woman, Meena, who airplane crash in Iraq, Sharifad wrote a book struggles to assert her that was used for an Iranian propaganda movie independence within the called Eagle in 1984, Punjabi community of but he was still the Lower Mainland. mistrusted and “I was journaling accused of spying for about my own youth,” the CIA. Having Basran says, “and my necessarily sworn experiences disappeared allegiance to the previous regime of the into fiction. Now I can , say, yes, I did know I had Shah of Iran Yadi Sharifad Sharifad and other to write it, because I was pilots were sent on increasingly dangerous unable to abandon it.” missions. Novelists Karen X “Caught between the devil and Khomeini’s Tulchinsky and Kathy deep seething mistrust of human nature,” he Up, up and away. Page short-listed man- writes in The Flight of the Patriot: Escape Gurjinder Basran uscripts by Basran, tosses her From Revolutionary Iran (Thomas Allen manuscript in Gillean Chase, DC $29.95), “we pilots simultaneously loved and celebration. Reid, Kuya Minogue loathed that war. Somehow, I survived and Gillian Wigmore missions that grew increasingly suicidal. from 64 entries. The final “I began to suspect that my missions had selection was made by no purpose beyond finishing me off. It was novelist Jack Hodgins. Khomeini’s twisted take on the once- 978-1-896949-07-9 honourable Kamikaze. Except for us there was no ceremonial glass of sake, no final word to our loved ones.” Sharifad sent his family to Canada, then endured three years of desperation, often under 24-hour surveillance, until he managed to escape overland, via Turkey, and reunite with his family in Vancouver in 1994. “The meaning of freedom is not known until it is lost,” he writes, “and it is only then that we realize how precious it is.” 978-0-88762-526-8 EVERYBODY MUST GET MOTHERSTONED

T LOOKS LIKE TIBET. OR MAYBE THE UPPER for thousands of years. reaches of Bolivia. But, no, the stunning Harris refers to the various volcanoes featured topography in photographer Chris in the book as Galleries. Harris’ Motherstone: British Colum- “With every drop of rain or snow flake, or bia’sI Volcanic Plateau (Country Light $39.95) with every freeze and thaw,” he says, “the is tucked away in the Lower Mainland’s Ilgachuz volcano Gallery is re-hung. Nature has backyard, within a day’s drive of western Cana- not finished creating this piece of art yet.” da’s biggest city. With text by Harold Rhenisch, “These are landscapes that have never been Motherstone follows Harris’ and Rhenisch’s un- seen or photographed before.” says Harris. “We precedented book on B.C.’s grasslands, Spirit hiked for days on end where no one has ever of the Grass (Country Light 2007), to help trod, except for the occasional mountain goat.” spread awareness of another under-acknowl- Motherstone contains rarely seen landscapes edged geographical area. such as Pipe Organ Mountain, a dominant fea- Harris quotes novelist Graeme Gibson: ture in the Ilgachuz volcano, near Anahim Lake “The exploitation of nature produces not in the west Chilcotin. The patterned ground wealth but scarcity.” in his Ilgachuz photo has been in the making Climbing the Ilgachuz volcano, from Motherstone HC: 978-0-9865818-1-6 SC: 978-0-9865818-0-9

WINTER Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Hannah Main-van der Kamp, John Moore, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, Grant Shilling, For this issue, we gratefully Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Sheila Munro, 2010-2011 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 acknowledge the unobtrusive Cherie Thiessen, Shane McCune, Joseph Farris. assistance of Canada Council, a Produced with the sponsorship of Pacific BookWorld News Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. BC Issue, Web consultant: Sharon Jackson continuous partner since 1988. BOOKWORLD Society. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk. Vol. 24, No. 4 Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Betty Twigg. In-Kind Supporters: Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. Deliveries: Ken Reid Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at Simon Fraser University Library; Editor/Production: David Lester Email: [email protected]. Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com Vancouver Public Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 4 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 people HOMEWARD Fool proof INCE HE DROPPED OUT OF GRADU- ate school in 1977 to work on a Svillage-scale microhydro project, Scott Davis has owned, operated, repaired, sold “and generally fooled around with microhydro technology” ever since. ABOUNDS Recent improvements in technology “I’ve lived and worked all over B.C.,” says Caroline Wood- have rendered microhydro installations much more practical, so Davis has gath- ward, “from the Peace River and the Kootenays to Lillooet, the ered dozens of firsthand stories of en- Gulf Islands, Vancouver, Haida Gwaii, Powell River, Tofino and ergy independence from the pages of all over Vancouver Island. So I can feel at home in lots of places.” Home Power magazine for Serious Microhydro: Water Power Solutions Now a relief assistant lightkeeper based on the Lennard Island Lightstation near from the Experts (New Society Tofino, Caroline Woodward also worked as a sales rep for publishers for Kate Walker $29.95). & Co. “from Chemainus to Smithers” for seven years. She’s hitting the road again, this Case studies of harnessing the power time she’s promoting two new titles of her own “springing (or glacially proceeding, of running water are designed to encour- more like it) from my Peace River roots.” age and instruct individuals to meet the Her novel Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny (Oolichan $18.95) is a contem- needs of particular sites ranging from Takao Tanabe in Seal Cove (now porary retelling of The Odyssey, an enduring love story between a resolute Peace River Prince Rupert, BC), circa 1935-36 systems for household needs to small ranch wife and her good husband, adrift behind the wheel of his long-haul truck neighbourhoods. 978-0-86571-638-4 bound for the west coast and southern interior. Singing Away the Dark (Simply Read $18.95), a children’s picture book illustrated by Julie Morstad, is based on Caroline’s coping skills learned during mid- Scott Davis SOMETIMES A winter one-mile walks to the Cecil Lake school bus stop in Grade One, through barbwire gates, a scary dark trail, past a cranky bull in a barnyard and finally, endur- GREAT PRINTER ing a northern blizzard. Woodward’s October book tour included over 25 events in 16 cities, towns and Tanabe letterpressed villages. “I love driving,” she says, “and I welcome the chance to organize my road maps and hit the road again.” Born in Fort St. John and raised on a homestead at Cecil Lake, the former Kootenay bookseller began her writing career with a two-year ORN IN PRINCE RUPERT IN 1926, stint at the Alaska Highway News while she was a high school student. Takao Tanabe moved to Penny 978-088982-267-2; BVancouver at age eleven. As one Singing 978-1-897476-41-3 of 22,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly evacuated from the B.C. Coast during World War II, he took refuge with his family at the Lemon Creek internment camp in the Kootenays. Two years later he left to join his older siblings to do farm work as in- dentured labourers near Winnipeg. Without a high school diploma, he studied at the Winnipeg School of Art, ini- Auschwitz duo tially under Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald, then under New West- Lisa Birnie’s In Mania’s Memory minster-born Joseph Plaskett (Read Leaf $27.95) is the remarkable who became a mentor and friend. story of a Polish Jew named Mania and Tanabe later studied in New York, Lon- a German Christian named Johanne. don and Tokyo. Mania was imprisoned in Auschwitz at Tanabe returned to Vancouver in age seven. Fast forward to 1976 and she 1952, befriending printer Robert is living in Toronto when she hires a Reid who has now prepared a limited cleaning woman who appears to be the edition of Tanabe’s work as a letterpress same Nazi guard designer, Takao Tanabe: Sometime (Johanne?) who Printer (Alcuin Society $185). As a book protected her and designer, Tanabe founded Periwinkle gave her special Press in Vancouver in 1956 for poetry food so she could and broadsheets. Along with Jane survive in a work Rule and others, he co-founded the camp called Arts Club (that later gave rise to the Arts Reichenbach. Lisa Birnie Club Theatre). Primarily known as a The guard was painter, he taught at the Vancouver hoping to adopt Mania by war’s end but School of Art and at the Banff School of they were separated. But the Toronto Fine Arts where he was also a program cleaning lady denies she is Johanne. director. He returned to Vancouver in Lisa Birnie tries to unravel the truth. 1980 and now lives in Parksville on Van- We learn Johanne was a beautiful couver Island. His first major cross- young German woman passionately in Canada retrospective opened at the love with an officer of the Third Reich. Vancouver Art Gallery and generated a Is Mania deluded? Are memories reli- coffee table art book, Takao Tanabe able? For a documentary film, Birnie ac- (D&M 2005) with text by Ian M. companies Mania and the woman who Thom, Roald Nasgaard, continues to deny she was the Nazi Nancy Tousley and Jeffrey Caroline Woodward: guard back to Auschwitz, where they Spalding. Tanabe became a member She drives far and roam the grounds. Birnie has added of the Order of BC (1993) and the Or- writes slowly some of her own experiences of war to der of Canada (1999). this fascinating story. 978-1-897476-45-1 Takao Tanabe: Sometime Printer is available privately via [email protected]

5 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Strong voices. NEWS: Postcards from the Four Directions Drew Hayden Taylor

In this collection of short essays for the popular media, playwright, novelist and screenwriter Drew Hayden Taylor sends his readers fascinating and exotic postcards from his globetrotting adventures, always on the lookout for the NEWS about aboriginal peoples around the world. Organized around the thematics suggested by the four cardinal directions central to the Ojibway peoples—East for beginnings and youth; South for journeys both physical and spiritual; West for maturity and responsibility; and North for contemplation and wisdom; these communiqués are sent not so much to instruct as they are to delight. Never The Lil’wat World of Charlie Mack without a healthy dose of irony, humour, and often unabashed laughter, these “postcards” offer their readers unexpected and novel insights into the intense Dorothy Kennedy & Randy Bouchard and often hilarious complexities of our new multicultural reality. December 2010 Charlie Mack was a bridge between the ancient and the modern Lil’wat worlds, isbn 978-0-88922-643-2 who Randy Bouchard and Dorothy Kennedy were privileged to meet early in 144 pages | Essays their ethnographic field work. Born on the Mount Currie Reserve in 1899, $18.95 Charlie Mack was a master storyteller, canoe-maker and trapper. A font of wisdom, his way of life exemplified the living world of the Lil’wat people. What we experience through Charlie Mack’s stories is a holistic world in which legends Discovery Passages and memoirs mingle, where the magical is not always distinct from the actual, Garry Thomas Morse and where the local environment provides a sense of grounded continuity with a mythological past. With breathtaking virtuosity, Garry Thomas Morse sets out to recover the Available now appropriated, stolen and scattered world of his ancestral people, retracing isbn 978-0-88922-640-1 Captain Vancouver’s original “voyage of discovery.” His continuous poetic 240 pages | Non-fiction dialogue of “discovery” and “recovery” reaches as far as the Lenape, the original $24.95 Native inhabitants of Mannahatta in what is now known as New York, and on across the Atlantic in pursuit of the European roots of the “Voyages of Where the Blood Mixes Discovery” in Frazer’s The Golden Bough. His family story “The Young Healer,” and transformed passages from Whitman, Pound, Williams and Bowering, link Kevin Loring Kwakwaka’wakw traditions of the past with a modern poetic tradition in North America that encompasses the entire scope of relations between oral and vocal Where the Blood Mixes exposes the shadows below the surface of the author’s tradition, ancient ritual, historical contextuality and our continuing rites. First Nations heritage, and to celebrate its survivors. Can a person overcome March 2011 their past; can a people survive their history? Irreverently funny and brutally isbn 978-0-88922-660-9 honest, Where the Blood Mixes is a story about loss and redemption. Caught in 96 pages | Poetry a shadowy pool of alcoholic pain and guilt, Floyd is a man who has lost everyone $16.95 he holds most dear. Now after more than two decades, his daughter Christine returns home to confront her father. Set during the salmon run, Where the Blood Mixes takes us to the confluence of the muddy Fraser and the brilliant blue Dead White Writer on the Floor Thompson Rivers, to the bottom of that landscape, to the heart of a People. Drew Hayden Taylor Where the Blood Mixes won the 2009 Governor General’s Award for Drama. Available now In Act One of this comedy of identity politics, Billy Jack, Injun Joe, Kills Many isbn 978-0-88922-608-1 Enemies, Old Lodgeskins, Pocahontas and Tonto are locked in a room with a 96 pages | Drama dead white writer. Gradually, they discover the computer on the writer’s desk is $16.95 a dream-catcher, which they can use to rewrite their stereotyped lives in the image of their own inner beings. Imagine their surprise when they reappear in The Edward Curtis Project: the same locked room in Act Two as Mike, Jim, Bill, John, Sally and Fred attending an AA meeting and realize the white writer is still very much alive A Modern Picture Story among them—his body in the closet is still warm! While the literary allusions Marie Clements & Rita Leistner to Pirandello and Agatha Christie are obvious, the side-splitting comedy is vintage Drew Hayden Taylor. Edward Curtis saw his job as that of creating a photographic record of “the March 2011 isbn vanishing race of the North American Indian.” His work therefore became as 978-0-88922-663-0 112 pages | Drama much a projection of colonial attitudes upon aboriginal peoples as it was an $17.95 authentic record of their lives. A two-year collaboration to take Curtis’s photographs to heart and to see who and what might live inside them today, The Edward Curtis Project resulted in a profoundly moving drama by playwright Marie Clements, and a spectacular contemporary photo exhibit by photo- journalist Rita Leistner. Published together in this volume, they illustrate the trauma the notion of a “vanishing race” has inflicted on an entire people, and celebrate the triumph of a future in which they have not, in fact, vanished. December 2010 isbn 978-0-88922-642-5 160 pages | Drama; Photography $24.95

Talonbooks www.talonbooks.com

6 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 people

Having married a Coast Salish man at age 17, Sylvia Olsen learned how to make Cowichan “Indian” sweaters and operated a Cowichan sweater shop on the Tsartlip Reserve for 16 years.

Sylvia Olsen wears one of the last sweaters knit by her ex- mother-in-law, Laura Olsen, who knit for more than 80 years.

OR MUCH OF THE 20TH cal demand all but disappeared.” By the early 1990s, knock-off imita- century, handmade CLOSELY KNIT tion sweaters were flooding the market. Cowichan Indian Having closed her business, Olsen went sweaters—bulky, to university and at age 35 gained a Mas- ter’s degree in history, specializing in distinctivelyF patterned, woolen Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations. sweaters that were cozy and Her 1996 thesis on Coast Salish knitters served as the basis for the National repelled the rain—were Film Board documentary, The Story of handed down from generation the Coast Salish Knitters, made by FAMILIES Christine Welsh. to generation, preferably un- was clearly white in terms of her own ra- Olsen says every Coast Salish family on Sylvia Olsen’s picture book Yetsa’s washed, worn for work and cial origins. southern Vancouver Island has at least Sweater (Sono Nis 2006) introduced the play, never for fashion. The settlement with The Bay was pal- one story of selling a Cowichan sweater art of making the sweaters to younger try: The Cowichan were accorded the to a non-First Nations customer so they readers. We felt proud to own one because right to sell their (relatively few) hand- could buy food for supper or shoes for ✍ the Cowichan Indian sweater was as made sweaters alongside the mass pro- the kids. THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT HAS PRE- British Columbian as we could get. Our duced garments. The controversy, like “In 1978 we started buying Indian sented sweaters to Queen Elizabeth province gave them as gifts to Harry the overall costs of sweaters from our II, Prince Philip, Prime Ministers Truman, Bing Crosby, Pope the Olympics, disap- Now praise the Indian Sweater, family and a few John Diefenbaker and Pierre John Paul II and Charles and peared from the me- neighbours,” she re- Trudeau (who wore a Cowichan Diana. And they didn’t get ’em from dia spotlight as soon In accents clear and bold, calls. “We nailed a sweater for one of his Christmas cards) The Bay or ebay. as the events began. No garment suits us better, sign on a tree at the but the characters who drew Olsen to We all knew the product was from But now Sylvia end of our drive- tell the story of the Cowichan sweater the Coast Salish people. Olsen is getting the For working in the cold, way—Indian in Working with Wool were the knitters That’s why the Hudson Bay Com- last word. Sweaters for Sale— such as Cecelia, Ethel, Sarah, — opening lines of a poem pany stumbled into a public relations Her Working and placed a five- May, Yvonne, Elizabeth, printed in Cowichan Leader fiasco in October of 2009 when they With Wool (Sono dollar advertisement Madeleine and Laura. newspaper, 1936 unveiled the official 2010 Olympics Nis $38.95) blends in the newspaper. “Washing wool outside and knitting clothing line and everyone—including ancient coastal his- Soon a steady trail of all night was Cecelia’s favourite thing to Macleans magazine—noted the bulky, tory; the stories of women who have customers found their way to our place.” do,” says Olsen. “In the early days, be- 2010 Olympic sweaters were derivative made the sweaters, the memories of the In 1981, Carl built a log “sweater fore the 1950s, before hydro wires were of the Coast Salish garments. people who marketed the sweaters, the shop” behind their house. His father, strung through the reserve, she had a The retail giant admitted their design families that wore them and some brief Ernie Olsen, named it Mount New- coal oil lamp for light. If she was out of was “inspired by a great fashion icon that recollections of The Bay confrontation— ton Indian Sweaters after the sacred oil she used candles. is recognized as a knit sweater all across from someone who can walk the walk, mountain that they could see from the “Late at night it was quiet—no radio, the country” but no Coast Salish artists not just talk the talk. backyard. no TV, no kids, just the clicking of her had been invited to serve on the design ✍ Sales flourished. The Olsens were able knitting needles. The repetitive move- team. Global consumers would not be AT AGE SEVENTEEN, IN 1972, SYLVIA OLSEN to pay 15 percent more to the knitters ment of her hands uncluttered her mind informed of the sweaters’ historical and married Carl Olsen, a Coast Salish. than they could get in Victoria. Every- and gave her time to reflect. stylistic origins. Compensation for the As a young mother, she learned how to one was happy until the cost of wool in- “Most nights she stayed up until indigenous industry would be nil. knit Cowichan sweaters from her creased and the price of sweaters did not. three or four in the morning, and some- The main voice to confront The Bay, mother-in-law, Laura Olsen. “By the 1980s the market was being times later if she needed to finish her and speak on behalf of the Coast Salish In those days, knitters were paid $55 driven by skyrocketing wholesale exports sweater. She’d sleep for a few hours and knitters to the media, belonged to for a sweater which they would later see to Japan and Europe, which drove the then get up and wash and block the Sylvia Olsen, who entered the fray on the dealer’s rack with a tag for $270. price to the knitters down rather than up. sweater for sale later in the day. That way with reluctance. Although she had lived Since the wool, itself, cost $45, for all They had to mass-produce thousands of the kids would have something for on the Tsartlip Reserve for 34 years, she their labour the knitters only made $10. sweaters for foreign markets, while the lo- supper. continued on next page

7 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 people

bloodsucking giant that killed people in COORS IS the forest and people who pushed it into a fire where it became ash and then mos- FOR BOORS quitoes.” Simpson’s story about a young boy OO MUCH BEER, TOO LITTLE INFORMA- who wanders alone into the forest be- tion. That was the impetus for T fore European contact introduces young Dutch-born Leo Buijs’ Beers of Brit- readers to Lightning Snakes, Wood- ish Columbia: A Guide to Micro and worm, Creek Woman, Mouse Woman, Macro Breweries, Brewpubs and Two-Headed Serpents, the Wild Man their Beers (Seaview / Sandhill $19.95). of the Forest and a Bloodsucking Mon- “I realized how difficult it must be for ster. A glossary of these mythical crea- any beer consumer, an aficionado or a tures describes their traits and novice beer drinker,” says Buijs, “to wres- identifying physical details. tle oneself through the many different “My hope is to stimulate the curios- types and tastes of beer without some ity of children of all ethnicities to reach guidance.” further into the study of the First Peo- So Buijs has evaluated more than ple,” Simpson says. “In doing so they will 300 B.C. beers including Steam Donkey gain understanding and respect for this Lager (Comox), Crooked Tooth Pump- Carroll Simpson on the porch of one of five refurbished cabins art and culture here on this land, before kin Ale (Victoria), Anarchist Amber Ale built in the 1930s for a fishing camp on Babine Lake. European contact, that is renowned (Penticton), Fog Fighter Ale (Victoria), worldwide.” 978-1-894974-50-9 Sasquatch Stout (Chilliwack), Hangdog Hefeweizen (Squamish), Winter Gale Strong Ale (Victoria), Pompous Pompa- THE LITERARY BUZZ AT dour Porter (Nanaimo) and Whaletail Ale (Salt Spring). His guidebook includes a glossary of beer terms, information on how to perform a proper tasting and descriptions of 55 breweries and brewpubs in three regions: the Lower Mainland, Vancouver BABINE LAKE Island and the south central Interior. Much “Living on the shores of a wilderness lake,” Carroll Simpson of the artwork on the beer labels is stun- says, “I ask my maker all the time, why are there mosquitoes?” ning, worthy of an art gallery exhibit. 978-0-9735527-2-0 S OWNER OF OOKPIK WILDERNESS one hour by water and two hours by road Robert J. Wiersema Lodge on Babine Lake, to Burns Lake.” A Carroll Simpson spends From this locale, Simpson wrote and part of her winters in a fishing cabin illustrated her storybook, The First Bea- built in the 1930s, and the rest of the ver (Heritage $24.95), about an aborigi- AFTER BEFORE year running her adjacent fishing lodge nal girl born with brown hair—instead HEY SAY THE WORST THING IS TO that was built in 1979. Her love affair of black—who becomes strong in spite lose a child. In Robert J. with the wilderness has lasted seventeen of her difference from others. Similarly TWiersema’s riveting domes- years. for ages 6-11, Simpson’s The First Mos- tic drama, Bedtime Story (Random The closest neighbourhood is the quito (Heritage $24.95) imagines the House $32.95), two estranged parents Lake Babine Nation village of Old Fort, origins of the mosquito. must cope with their son’s supernatural population 20 during the spring, sum- “We have all been looking for a rea- descent into the thralls of a fantasy novel. mer and fall. It is ten kilometers away son for the annoying mosquito,” she says. The structure is reminiscent of Prin- by water. Winter access to Ookpik Wil- “In my studies, I have read numerous cess Bride, the movie, in which a bedtime derness Lodge is by helicopter or snow- stories about the mosquito from the story leads to menacing predicaments, shoe only. Iroquois, Tlingit, Tuscarora, Haud- only this time the worst dangers are medi- Label design from “I usually park my truck in the vil- enosaunee, Nootka and many others. cal, in a real-life drama. It follows Victoria’s Canoe Brewpub lage of Granisle, population 300,” she “There is a theme that runs through Wiersema’s bestselling debut novel, Be- says. “For groceries and propane, I travel most of the stories about mosquitoes; a fore I Wake (2006). 978-0-679-31375-5 COWICHAN SWEATERS

continued from previous page When she was once called to act as a ured Cowichan sweater elements that make up “When she was finished telling me witness in a break and enter case, Olsen down from one generation a Cowichan? Or is it the her story, she looked up to the ceiling was able to identify who had knit a par- to the next, For some fami- “A Cowichan feeling you get when and crinkled her brow. After a few mo- ticular sweater for the court. From the lies, writes Olsen, “a you wear one? Fewer ments of silence she turned back to me stitch, tension and size, and the rounded Cowichan sweater might sweater might and fewer British with a thoughtful look on her face and collar with strips of black and white, and be so fiercely coveted that be so fiercely Columbians are going said, ‘We Indians are sure hard work- a raised join at the shoulders, she knew the recipient must be coveted that the to know. These days, ers.’” the sweater could have only been made named in the owner’s will.” “ only May and Yvonne It was that statement, accompanied by Cecelia. Olsen claims that Coast recipient must still knit. So Sylvia by a chuckle, that convinced Olsen she May’s sweaters were bulky and heavy. Salish women were making be named in the Olsen has recorded the must one day write a book on the sub- Yvonne’s sweaters were dense and tightly sweaters from goat’s fleece story of handmade ject of Cowichan sweaters. Olsen and knit on small needles. Elizabeth’s sweat- prior to the advent of Eu- owner’s will.” Cowichan sweaters in Cecelia agreed that few people knew ers were rough, as each stitch did not ropean settlers. Others —SYLVIA OLSEN the knit of time. Just as much about how First Nations people exactly line up with the previous stitch. have suggested the gar- Olsen’s mother-in-law lived, and stereotypes of First Nations Laura was an artist. Each sweater was a ments can be traced to the introduction had taught her sons and daughters to knit, people did not reflect that they were new creation. She tried different collars, of knitting techniques by early British Syliva Olsen has taught the knitting skills hard workers. sleeve insets, buttons, ties, belts, hoods, settlers. Either way, the debate contin- to her daughters, Joni and Heather. ✍ pouches, or slash pockets. If she saw a ues over appropriation and what con- Laura Olsen died, age 91, hoping OLSEN TAKES PAINS TO DEPICT THE KNIT- knitted garment on the street, she came stitutes cultural property that should be her grandchildren would not have to ters of Cowichan sweaters as artists. Each home and tried to match its design. protected. subsist on knitting income as she did, knitter brings unique traits to their de- Many B.C. families, aboriginal or oth- Is it the designs, the style, the wool but wanting the skills to be preserved. signs and spinning techniques. erwise, have passed a particularly treas- or a particular configuration of all of the 1-55039-177-1

8 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 9 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 A stunning collection of recipes by renowned chef MARC people THUET IN PRAISE OF WHALE MEAT EATH AND REBIRTH—IT’S THE According to an 1885 treaty, the endless cycle, embedded in Makah had been granted whaling rights Dcountless myths. as consideration for giving up tribal Tseshaht academic Charlotte land. Frustrated by public and govern- Coté, as the second person from the mental responses to the revival of Makah Nuu-chah-nulth Nation to receive a whaling in 1999, five “rogue” Makah Ph.D, opens her cultural affirmation of whalers killed a second gray whale on whale hunting by the neighbouring September 9, 2007 but they were de- Makah (Washington State) and Nuu- nounced by the Makah Tribal Council chah-nulth (Vancouver Island) First for acting without the approval of the Nations in her Spirits of our Ancestors Makah Whaling Commission. (UBC Press $24.95) by recalling the mo- Coté’s bias in favour of indigenous ment she learned Makah whalers had whaling—yet to be undertaken by mod- successfully killed a thirty-foot maa’ak ern Nuu-chah-nulth in Canada—is un- (gray whale) on May 17, 1999 near apologetic throughout. “Cooking is the biggest passion of Neah Bay, Washington—five years after She concludes Spirits of our Ancestors gray whales were removed from the En- by recalling her attendance at a World my life ... It should never be boring dangered species list. Council of Whalers meeting for indig- for you. I encourage you to have fun The whale was harpooned by enous peoples in 1996, initiated by in your kitchen.”—Marc Thuet Theron Parker from a traditional Nuu-chah-nulth chief Tom Mexsis canoe, then it was killed with a high- Happynook. All participants received caliber rifle specifically designed for the a cookbook from the owner of a whale Available wherever books are sold. task. Shooting the whale was judged to cuisine restaurant in Osaka, Japan. be more humane by causing the whale “I laughed when I received the penguin.ca to die almost instantly. It also reduced book,” Coté writes, “thinking how funny the danger for the whaling crew who it was to receive a book about how to would be otherwise dragged—tradition- cook whale meat. At that time, I never ally—for days by the mortally wounded thought that I would have the chance whale. to eat whale, or that I would ever wit- Coté received the news in Berkeley, ness a hunt by my people. at the University of California. “I hung “Now, after my Makah relatives suc- up the phone,” she recalls, “sad and dis- cessfully harvested a whale, I am opti- appointed that I could not be there to mistic that I will witness a share in the celebration with my Makah Nuu-chah-nulth hunt. I now cherish and Nuu-chah-nulth relatives. And I was this book that sits on my bookshelf with also upset that I was not going to get the all my other cookbooks, and I look for- opportunity to taste whale meat.” ward to the day that I can try out Mrs. Spirits of our Ancestors proceeds to ex- Ohnishi’s recipes. plain how reviving whaling “When I do, I will know that traditions will reaf- our philosophy of firm the identi- hishuk’ishy tsawalk— ties of the everything is one— Makah and has been fulfilled Nuu-chah- and that our whal- nulth as whaling tradition is ing people, whole once again. enriching and And when that day strengthening comes, when we communities harvest a whale, we with pride. will not only restore “Whaling did the missing link in not just pro- our tradition but vide my ances- we will truly be tors with honouring the wealth, status spirits of our whal- and food,” Coté ing ancestors.” writes. “It was the 978-0-7748-2053-0 basis of Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth worldviews, identities and cultures.”

Charlotte Coté reasserts the opinion of Mohawk scholar and UVic professor Taiaiake Alfred that in order for Native communities to be decolonized they must “commit themselves to self-conscious traditionalism.”

10 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 The Beachcombers for real: Jo Hammond and Dick Hammond

Salvaging with Dick

o Hammond has recalled how she learned to handle an open, 19-foot salvage boat, tie knots, sing arias to the sea lions, “expect the unexpected” and suckle her child while chasing rogue logs in Edge of the Sound: Memoirs J of a West Coast Log Salvager (Caitlin $24.95).

As an English-trained schoolteacher, Jo Hammond. “Dick didn’t even have a she stepped off a freighter named Ca- radio.” nadian Star at age 25, in 1967, and had Iglauer’s Fishing with John became no idea she would find lasting compan- the basis for a made-for-tv Hallmark film ionship with the late Dick Navigating the Heart starring one of Hammond, reclusive author of three “Charlie’s Angels,” Jaclyn Smith. books of coastal lore, Tales from Hidden The CBC television series The Beach- Basin (1996), Haunted Waters (1999) combers could have been about the likes and A Touch of Strange (2001). of Jo and Dick Hammond, except that Jo Hammond’s Sunshine Coast long-running program was a fanciful memoir is comparable to Edith and often silly depiction of west coast sal- Iglauer’s coastal classic Fishing with vaging. Before the CBC started filming John in which an American-trained jour- The Beachcombers series, the producer nalist remembers her live-aboard ro- wanted to use Dick Hammond’s jet boat mance with Pender Harbour fisherman and his partner Alan’s tug Styx for the John Daly. series. “They said they would paint the Daly and Hammond were both tug white,” says Jo Hammond, “But I staunchly independent men, with high don’t think Dick and his partner Alan IQs, a low tolerance for fools and a love treated them with much respect down of classical music. Both Edge of the Sound on our dock, so the next thing we heard and Fishing with John are love stories— was they had found what they were look- the gruff Spencer Tracy meets the ing for with Harry and Johnny urbanite Katherine Hepburn— Smith’s operation. They owned build- with humour and tales of advent- ings, marina and a gas dock. ure. “Maybe if Dick and Alan had been Whereas Iglauer and Daly could lis- more polite to them, I wouldn’t have to ten to music on the water in their defer the property taxes. Dick used to cramped and toilet-less 41-foot troller, hate their filming presence over at our Morekelp, the Hammonds preferred booming grounds. They’d come over to their concerts in bed. “It was impossible him and order him to stop work, and to hear anything while driving that open he’d refuse, and understandably so.” boat with its 351 Ford HO engine,” says 978-1-894759-49-6

11 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Recipes from An olive oil cookbook Vegans can keep “up Andrew George, by the proprietors to date” with Sarah’s chef at the 2010 of Basil Olive Oil latest calendar. Winter Olympics Products. Aboriginal Pavilion.

A FEAST FOR GO VEGAN! ALL SEASONS FROM THE OLIVE GROVE 2011 Wall Calendar Andrew George Jr. with Robert Gairns Helen & Anastasia Koutalianos Sarah Kramer 978-1-55152-368-2; $24.95 978-1-55152-367-5; $24.95 978-1-55152342-2; $14.95

How Canada Essays on race in treated suspected the post-Obama era Bolsheviks in 1918- by Vancouver poet 19: the nation’s ﬁ rst Wayde Compton. war on terror.

SEEING REDS AFTER CANAAN Daniel Francis Wayde Compton 978-1-55152-373-6; $27.95 978-1-55152-374-3; $19.95

The passionate last A visual history A reissue of S. Bear twenty years in the of female Bergman’s ac- life of Jean Genet. bodybuilders and claimed ﬁ rst book, “An indispensable other muscular on what it means to study.” –Kirkus women. be a butch. Reviews

THE LAST GENET VENUS WITH BICEPS Hadrien Laroche; David L. Chapman & BUTCH IS A NOUN trans. by David Homel Patricia Vertinsky S. Bear Bergman 978-1-55152-365-1; $24.95 978-1-55152-370-5; $29.95 978-1-55152-369-9; $19.95

Ivan’s ﬁ fth collec- A novel about tion of funny, wistful Polish pyromaniacs, stories on gender set to the smell of and identity. smoke.

MISSED HER KRAKOW MELT Ivan E. Coyote Daniel Allen Cox 978-1-55152-371-2; $18.95 978-1-55152-372-9; $17.95

“A universally ap- A Queer Film A stunning, large- proachable story Classic on the format book on of self-discovery.” acclaimed 1992 Attila Richard –Quill & Quire Chen Kaige ﬁ lm. Lukacs’ Polaroid images.

FAREWELL MY POLAROIDS CONCUBINE GIRL UNWRAPPED Attila Richard Lukacs Gabriella Goliger Helen Hok-Sze Leung & Michael Morris 978-1-55152-375-0; $22.95 978-1-55152-362-0; $14.95 978-1-55152-295-1; $60.00

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12 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 reviews FICTION THETHE DEVILDEVIL ISIS ININ THETHE DETAILSDETAILS Jenn Farrell’s second story collection is first-rate, if you have the stomach for reality

The Devil You Know by Jenn Farrell (Anvil $16)

OME STORIES, SUCH AS JENN FARRELL’S “DAY OF THE DEAD,” Sgrab you by the lapel and don’t let go. Doesn’t matter where you are. You can be stuck in traffic, on a hot afternoon, trying to get onto the Lions Gate Bridge. “Sam found the car keys on the bitter end, her mother is suffocat- hook by the front door and drove ing. Farrell writes, “Her loneliness her mother’s rusty Accord straight felt like a garment around her.” to the hospital. She gave her name Sam can’t bring herself to sleep at the reception desk and waited for in her mother’s bed. She drinks a social worker named Elise to take cherry whiskey that tastes like cough her down to the morgue.” syrup and wakes on the sofa. She By the time you’ve reached Lost eats a bag of ketchup chips for Lagoon, Sam (Samantha), the good- breakfast. She calls Michael to make looking but single Vancouver hair- an unnecessary second appoint- dresser—whose flight to Toronto ment. didn’t get her to the deathbed in “She was two for two now, if any- time—has to identify her mother’s one was keeping score on missing emaciated, cancerous carcass. the death of a parent. Sam hadn’t “For the first time, Sam could see made it to her father’s passing ei- the resemblance between her ther, when he was crushed between mother and her grandmother.” two train cars at the steel mill a Your seat belt is fastened. You’re month before her birth.” not using your cell. There’s no by- Ouch. law against reading, is there? Wearing a sundress that she wor- Yet.Rubbernecking and reading are ries is too young for her, Sam re- both acts of curiosity. You can’t not turns to the cemetery where she slow down and peek. Jenn Farrell’s tells Michael she’ll take a Robert opening story in The Devil You Know Browning quote. It’s the least offen- is like a roadside accident sive item on the remembrance scene. menu. The undertaker sur- The fastidiously polite prises her by reciting four Funeral Services Director, BC lines of the stanza from Michael, who addresses BOOKWORLD which the line has been Sam as Miss Black, explains STAFF PICK taken. some bloodless protocols. Michael leads her on a To assert herself, Sam asks how stroll of the grounds. It’s not do clients know for certain that a exactly romantic, but it’s something. $600 urn for ashes isn’t replaced by She selects a spot for her mother’s a cardboard box, then re-sold again remains in the shade of a maple. and again? When he asks if she has given any Our Miss Black is not a nice girl. consideration to making her own ar- She has inherited some of her rangements, Sam is mystified. “I mother’s nastiness. And anger. thought you were about to ask me When Michael produces the pam- out,” she blurts. phlet with suitable phrases for tomb- Sam grinds the gears and pulls stones, she inwardly composes her out of the parking lot. own alternate epitaphs. Thin at last. You have just reached the curb Or, even better, I told you I was sick. of your mother’s apartment build- We start to care about Samantha ing. Your mother is 83. The story is when she confesses she is oddly en- almost done. amoured of this business-like cem- Back at her mother’s place, Sam etery guy, Michael. It’s a bit takes scissors and starts chopping off humiliating for her, but it’s better her hair. She can’t stop cutting. Soon than feeling nothing. there is only stubble. Sam runs her “She’d been aching for physical hands over her patchy head. “The contact with someone—no matter woman in the mirror looked naked, how stupid the circumstance—even skull-like,” Farrell writes. this small-handed man in a suit. “Sam saw her grandmother’s When Michael produces “She had brushed against the cheekbones, her mother’s baleful hand of the gas-station attendant eyes. She saw her own emptiness, her the pamphlet with suitable when he passed her her credit card heart so open, so capable of love, and slip that morning, and the urge to not a soul in the world to give it to…. wrap herself around him had almost “And, somewhere, a hole in the phrases for tombstones, she made her cry with longing.” earth waited for her.” Geez, West Vancouver is so bland. You ring the buzzer. The rest of inwardly composes her own You are glad you don’t live there these stories are going to be good, anymore. You’re opposed to light too. Some things, you can just tell. alternate epitaphs. Thin at last. summer reading. If anything, we Most hype is just that. But book need an antidote to Frisbees, ice reviewer Jennifer Croll was bang on cream cones and fireworks... when she announced in the Georgia Or, even better, Samantha retreats to the stifling Straight that Jenn Farrell is a bad-ass house in southern Ontario that she version of Alice Munro. It sounds PHOTO I told you I was sick. now owns. Her mother has left her like hokum, but Munro’s short sto- D a vindictive, self-centred note, a fi- ries are similarly ambivalent about

WENDY nal rebuke to her desertion. Past the conventional morality. 978-1-897535-06-6

13 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 reviews FICTION MURDERMURDER && GRASSGRASS BEYONDBEYOND THETHE MOUNTAINSMOUNTAINS PHOTO

SAWCHUK

LAURA

Murder in the Chilcotin by Roy Innes Roy Innes evokes the Chilcotin War of 1864 Columbia for more than a cen- (NeWest $19.95) tury. Eventually the NDP government of British Columbia OY INNES’ THIRD INSPEC- Aboriginals were forewarned Begbie in a Quesnel court and formally apologized for the ter- tor Coswell mystery, Mur- they would die of smallpox if hanged at Quesnellesmouth. A ritorial infringements of R der in the Chilcotin, inves- they interfered. In response, sixth man was later hanged in Waddington’s men, as well as tigates the murder of a young eight members of the New Westminster. the procedural shortcomings of Mountie, the son of a local Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) First Na- “Since the Chilcotin uprising the trial and hangings. rancher in the West Cariboo. Its tion attacked one of is relatively recent in a historical Waddington was still lobbying genesis was multi-faceted. Waddington’s work camps in sense, it is well documented in for his Bute Inlet route to the “For years now,” says Innes, a the Homathko Canyon in 1864 provincial and federal archives,” Cariboo when he died at age Gabriola Islander, “I’ve been part and killed 14 members of the says Innes. “A simple way of re- 71—fittingly, of smallpox—in of a senior citizen foursome of survey expedition. The overall viewing these is through an ex- Ottawa in 1872. moose hunters camping out in death toll rose to nineteen white cellent educational site: ✫ the Chilcotin back country and men and four aboriginals by canadianmysteries.ca. The back- AS A BREAK FROM HIS NOVELS, INNES since I wanted a sharp contrast year’s end. ground for my plot virtually also writes short stories and one, to the urban setting of West End Five Tsilhqot’in aboriginals Murder in the Chilcotin was flowed from those pages.” Sheila Pritchard, was shortlisted Murders, this magnificent, wild (Klatassin, Tellot, Tapitt, Piem partially inspired by the classic The Chilcotin War, as it be- for the John Kenneth Galbraith part of our province was ideal. and Chessus) were sentenced to Grass Beyond the Mountains by came known, remained a divi- Literary Award 2009. “It was after reading Rich death by Judge Matthew Baillie Rich Hobson (on horse) sive racial issue in British 978-1897126691 Hobson’s Grass Beyond the Moun- tains and seeing the actual home- The main storyline takes place in 1962 when the steads described in the book, that MAKING THE PROMISE mother of three children and the wife of Japa- the plot developed in my mind. nese POW survivor, Howard Coulter, mysteriously I was already fascinated with BY SAGE BIRCHWATER dies. The story is told through the eyes of the RCMP and First Nations’ history. The Promise of Rain by Donna Milner (McArthur $24.95) youngest child, eleven-year-old daughter, Ethie. So it all came together.” Interspersed are chapters depicting the Entering a racially charged FOLLOWING HER DEBUT NOVEL AFTER RIVER, ABOUT AN drama, anguish and adventures of Howard’s world of cattle, logging and mari- American draft evader who comes to Canada wartime experiences and the suffering and juana crops, Inspector Coswell during the Viet Nam war, Donna Milner’s The hardship he and fellow POWs endured during and newly promoted Sergeant Promise of Rain recalls how nearly two thousand their four years of captivity. Blakemore soon learn about the poorly equipped Canadian troops were sent to One of the main characters in the novel is so-called Chilcotin War of 1864 defend Hong Kong during World War Two. Ethie’s older brother, Kipper, a fifteen-year-old that resulted in the hanging of “The eager young Royal Rifles of Quebec and with Down’s syndrome. The author does a mas- Five Tsilhqot’in aboriginals. the Winnipeg Grenadiers who sailed out of Van- terful job of humanizing an individual with this ✫ couver harbour in late October, 1941, to answer chromosomal anomaly, explaining how this IN THE EARLY 1860S, ALFRED Britain’s request for reinforcements for Hong condition is caused by an extra, twenty-first Waddington launched a bold Kong, were not ready for combat,” Milner says. chromosome in a person’s cellular make up. Donna Milner’s novel The Promise plan to build a faster route to “They sent our least-trained troops.” Milner shows with sensitivity and caring how a the Cariboo goldfields, via Bute of Rain has been translated into A month after the rookie Canadian soldiers Dutch, French and German. Down’s syndrome person can be meaningfully Inlet, south of Knight Inlet. In arrived in Hong Kong, the Japanese attacked included into the family mosaic. 1861, Waddington sent his sur- Pearl Harbour (December 7, 1941). By Christmas, the Japanese had Milner credits former Williams Lake city councilor and seniors’ veyor Robert Homfray to Bute captured Hong Kong, and the Canadians who weren’t killed in advocate, Hazel Huckvale, for inspiring her to write the novel. Inlet to examine the feasibility battle were sent to Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Of the 557 She is also grateful to surviving Hong Kong veterans Aubrey Flegg, of a “gold road” or toll road from Canadians who did not return, 289 died during the eighteen-day Dick Wilson, Robert (Flash) Clayton, and Jan Solecki, having the mouth of the Klinaklini battle for Hong Kong. The remaining 268 perished in the POW sought help from the Hong Kong Veterans Commemorative As- River, into the Homathko River camps in Hong Kong and Japan. sociation. The Promise of Rain was launched at the Open Book Valley, and then onto As in After River, Milner juxtaposes two different time sequences. Store in Milner’s hometown of Williams Lake. 978-1-55278-840-0 Barkerville.

14 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 15 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 The Essentials 150 Great B.C. Books & Authors Alan Twigg

From Franz Boas to Alice Munro, The well-illustrated non-Oxford guide is the controversial and will likely remain Essentials is an unprecedented panorama new bible of who wrote what, and why, in print as an encyclopedic, indexed of the most significant authors and in British Columbia. The Essentials also reference work for many years to come. books of British Columbia — from presents the over-arching, collective “The Essentials is a must-have for anyone who 1774 onwards. As the fourth and largest story of how modern B.C. society has cares about B.C.” — JEAN BARMAN, HISTORIAN volume of Twigg’s series on the Literary evolved, as seen through the prism of its History of British Columbia, this lively, authors and books. It is guaranteed to be 978-1-55380-108-5 320 pp 80 b&w images $24.95

Evolution Quiet Reformers The View from the Cottage The Legacy of Early Victoria’s Jean-Pierre Rogel — Translated by Nigel Spencer Bishop Edward and Mary Cridge A fascinating book that shows how Darwin’s principle Ian Macdonald & Betty O’Keefe of natural selection can be seen “from the cottage” in When James Douglas brought Edward Cridge and his everyday situations that include bears, salmon, belugas, wife Mary to minister to the new colonists of Vancouver loons, hummingbirds, and even wheat. Rogel also Island, little did he know that he was bringing two discusses new discoveries in the reading of genes that progressive social reformers and a confidant who take us further than Darwin could have imagined. would help shape the future of British Columbia. 978-1-55380-104-7 176 pp 12 b&w photos $21.95 978-1-55380-107-8 204 pp $21.95 Cathedral The Invention Pamela Porter of the World Cathedral takes us on a journey — a very personal Jack Hodgins journey of Pamela Porter’s own — to Africa and South A new edition of the novel that defined British America, those corners of the world the news reports Columbia — in which a giant bull begets a sky god never seem to cover. Winner of the Governor General’s who brings an entire Irish village to Canada. Award for The Crazy Man, Porter here gives us another Magic realism at its most intriguing! book to treasure. 978-1-55380-099-6 356 pp $18.95 978-1-55380-106-1 100 pp $15.95 Strange Bedfellows Skin Like Mine The Private Lives of Words Garry Gottfriedson Howard Richler A Native poet like no other, Gottfriedson reveals what Richler’s wit and erudition make his sixth book on it feels like to live First Nations within the everyday language a must-have for all those intrigued by the the world of band politics and a landscape that is rapidly English language’s reputation for “sleeping around.” being degraded and yet still contains the hope of spiritual transformation. 978-1-55380-100-9 164 pp $19.95 978-1-553380-101-6 122 pp $15.95

Young Adult Books

Hannah & the River Survivor’s Ghost of Follow the Spindle Whorl Odyssey Leave Heroes Past Elephant Carol Anne Shaw Philip Roy Robert Sutherland Charles Reid Beryl Young When Hannah finds a beautiful The third volume in the This young adult novel When Johnny tries to get out In this young adult Salish spindle whorl in a cave, Submarine Outlaw series features two Canadian of attending a Remembrance novel, a boy accompanies little does she know that she takes Alfred and his home- sailors whose ship is Day ceremony, a mysterious his grandmother to will soon be back amid its made submarine up the St. torpedoed at sea during soldier-ghost appears to take India and establishes a original owners — with a mystic Lawrence River in search of WWII and whose shore him back to meet real-life mysterious relationship raven, a fearsome Sasquatch, the father who abandoned leave takes them to Canadians who were with the elephant god, and European settlers who are him at birth. An exciting a country house where involved in Canada’s two Ganesh, which teaches about to bring devastation to sequel to Submarine Outlaw they uncover a world wars and the Russian him how to cope with the Coast Salish people. and Journey to Atlantis. dangerous Nazi plot. Revolution. his father’s recent death. 978-1-55380-103-0 978-1-55380-105-4 978-1-55380-097-2 978-1-55380-102-3 978-1-55380-098-9 244 pp $10.95 240 pp $10.95 176 pp $10.95 170 pp $10.95 248 pp $10.95

Available from your favourite bookstore or order from LitDistCo Ronsdale Press Visit our website at www.ronsdalepress.com

16 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 reviews FICTION

BY JOHN MOORE at a deeper level they are about WELCOME TO COYOTE COUNTRY the nature of difference itself and Missed Her. Stories by Ivan E. Coyote (Arsenal Pulp Press $18.95) the inherent ironies of living in a culture that pays lip-service to DECADE AGO, THE SECOND Individuality as a concept while most enjoyable aspect of persecuting the genuine indi- A an Ivan E. Coyote per- vidual in practice: formance was listening to the WHERE NOTHING IS BORING “A little gesture, something whispers in the audience, the about my voice, or my hips, or hissed arguments— “That’s a Ivan E. Coyote has a perfect-pitch ear for dialogue, my lips, that makes them take guy, right?”…“I dunno, that’s a especially kitchen and coffee-counter talk. that second, longer, closer look. girl voice, man”…“No way. Some people don’t care at all. That’s a young dude, Missed Her is the fifth round- tive, even boring, but normal As always, she has a perfect- Some ask if I am in a band, and dude”…“Well, he’s pretty damn up of Coyote’s quirky provoca- isn’t a word that gets much pitch ear for dialogue, especially are we playing in town this cute for a guy, that’s all I’m say- tive short stories. Normally, work in Coyote country. Neither the kitchen and coffee-counter weekend. Some just don’t like ing”… Thanks to a solid rep you’d think a writer whose short is boring. The stories in Missed talk that is humankind’s update me all that much. And then built on four acclaimed story works are almost exclusively au- Her are as fresh and poignant as of primate social grooming. there are those very few that collections and a novel, those tobiographical would get repeti- those in her previous four col- While academic creative writing want to kill me. Whether this is moments are rare now, but they lections. teachers solemnly instruct stu- for being an effeminate or ho- were only sideshows anyway, ✫ dents about the importance of mosexual man, or a masculine quickly silenced by the com- GROWING UP QUEER IN THE CANADIAN “finding your voice,” Coyote has or queer woman, I am never pelling stage presence. north was probably less fun than learned that the real secret of quite sure.” The best part was, and Coyote has made it seem in her good writing is to forget your ✫ still is, watching Coyote early stories, but a strong sense own voice, try to fit in and listen WHAT IS SURE IS THAT SENSES HONED work without a net; no of being different in some to all the other voices around by an awareness of being differ- notes, no fresh-from-the- way is usually a big part of you. ent, sometimes dangerously so, printer book folded the core-programming of At the family kitchen table, are part of the essential tool-kit back with passages high- any artist. uncles clock in on the subject for a writer. The above quotes lighted, no reading Many of these new sto- of her now published sexuality come from a very short story, glasses perched on nose, ries are about revisiting the with unexpected and authentic “Straighten Up,” in which a no self-reverential Canlit north, no longer the young flannel-shirt aplomb: Uncle chance meeting at a highway delivery. She’d just start tomboy branded with a ques- John’s “Sorry, kiddo, but I can’t diner between a butch girl and talking, like she was intro- tion-mark like an amateur tat- identify the moment we realized a fortyish guy who was “probably ducing the piece she too, but as an established you’d gone to the dark side. We handsome a few years ago” talk- meant to read, and before author, only to discover, were just glad you weren’t stu- ing about their un-butch little you knew it you’d been among other family secrets, pid. There’s no cure for stupid,” lap-dogs, souvenirs of failed re- corralled into the story, sad- “that for all those years, in all leads up to Uncle Rob’s lationships, takes a turn that is dled and ridden out the those photographs of that little “Well…you can see why we as sad as it is sinister: “He smiles, other side and still the only tomboy, there was only one wouldn’t have thought much looks down at my crotch, slowly paper in sight was your bar member of my family won- about it. There’s lots of hetero slides his eyes up over my chest tab. dering about me. butch chicks out there. Espe- and back to my eyes. It begins to And that was cially up here….Maybe a guy dawn on me just what he wants me.” should have twigged due to your to show me back at the rig. It aversion to wearing a dress, but probably isn’t his Cockapoo.” who cares anyway? I’ve always The misunderstandings and said, it’s your soap and your dick, mixed signals of human commu- and you can wash it as fast as you nication aren’t always threaten- want.” ing. Often they’re just laugh-out- On the surface, most Coyote loud funny. In “Talking to Stran- stories are riffs on the politics gers,” coming off a tour, ex- and perils of sexual diversity, but hausted, she starts getting cross-examined by a Pakistani- immigrant cab driver about morality and family responsibilities and goes into defensive dyke mode, only to find at the end of the ride that what he means by you people isn’t quite what she assumed. Coyote jokes about getting ‘dumped in with the poets’ on reading tours, particularly with slam-poets, who also rehearse their work like actors, perform- ing from memory instead of reading. While this makes her unique enough among contemporary story-tellers to qualify for some kind of environmental award for saving paper, its more important effect has been to compel her to adopt an easily memorable, evocative but always clear and simple writing style, stripped of the tedious narrative pretensions of writers accus- “I do know that there tomed to finding their voices in are a lot of people the presumed silence of print. in the world who have So the next time you meet a a whole lot invested in clean-cut butch young fellow in the man/woman dicho- a coffee shop or bar, check your tomy, and all of the presumptions and prejudices at requisite expectations. the door, buy a round, put your I know all this because boots up and swap lies for I have to. Calling it a awhile. You might be talking to survival tactic might be LAURA Ivan E. Coyote and you wouldn’t a little dramatic, but it

SAWCH want to miss her. 9781551523712 BC would still be true. So I BOOKWORLD try to fit in and most of UK

PH Also a novelist, John Moore has con- the time I do.” O STAFF PICK Ivan E. Coyote TO tributed book reviews to various publications for more than twenty years.

17 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 reviews FICTION

Solitaria by Genni Gunn Genni Gunn own mind, Piera had supplanted (Signature $19.95) her mother. In her own mind, Piera thought of her parents, T IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A GOOD brothers and sisters as her chil- heart but be arrogant. It is dren, hers to lead and nudge Ipossible to be ill with regret towards happy lives. In her own and longing. It is possible to hide mind, Piera erected a large oneself away from others, to apartment building, so that all take refuge in the past. her siblings could live near her It is possible to view oneself and adore her for the rest of as heroically self-sacrificing but their lives.” be seen as selfish. It is possible Gunn’s depiction of David as to keep cherished secrets that the bewildered confidante and fester into wounds. reluctant siphon for his aunt’s A Canadian literature profes- tale of woe is perfectly drawn. sor named David learns all these He doubles as a cultural transla- things—second-hand—as well as tor for the novel itself, unex- a good deal more about his own pectedly immersed in identity, when he accompanies passionate Italian intrigues as a his mother, a recently retired polite, trustworthy, respectful opera diva, back to southern Italy and somewhat aloof Canadian. for a family reunion in Genni Gunn succeeds in making us Gunn’s novel Solitaria. curious; and she succeeds in The body of David’s mysteri- making us care about the char- ous uncle, Vito Santoro, has acters. Solitaria is a deeply mov- been unearthed on the grounds ing, intellectually stimulating, of a seaside villa near Rome. Fo- complex and fully realized novel. rensic evidence shows Vito died Possibly Shakespeare got it in the early 1950s. An Italian wrong. For some, it is better to crew for a reality TV show is delv- have never loved at all.1-897109-43-1 ing into the mystery, as are Vito’s siblings, from three continents. The clan’s formidable, four- SPECIOUS ORIGINS OF foot-ten matriarch, Piera, refuses to explain why she has DARWIN’S SON lied to them all for decades, pre- ccording to the family tending to have been receiving annals of Charles letters from the devilishly hand- ADarwin, the last of his some Vito, written from Argen- eleven children, scientist Thomas tina. Darwin, died suddenly of tuberculosis while travelling as a

Everyone in the town of SOLITARIA PHOTO young man in Canada. But Belisolano refers to Piera as La according to Harry Karlinsky’s

Solitaria. It falls to David, a bach- HOWARD

novelized version of the story, The elor, to serve as the reluctant Evolution of Inanimate Objects

REFINEMENT CAROL confidante to his mother’s (Insomniac Press $19.95), fiercely reclusive oldest sister in Thomas Darwin died in an asylum whose mansion they are all stay- Southern Italy, from Mussolini to Berlusconi, in 1879. ing. La Solitaria will only talk to Karlinsky’s novel, presented in David, and nobody knows why. is the setting for Solitaria, Genni Gunn’s novel the form of a biography, is subtitled As the go-between for the The Life and Collected Works of truth, David is made privy to of a family reunion to solve a mysterious death. Thomas Darwin (1857-1879). Like George Fetherling’s recent Piera’s tale of woe, but his novel entitled Walt Whitman’s mother and the others are con- another version of reality. David rest of the country, backwards Secret, the line between research temptuous of her tales. So what is attracted to Oriana, an excit- and rural, superstitious and al- and invention becomes blurred in really happened to the charming alternative to his e-romance ien.” favour of a good story. The early life ing but devious Vito who was with an American professor he Is Piera destructive and cun- of Thomas Darwin is little-known incestuously fixated on Piera? Is doesn’t really love. ning? Or is she a tragic figure, and there are only scant references it really true that Piera endured In Gunn’s narrative, we bereft of love? to him in his famous father’s a sexless marriage with the switch channels back and forth “It is my nature to worry,” she correspondence. town’s richest man in order to between the tempestuous reun- claims, “especially about my Previously, Eric Nicol’s Dickens of the Mounted: The obviate Vito’s debts and spare ion in 2002 and the Santoro loved ones. All my life, I’ve Astounding Long-Lost Letters of the family shame? family’s hardships from Musso- looked over their shoulders like Inspector F. Dickens NWMP 1874– David’s beautiful Italian lini’s era onwards. In the latter, a guardian angel; have tried to 1886 (1989) was a hoax that cousin, Oriana, a documentary we are vividly introduced to simplify everything for them. imagined the life of Charles filmmaker, decides to obtru- southern Italy in a perpetual cy- La Bocca Della Verita (The Why have they all turned against Dickens’ son in Canada. sively record all the family feud- cle of poverty, in Piera’s words, Mouth of Truth) is an ancient lie me?” 978-1-897415-31-3 ing, which constitutes yet “abandoned by Rome, by the detector that figures in the story. But Gunn also writes, “In her

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19 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Celebrating 42 Years of Publishing in Canada

Working with Wool A Coast Salish Legacy & the Cowichan Sweater Sylvia Olsen Cowichan sweaters, with their distinctive bands of design and untreated, handspun wool, have been a British Columbia icon since the early years of the twentieth century, but few people know    the full story behind the garment. Sylvia Olsen Sarah E. Turner tells the tale, drawing on her own experience, 1-55039-174-7 • 9” x 7.5” academic research, and her four-decade friendship 32 pages • paper • $9.95 with some of the Coast Salish women who have each knitted hundreds of sweaters.

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20 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 a forum for & about writers # 41 LOOKOUTLOOKOUT 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] NO REST FORFOR THETHE WITTEDWITTED

Joan Givner’s young adult novel is forged by memories of pastoral England, the intrusion of World War II and her inability to speak teenage tech-talk.

s a biographer of Katherine Anne Porter and Mazo de la Roche, Joan Givner left behind academia in 1995 in favourA of early retirement on Vancouver Island—and has recently produced her fifth young adult novel in six years, A Girl Called Tennyson (Thistledown $12.95).

A fantasy quest in the British tradition, A Girl Called Tennyson has an overtly literary heroine whose middle name is Tennyson. Like Givner in her own girlhood, Anne Tennyson Miller loves poetry, stories and rhyme. Trans- ported during a ferry ride to the fantasy land of Green- sward, “Tenn” must rescue her friend Una from evil forces—and uses her knowledge of great writers to do so. “If I have to explain the source of it,” says Givner, “I’m tempted to invoke my early years as a lonely only child growing up during the war in a small Lancashire village amid black-outs, gas-masks, and air-raid shelters. The movie theaters were closed, of course, and this was before television. “That situation was more likely than most childhoods to cause flight into a world of make-believe—dressing up, play- acting, and hours of absorption in books. And I’ve enjoyed dressing up ever since.” Before she sets out on her dangerous mission, Tenn is trained by the wise woman, Bethan. She discovers that there are many other children who must also be saved and returned to Greensward. But the origins of the story are not all in the past. “I must come clean,” says Givner. “I must admit that my late-in-life turn to fantasy was inspired less by early habits of fantasizing than by incompetence. I am ill-equipped to re- produce the idiom of today’s youth, or to depict their high tech games and skills. Creating a fictional world of my own from whole cloth allowed me to circumvent these difficul- ties. And it was wonderful to escape the confines of realism.” Givner believes anyone who writes fiction for young peo- Joan Givner has ple must reconnect with their own childhoods. With A Girl appeared in public as Called Tennyson, she is reconnecting to a pastoral world that was disrupted by World War II. Queen Elizabeth II “I have peopled the story with characters from my vil- and as the wealthy lage, even recalling long-forgotten place-names—Eastlea, spinster Miss Cross Hillock, Gin Pits. These I yoked on to my present life on Vancouver Island—the deep dark forests, the mushroom Havisham from hunts of the fall, the Mill Bay-Brentwood ferry, and the Charles Dickens’ magical geodesic dome, the home of a friend. novel Great “It was so much fun to write that I don’t wonder why I produced a fantasy novel, but what took me so long to do it. Expectations. 978-1-897235-83-6

21 BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2010-2011 AAddvventurenturee

VER SINCE HIS FATHER STARTED DEVELOPING 38 LOTS OF PRIVATE hanging on for my young life, all my tiny mus- cles contracted, my body wrapped around the Grant Lawrence’s true tales property on five kilometres of oceanfront next to the Desolation Sound rope in a kung fu grip. marine park, at the northern end of the Strait of Georgia, in the 1970s, the As I arced out over the ocean, the setting rays of the sun spilled across the surface, turning it to of Desolation Sound include CBC Radio 3 music host has been gathering experi- Grant Lawrence gold, illuminating the shoreline rocks with an il- ences for his memoir, Adventures In Solitude: What Not to Wear to a lustrious shimmer. I felt something deep within left-over hippies, Russell the Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound (Harbour $26.95). let go and give in. Panic turned to acceptance, then calmness, then serenity as I hung over the Few stories are more memorable than “Smoke on the Water,” Law- glimmering ocean, frozen in space. Time stood Hermit, a gun-toting cougar rence’s recollection of attending a nude potluck as a boy. Feeling obliged still and all sound ceased. As if in a dream I gazed back toward the cliff edge at my sister and the lady and his father’s EEto accept an invitation from the “left-over hippie” Aldo, who lived only a five- naked children. They were calling to me . . . wav- minute boat ride away, all four fully-clothed Lawrence family members were ing, yelling something and making hand gestures. The moment of serenity evaporated as quickly as aghast to discover the spectacle of innocent, pot-smoking, naked bodies land development it began. Real life, sound and motion roared like cavorting everywhere in the adjoining bay. a train from a tunnel. I heard the words “Jump! Now! Jump! Let go of the rope!” dreams. over his bulging brown belly, both of which al- I didn’t jump, and I didn’t let go. I held on. Smoke on the Water most covered his dangling penis. Almost. He Momentum swung me back toward the ledge gripped a half-full bottle of label-less red wine in filled with children like a nerd pendulum. I BY GRANT LAWRENCE one hand and waved a giant doobie in the other, heard the words “No!! No!!” as they began to scat- which he transferred to his lips when he extended ter. I slammed into the crowd, knocking kids off ot would be the keyword to Aldo’s potluck his leathery, brown hand in welcome. My sister the ledge, sending them plunging into the water Pinvitation. and I stared on in shock, eyes like Keane Kids in like lemmings. My runners’ toe grips scraped the Much to their consternation, my parents were pale, expressionless faces. My teeth continued to rock ledge but couldn’t hang on. figuring out that besides apples and oysters, there chatter uncontrollably. The rope took me swinging out over the wa- were a few other crops that could be successfully Everyone at the party warmly welcomed us ter again. I shut my eyes and hung on so tight harvested in Desolation Sound. with extremely uncomfortable hugs, introducing the fibres cut into my palms. This time, when With its rare coastal microclimate of warm, us all around. Pungent pot clouds filled the air momentum swung me back toward the cliff, since wet air and long, hot summers, Desolation Sound like a skunky London fog. Elaborate bongs gur- I had cleared it of children, I slammed face first is perfect for growing bountiful bushels of mari- gled and hissed, threatening to stain Mom’s pink into a wall of granite. My glasses clattered to the juana. pedal pushers. Mom later said she had never ledge. Blind and stunned, I dropped to my hands Aldo’s potluck was a five-minute boat ride maintained such steadfast eye contact in her life and knees and searched until my fingers found away in the next bay. As our motorboat rounded and took extra caution when reaching out to them, bent but not broken. the rocky finger that separated our bays, we heard shake hands with the guys. When Aldo sat down My sister was pushed out of harm’s way thanks the potluck before we saw it. The combined cat- on a stump and spread his legs like Santa in a to a very kind older, fully developed naked girl, erwaul of a party in full swing danced across the sauna, she strategically placed the pan of banana who also helped me with my bleeding nose, her open water like radio waves. As we drew closer, bread directly on his lap. Painfully, my sister and perky brown breasts at my direct eye level. While my innocent young eyes widened upon seeing a I were torn away from our parents’ side when the rest of the kids pulled themselves out of the scene of total hedonism. two gregarious, naked kids bounded up to us and water below, the kind girl suggested we head back Intertwined brown bodies lay outstretched all insisted that we try their rope swing. They pranced to the main party and find our parents. Both my over the sun-drenched shoreline, smoking, drink- barefoot down the rocks with the effortless agil- sister and I readily agreed and followed her round brown bum back to the party. SPLENDID ing, laughing, singing, making out and making ity of nimble forest creatures while we gingerly SPLENDID love. Seemingly wild, long-haired children ran followed as if blindfolded. At the edge of a cliff We spent another ninety excruciating minutes among the cavorting adults, leaping off the rocks overlooking the water was a lineup of more na- at the party. Since the only pot my parents DESOLATION into the green ocean water. The aesthetic that ked brown children of various ages, all shrieking touched sat on our stove simmering Kraft Din- united the party was a revealing one: every single happily while taking turns on a thick, bristly rope ner on Friday nights, they weren’t blending in man, woman and child was totally and utterly swing that was looped around a branch of a gi- any better than Heather and I were. After the nude. ant fir tree that grew out over the water. They’d umpteenth uncircumcised male member It was like the moment Charlton Heston dis- place a foot in a loop at the bottom, grab the bounced past my sister’s eye level, she eventually covers the humans at the oasis in Planet of the rope with their hands, swing out over the ocean, slipped into something akin to a catatonic shock, Apes. Just add a cranked-up Deep Purple cassette and let go just at the right moment to plunge desperate to escape back into the 1880s world and matching purple bong smoke that hung low into the warm, green water below. of heavily clothed bonnet-to-boot characters of across the bay: “Smoke on the Water,” just like My sister and I were expected to follow suit. Little House on the Prairie. I pushed my bent the stereo blasted. This outrageous scene was My teeth had stopped chattering long enough glasses up my nose to get a better look at the more than enough for dad to start vigorously to politely refuse but these friendly naked chil- bronzed, pregnant hippie ladies, spread out on turning the boat around, but mom wouldn’t let dren with names like Sunpatch and Birdsong the rocks like melted candles. him, reasoning that: urged us on, insisting that we remove our clothes Mom eventually signalled our exit . . . “Aldo! a) she was bringing banana bread; and join in the fun. (Similar pressure in far more Thank you so much for having us!” in a volume b) we were going to have to meet the rest of adult situations was being put on our parents shrill enough to frighten birds into flight. “We’d our neighbours eventually; back in the heat of the bash.) For whatever bi- better get the kids home now, but this has been c) how would it look if the big, bad developer zarre societal reason, being the only clothed in- an absolutely fabulous party!” On our mostly si- and his family suddenly swung their boat around dividuals at a nudist party at the edge of the lent boat ride home, dad muttered that the party in full view of the entire party and left without wilderness felt as uncomfortable as if one were to had been an unpleasant cross between Helter even saying hello? be suddenly dropped naked onto a downtown Skelter, Apocalypse Now and a National Geo- We tied our skiff to a makeshift barge of boats, sidewalk. And there would be no “Grin and bear graphic special on orangutans. I have had a deep, it”—literally—for the Lawrence family on this personal aversion to potlucks ever since. a barely floating, pell-mell parking lot of rafts, 978-1-55017-514-1 canoes, kayaks and rowboats in various states of night. The closest thing we got to public nudity sunken disrepair. We had to climb through sev- was in our bathing suits once or twice a summer Former rock 'n' roll singer Grant Law- eral of them before we could make our way up on a Vancouver beach, and even then I would the gangplank to shore. never dare take my shirt off. rence hosts CBC Radio 3’s Podcast with Throughout my childhood, whenever I was I struck a deal with the Lost Boys. Neither my Grant Lawrence and Grant Lawrence extremely uncomfortable or frightened, I devel- sister nor I would remove our clothes, but I would oped a strange nervous reaction: my teeth would try the rope swing. A pair of naked, deeply tanned Live on CBC Radio 3 and Sirius 86. He chatter like I was locked in a freezer. Walking up identical twin boys with matching shocks of can also be heard on various CBC Ra- that gangplank on that hot summer night into a shaggy black hair held the rope for me. I pushed Grant Lawrence foreign, naked scene of hippie strangers, my teeth my glasses up from the end of my nose and nerv- dio 1 programs such as DNTO, Spark, sounded like a death rattle. My little sister cow- ously placed my shaking Keds sneaker inside the All Points West and On the Coast. He ered behind me, pulling on the back of my E.T. loop. I took hold of the rope. Its fraying fibres still spends much of each summer at his turtleneck. We were greeted by a beaming Aldo bit into my silky city palms. With a simultane- and his festive, long, white beard, flowing down ous shove from the twins I was suddenly airborne, cabin in Desolation Sound.

22 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2010-2011 23 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • WINTER • 2010-2011 DOES SOMEONE IN YOUR LIFE NEED A LITTLE PUSH TO GET READING AGAIN? BC AUTHORS TO THE RESCUE!

FOR AGES 10 AND UP: FOR AGES 12 AND UP:

FAST SLIDE CELLULAR MelanieM Jackson Ellen Schwartz 97815546934299 • $9.95  •  3.8   ClayC would much rather work as a lifeguard 9781554692965 • $9.95 • 2.3 ata the beach than at Safari Splash, the With a life-threatening disease, Brendan must newn water park in town. But his summer ﬁ nd strength to ﬁ ght—and survive. jobj starts to get interesting when money “Genuinely moving.” disappearsd from the till and his friends are CM Magazine suspects.s

KNIFEPOINT Alex Van Tol CHEAT 9781554693054 • $9.95  •  3.8 Kristin Butcher Jill thinks that nothing can get worse than her guide job at a mountain ranch, until she ends 9781554692743 • $9.95  •  2.8 up ﬁ ghting for her life on a solo ride with a Laurel needs to decide how far to dig when handsome stranger. she investigates a cheating scam at her high “From the moment Jill and her sociopathic school for the school newspaper. tourist head into the mountains until her “With its succinct text, short chapters harrowing escape, the suspense is palpable. and emphasis on contemporary teen Both reluctant readers and avid readers who issues, Cheat should be popular with enjoy nail-biting tension will race through to reluctant young adult readers.” ﬁ nd out whether or not Jill reaches safety.” CM Magazine Booklist

SEA CHANGE Diane Tullson 9781554693320 • $9.95  •  3.1 SLICK On a trip to reconnect with his father on Sara Cassidy the remote north coast, Lucas discovers that kinship goes beyond blood, and that while 9781554693528 • $9.95  •  3.5 he can’t pick his relatives, he can ﬁ nd his own Thirteen-year-old Liza gets involved in community. activism and takes on the oil industry. “A fast-paced tale of how a momentary “A well-written, fast-paced, high interest lapse in judgment can prove fatal unless you novel…[that] encourages girls and are willing to make a supreme effort to go tweens in general to become interested outside your comfort zone.” in political issues and current events.” CM Magazine CM Magazine NEW FOR ADULTS: PERFECT FOR ESL, ADULT LITERACY SQUEEZE AND BIBLIOPHILES Rachel Dunstan Muller SEEKING A QUICK FIX. 9781554693245 • $9.95  •  3.6 On a caving trip with his older brother, THAT DOG WON’T HUNT Byron has to make some life-or-death Lou Allin decisions when his brother is seriously 9781554693399 • $9.95  •  2.8 injured. A drifter takes a job at a hunting lodge in Northern “A fast-paced, compulsively readable Ontario, with the expectation of a big payday for the book…With fairly simple vocabulary, summer’s work. But when the eccentric owner decides to short cliffhanger chapters, and nonstop renege on her promises, things get out of hand. action, this is a great choice for reluctant “The grisly conclusion to this tense thriller brings a readers.” satisfying comeuppance…With rare voices and taut School Library Journal suspense, these titles provide accesible choices for struggling and strong readers alike.” Booklist

24 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 reviews BIOGRAPHY

Quiet Reformers: The Legacy of Early Victoria’s Bishop Edward and Mary again sit quietly and listen to Cridge, by Ian Macdonald and Betty O’ Keefe (Ronsdale Press $21.95) their expression.” These words were greeted NGLICAN CLERIC EDWARD with a shocked silence; then sud- Cridge arrived in Fort denly pandemonium broke out A Victoria in 1855 as a as his parishioners stamped and chaplain employed by the Hud- clapped their approval. son’s Bay Company. Conse- The disagreement between quently Cridge’s half-century of the dean and the bishop smoul- service to Victoria was largely dered for a year until an eccle- dwarfed by the shadow of his siastical court was convened. It HBC employer, James Douglas, brought eighteen charges who became governor of the against Cridge, including one fledgling colony. count of brawling in the church. Quiet Reformers: The Legacy of Cridge was suspended as Early Victoria’s Bishop Edward and dean of Christ Church, and his Mary Cridge, by Ian Macdonald right to preach as a Church of and Betty O’ Keefe, attempts to England minister revoked. The give Cridge and his dutiful wife Colonist took Cridge’s side, called Mary their due. it a kangaroo court that pre- Mary Cridge, besides bearing sented a “repulsive picture.” nine children in twelve years, Undeterred, Cridge went organized the parsonage school ahead with the next Sunday for young women, established a services, showing no sign of his cottage hospital that eventually feelings except for a closing expanded to become the Royal hymn with the last line “Defiance Jubilee Hospital, and ran an or- to the Gates of Hell.” phanage for the many homeless Bishop Hills promptly ap- children whose parents had plied for an injunction to re- died or abandoned them. move Cridge from the church, Quiet Reformers provides the and Supreme Court Chief Judge first attempt to elevate Mary Matthew Begbie upheld it. A Cridge into prominence as an new rector was appointed, and historical figure. She was one of Cridge was forbidden to enter the first influential European fe- the cathedral. males on the west coast. When the unfortunate new Besides founding Christ rector assumed his duties, he Church, the first Protestant faced an almost empty church church in the settlement of Vic- THE BEST OF with no sexton, no organist and toria, Reverend Cridge steered only two choir members; his flock through many difficult the congregation remained times, including epidemics that staunchly behind Cridge, and claimed the lives of four of his decided to leave the church own children. Frustrated gold with him. Scenes of chaos en- miners from the mainland were sued, recorded with delight by another scourge, threatening to the Colonist. As the church doors turn Fort Victoria into a wild west opened to admit the new rec- town. tor, sixty men and boys dashed Cridge also had to contend in to remove the congregation’s with rebuilding his church after possessions. it was consumed by a mysterious CRIDGE For days the dismantling con- fire and acrimonious competi- The importance of being earnest tinued, with parishioners carry- tion from Bishop George Hills. ing off Bibles, hymnbooks, stools, Whereas Bishop Hills was an cushions and a strip of red car- arrogant man, who had arrived in early Victoria pet in suitcases and baskets. to oversee the newly formed dio- Cridge left the Church of cese of Columbia from 1859 to England for the newly organ- 1892, Cridge was a much-loved pelling reading experience, but jeered that some of those on the work and gravitated to Victoria’s ized Reformed Episcopal and long-admired figure, as Quiet Reformers succeeds as enter- “bride ship” had seen better “bright light” district. Church. His congregation fol- later recalled by his neighbour tainment due to the inclusion of days. In spite of his worthy endeav- lowed as a body, and the con- Emily Carr in The Book of Small. a running commentary on Cridge and another clergy- ours and popularity, Cridge struction of a new church began As a sometime member of events from the Colonist, man were ridiculed for shield- faced much conflict in his life. quickly on Humboldt Street, on Cridge’s congregation, founded by the ing the women from the ribald Cridge disliked the elaborate land donated by James Douglas. Carr wrote that Cridge flamboyant Amor de remarks and laughter of rituals that made the Church of Named the Church of Our gave the blessing from Cosmos. “breeches-wearing bipeds” who England resemble the Catholic Lord by Cridge, it opened on the pulpit, “just as if he The editor’s greeted the ship. Despite Church. His doctrinal views dia- January 16th, 1876, with a was taking it straight pseudonym (he was Cridge’s good intentions, many metrically opposed the High woman from the “bride ship” as from God and giving it born William Alex- of the women Church ideals of Bishop Hills. its first organist. The same year, to us.” ander Smith) may were clearly Matters came to a head on Cridge was elected missionary ✫ have indicated love unprepared the day that celebrated bishop of the Reformed Episco- AS FORMER SCRIBES FOR JOAN GIVNER of the world, but he for domestic Christ Church’s consecra- pal Church. Vancouver dailies, had plenty of con- tion as a cathedral sixteen Bishop Hills returned to Eng- Betty O’Keefe, born in Vancou- tempt for its individual mem- years after its founding. land to spend his last years ver in 1930, and Ian Macdonald, bers, especially for James The celebrations con- there, and was little remem- born in Glasgow in 1928, de- Douglas and his associates. cluded with a sermon by bered in British Columbia. serve much credit for ten previ- These he called “vain, puffed a visiting archdeacon, Bishop Cridge died at the age ous B.C. history titles. As two up, tyrannical, corrupt, short- who advocated the adoption of 96, having outlived Sir James veteran biographers, they have witted, conceited mummies Mary Cridge: of High Church ritualism. Douglas, Amor de Cosmos, his nine children learned how to spice up the past and numbskulls.” This was too much for Cridge. wife, and six of his nine children. in twelve Edward Cridge, as an ally of The Colonist declared his funeral with diligent research, often years Striding forward to an- gleaned from newspaper arti- Douglas, came in for his share nounce the final hymn, one of the biggest the city had cles. This technique accounts for of derision. When Cridge par- Cridge cried, “I rise to pro- seen. 978-1-55380-099-6 much of the liveliness in Quiet ticipated in a project to bring test against the views Reformers. poor women and orphans from advocated by Arch- Joan Givner’s most recent book is A Any account of a thoroughly England to work as domestics in deacon Reece. Girl Called Tennyson. She writes decent person doing good Victoria, and eventually marry They are wrong regularly on biographies and auto- deeds does not promise a com- and bear children, the Colonist and I would not biographies and lives in Mill Bay.

25 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 featureview NON-FICTION

Home and Away: In Search of Dreams at the Homeless World Cup of Soccer by Dave Bidini (Greystone Books $19.95)

ACK IN THE ’80S AND ’90S, Dave Bidini and his band Bthe Rheostatics were fre- quent visitors to Vancouver, playing at the Railway Club and the Town Pump, evolving from a straight-up rock group to a more conceptual art-oriented outfit. At the same time Vancouver was changing. Expo ’86 saw resi- dents of the Downtown Eastside turfed from their homes. In the ’90s, Riverview was gradually phased out as a psychiatric hospital and health services were slashed by the Campbell civic government. Vancouver’s Down- town Eastside and its homelessness and drug problems became a “world class” issue. With Home and Away: In Search of Dreams at the Homeless World Cup of Soccer, Dave Bidini, also the author of several fine books on sports in unusual places and situations, connects the dots between two seemingly unre- lated global phenomena: the tragedy of homelessness and Canada’s Homeless World Cup team from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside played in the September 2010 tourney held at “the beautiful game” we call soc- Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, bringing home the tournament’s Fair Play Award for men’s sportsmanship. cer (known as football to most of the world). dians learn more about them- There are over 100 million selves. I won’t spoil things by say- homeless people in this world. ing how Canada made out at the The streets have produced their HAMSTRUNG tournament but as we say share of footie players who have around our home (a word I come from humble origins, such won’t take for granted in the as Diego Maradona and Pelé, context of this book), if you’re but not until Mel Young and playing you’re winning. Harald Schmied, a Scotsman Regardless of scorelines— and an Austrian, dreamed up okay, Canada loses its first match the homeless World Cup in 2002 to North Ireland, 14-zip—there was there a platform for raising were victories off the pitch that awareness about homelessness entirely justify the exercise. through football. “If I hadn’t seen it with my The first Homeless World HER ICS own two eyes,” Bidini has said, Cup tournament—an interna- “I wouldn’t have believed it. Of tional soccer competition of Dave Bidini mixes compassion with close observation and the four people I went to Mel- teams made up of people who humour to describe Canada’s Homeless World Cup team bourne with on Team Canada, live on the street—was played in one girl went back to school and 2003 in Graz, Austria. The game got her Grade 12. Billy, the features four-players-per-side in ered—hanging out behind the tally sound, with no addiction is- homeless from the Homeless OxyContin addict, has been a scaled-down street version of centre wearing duct taped run- sues, but he’d been thrown to World Cup. clean for two years and is train- the game, with two seven- ners and wrong-sized Value Vil- the mat after making the wrong With only half a team, Team ing to become an alcohol coun- minute halves, on pitch that is lage sweats. At the centre of choices in a capitalist society that Canada decides to proceed to sellor himself. One person had about the size of a tennis court. their group, a man was crouch- encourages risk.” Melbourne where they partici- a bad business and lost all his This year’s tournament was ing and holding a soccer ✫ pate in the opening parade. As cash and was estranged from his held at Copacabana Beach, Rio ball. AT TIMES, WHILE READING THIS BOOK, Bidini notes, the moment was family; now he’s selling a prod- de Janeiro, in September. It at- “Suddenly he flung the ball I was reminded of Dave Eggers’ thick with irony: “Having spent uct at trade shows and has hired tracted 48 teams, including to the grass, and those who’d two monuments to years being ignored or another of his teammates to Canada’s team from Vancouver’s once been infirm, addled, the power of story- sneered at by help him.” Downtown Eastside which stoned, sad, damaged and bro- telling as social ac- passersby—to say noth- With Bidini’s talents for de- brought home the tourna- ken, sprang to life, following the tion, Zeitoun, a ing of suffering cruelty, scription and personal testimo- ment’s Fair Play award for men’s ball’s flight as if it were a great non-fiction account beatings and, for those nies from the players, this book sportsmanship. bird cruising above them.” of a Syrian-American who weren’t here, has a heart as big as the game In Home and Away, Bidini fol- In Home and Away, Bidini gets immigrant and his death, at the hands of itself. lows Team Canada to the 2008 to know both the players on the extraordinary expe- police, miscreants and The Homeless World Cup is Homeless World Cup that was field and their dedicated organ- rience during Hurri- GRANT SHILLING thugs—the homeless supported by UEFA, Vodafone held in Melbourne, Australia, izers. These range from the cane Katrina, and were now being Foundation, Nike, global ambas- attracting teams from 54 coun- charming Krystal, an 18-year-old What Is the What, a book about cheered in the fullness of the sador Eric Cantona and interna- tries. A team from Vancouver runaway who had left her Valentino Achak Deng, a survi- Australian sunshine.” tional footballers Didier Drogba won the right to represent adopted family in Kitchener to vor of the civil war in southern A victory had been achieved and Rio Ferdinand. The 9th Canada by winning a game shuffle aimlessly amongst ga- Sudan. Like Eggers, Bidini often before they’d kicked a single Homeless World Cup will be against Toronto that was de- rages and sheds while clutching simply lets the participants tell ball. But eventually the compe- held in Paris from August 19-29 cided by overtime penalty kicks. a picture of her beloved grand- their stories. In the process, tition does begin and for the in 2011. Players from eight shelters in mother, to Billy, 45, a former Home and Away changes and players—just like in society— For more information visit: Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary soccer pro for the North York expands our perceptions of how winning does become impor- www.homelessworldcup.org. and Montreal were competing Rockets, before he succumbed people end up being homeless. tant. Hamstrung by a shortage 978-1553655015 for the right to go to Melbourne. to painkiller and cocaine addic- One of the many problems of players, Team Canada sees a Bidini was introduced to the tion. encountered by homeless peo- series of substitutes join its sport while passing through As he views sports as a cata- ple can be a lack of proper squad, including a goalie who is Grant Shilling is at work on Surf- Moss Park in Toronto, two blocks lyst for social change and as a documents. Half of Team Cana- painfully ball-shy. ing with the Devil: In Search of from where he used to live. therapeutic agent, Bidini also in- da’s lineup from Toronto is left Teams from Sierra Leone, Waves and Peace in the Middle He writes, “I noticed a clutch troduces Canada’s Jerry behind in Vancouver when suit- Ghana, Russia, Mexico and Na- East. Donations to Street Soccer of homeless men and women— Steinhouse, described as “a 21st able paper work cannot be pro- mibia face off against Canada Canada can be made by going to eyes downcast, faces weath- century homeless figure: men- duced. Several players are left and with each game the Cana- canadahelps.org

26 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 27 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Join us to celebrate the publication of our fall line-up! December 10th, 7 p.m. Cafe Montmartre 4362 Main Street (at 28th ) Vancouver Free Event • Licensed • Music

Vs. by Kerry Ryan Ravenna Gets by Tony Burgess Spat the Dummy by Ed Macdonald The Mountie at Niagara Falls Spaz by Bonnie Bowman isbn: 978-1-897535-34-9 | $16 | Poetry isbn: 978-1-897535-32-5 | $16 | Fiction isbn: 978-1-897535-31-8 | $20 | Novel by Salvatore Difalco isbn: 978-1-897535-27-1 | $20 | Novel isbn: 978-1-897535-33-2 | $18 | Stories “the writing is taut, worked over, “Tony Burgess is up to his old, sick, “This novel is unforgettable...there are A skewed spin on the tale of sinewy, spare, and satisfying tricks.” — Clint Burnham images that will burn in the readers’ “Salvatore Difalco’s stories are small Cinderella, Spaz is a humorous miracles” —Stephen Osborne, Geist lean—but never mean. “belongs on the same shelf as Lesy’s mind forever. Ed Macdonald is novel about ostracism, the quest A delightful collection.” Wisconsin Death Trip and a gripping writer.” “A master of the miniature...Each for perfection, and the human —Jeanette Lynes —Alistair MacLeod Springsteen’s Nebraska.” story is as sharp as a slap.” need for acceptance. — Darren Wershler —Grant Buday

28 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 reviews KIDLIT IRON HORSEMEN AGES 9 - 12 I Am Canada: Blood and Iron by Paul Yee (Scholastic $14.99)

transcontinental railway was one of the Aterms required by Brit- ish Columbia in order to agree to assimilation into the political construct of Canada. At least 10,000 labourers were needed to complete the job of completing the coast-to- coast railway line, enabling British Columbia to join con- federation. Sara Cassidy: In 1881, the B.C. population a former human included 19,500 whites, ap- rights witness in proximately 25,000 First Nations Guatemala Sarah N. Harvey people and approximately monitors an oily looks for joy in 4,500 Chinese. Under the aus- character in Slick sorrow pices of Andrew Onderdonk, the American engineer hired to complete the B.C. section of the railway, some seven thousand Chinese labourers, primarily from Guandong province, arrived to serve as three- quarters of the required labour force. Paul Yee’s diary-styled I QUE, SARA, SARAH Am Canada: Blood and Iron Two Victoria storytellers dredge deep into youthful dilemmas amid oil & death (Scholastic $14.99) is the journal of Heen, a young Canton- AGES 10+ company’s head office which working at McDonald’s. He fig- stroke. Then another. And an- ese teenager in China, who Slick by Sara Cassidy (Orca $9.95) just happens to be in Victoria. ures the money will get him a other. “Kill me,” he croaks to sets out with his father on a Okay, so it’s fiction. car and out of Victoria, back to Royce, even going so far as man- journey to British Columbia in ARA CASSIDY’S NOVEL FOR When Liza’s mom finds out, Nova Scotia where he belongs. aging to peck out the desper- 1882 to help build the new rail- young readers, Slick, is she says, “I can’t keep this a se- His grandfather, funky smell- ate plea on his laptop. road that will connect the about oil, politics and peo- cret from Robert.” So is all Liza’s ing and “skin and bones under Royce remembers that dur- S West Coast to the rest of the ple—not the massive spillage hard work going to be for his grubby old-man cardigan,” is ing one of the oncoming strokes country. He hopes the wages that has decimated the Gulf of naught? Is her own mother go- holed up in a genuine Art Deco he’d put off calling 911, figur- he earns will erase the stigma Mexico but rather the slow seep- ing to betray her? house with the curtains drawn ing he could do the hourly of gambling debts incurred by age of corruption and environ- How exactly Sara Cassidy tight, TV blaring CNN and MTV, checks just as well as ER. He had his father and grandfather. mental degradation in cleans up this domestic mess and dirty dishes and garbage a bike date with a girl that could Yee dedicates the text to Guatemala as it infiltrates daily shall remain a mystery. stinking up the lead to a real date, and he didn’t Wong Hau-hon, from Sun-wui lives on Vancouver Island. But we can reveal kitchen. But out in want to blow it. county, Guangdong province, Liza is in grade seven and she that in a future Orca the garage there’s a Royce, reeling with guilt and a member of the ‘Gang 161’ likes her little brothers. She has Currents (ages ten and mint-condition 1956 remorse, remains silent as they on the Canadian Pacific rail- an environmentally-minded up) book, Liza will black T-bird. hook his brilliant, miserable, way in 1882. You have to read mom who collects butter knives. travel to see the Peten- “Car like this,” his charming, horrid, petty, gallant the fine print to realize Lee Their family scoots around Vic- Izabel pipeline in Gua- grandfather says, grandfather to life support. Heen-gwong is a fictionalized toria in a Vixen Red “limpet- temala. As well, GRRR! “you get laid all the Then support and redemption character created by the au- size” hybrid car. Trouble is, Liza’s will respond to real-life time.” come from an unlikely and un- LOUISE DONNELLY thor. Dad has moved out, plagued by activist Lynne Hill’s vi- Royce, who’s only expected source. “When I was a child grow- sadness. sion of a symbolic protest against got his “L” license and needs a ✫ ing up in the 1960s,” Paul Yee The absence of Liza’s father oil tanker traffic in the form of licensed driver to accompany DEATH BENEFITS WAS INSPIRED BY SARAH explains, “there were no books enables Robert to become her a four-kilometre crocheted him, ferrets out his grandfa- Harvey’s experiences caring for about my world—the world of mom’s boyfriend. Liza has nick- chain stretching across the ther’s driver’s license (confis- her father, John Edgar Harvey, immigrants, of racial minori- named him Slick. coastal channel. cated by his mother) and soon who died at age ninety-five. He ties, and different histories. I It’s disconcerting for Liza to A mother of three in Victo- they’re off to a barber shop provided the spark (but not the had to learn about these see her normally level-headed ria, Sara Cassidy has been a hu- where the tall and delectable model) for the character of things much later in life... Such mom suddenly dolling up her man rights witness in Guatemala Kim shaves both their heads. Royce’s grandfather because books can reassure those in hair and wearing lipstick, mak- and won a Gold National Maga- Bald, his grandfather brings he, too, refused to “go gentle North America that it is valid ing excuses for Slick’s gas-guz- zine Award. 978-1-55469-352-8 the phrase death’s head to mind into that good night.” to be different from the main- zling SUV and defending the oil but, even scarier to Royce, is the Having cared for an elderly TEEN FICTION stream.” 978-0-545-98593-2 company that Slick works for. familial resemblance. Identical parent, Sarah Harvey was in- Death Benefits by Sarah N. Harvey The plot thickens—with (Orca $12.95) noses, same-shaped heads, clined to agree with Edith oil—when Liza conducts some matching bumps at the base of Wharton who once said, research and discovers Slick’s O BE AS BLUNT AS THE MAIN their skulls. “There’s no such thing as old company has been breaking the character in Death Ben- A monotonous yet comfort- age, there is only sorrow.” But law in Guatemala. It owes Mayan Tefits, the new young able routine develops. Royce Death Benefits is an uplifting farmers half-a-million dollars in adult novel by Victoria editor sneaks open the curtains an- story—a Driving Miss Daisy in Vic- compensation for drilling dam- Sarah N. Harvey, here is how other inch, makes his grandfa- toria, with a teenage boy and a age to croplands and buildings, Royce Peterson sums up his ther coffee and takes him on a cranky old man—because it ex- pollution and the deaths of farm mother’s 95-year-old, dementia- weekly outing in the T-bird like plores the notion that there animals. addled father: celebrated cellist, a “fussy baby.” could be something more than Before you can say “Girl legendary ladies’ man, abysmal From Arthur’s off-hand sto- sorrow for an old man and his Power,” Liza has organized parent, shitty grandparent. ries and the photos and other grandson. GRRR! That’s the acronym for Royce is temporarily off artifacts unearthed during “I wanted to allow for the Girls for Renewable Resources, school, on the mend from a Royce’s casual searches of the possibility of joy,” says Harvey. Really. bout of mono, so he reluctantly old house, he slowly pieces to- “Something that eluded my fa- The girls in GRRR! set up a agrees to look after foul- gether his grandfather’s life, ther.” 978-1-55469-226-2 Facebook page, write letters to mouthed and egotistical Arthur and therefore begins to better the newspapers and begin plan- Jenkins in return for fifteen understand his mother. Louise Donnelly writes her column Paul Yee: validating differences ning a demonstration at the oil bucks an hour. It’s better than Arthur suffers a serious from Vernon.

29 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 2000 Days in China BY JOHN HEMMINGSEN

John Hemmingsen chronicles his adventures in China as a a metallurgical engineer, adapting to new customs and helping to establish a business in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, from 1998 to 2009. While deeply appreciative of Chinese history, Hemmingsen frankly describes “the massive problems that continue to plague China in that country's incredible race to a permanent status as a dominant industrial power.” For more information, visit www.2000daysinchina.com

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30 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 WHO’SWHO BRITISH COLUMBIA

Gary Bauslaugh ponders the controversial conviction of Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer.

is for Apryl is for Dr. Dave is for Furlong is for Geddes

ASHCROFT-BORN APRYL LEAF, HAVING GRADUATED AS A VETERI- DOUGLAS & MCINTYRE WILL PUBLISH IN CHINA IN 1981, GARY GEDDES SAW AN raised in Falkland, B.C., worked NARIAN IN 1973 and practiced in John Furlong’s memoir of the Van- archaeological site outside Xi’an, in the in small towns as a journalist be- the Creston Valley until 1998, couver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Wei River Valley, where an underground fore moving to the Sunshine Coast David Perrin has issued his Winter Games. The as-yet-untitled book army of approximately 8,000 terracotta where she has published her first fifth collection of ‘country vet’ sto- will be published on February 12, 2011, soldiers and horses was discovered when book of poetry, Grass Widow ries about difficult animal pa- a year to the day after Canada welcomed farm workers were sinking a well in (Libros $17), from the imprint for tients and their eccentric human the world with a spectacular opening 1974. “A structure resembling an which she works as an editor. Apryl Leaf owners, When the Going Gets ceremony. airplane hangar had been built,” he re- 978-1-926763-04-0 Tough (Dave’s Press/ Sandhill $23.95). Furlong’s co-author will be Globe & calls, “to protect the pottery figures while 978-0-9866569-0-3 Mail columnist Gary Mason. they were carefully unearthed and reconstructured.” is for Bauslaugh Geddes’ The Terracotta Army is for Edgell (Goose Lane $14.95) pairs his poems A FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE HUMANIST with photographs of the pottery soldiers, ASsociation of Canada, Gary PORT ALBERNI FISH CULTURALIST AND forming a history of the Ch’in dynasty. Bauslaugh of Duncan was instru- photographer Phil Edgell has re- Twenty-four representatives of the mental in helping the Saskatchewan leased an expanded and revised version terracotta army share their thoughts on farmer Robert Latimer gain parole of Coastal Fishes of the Pacific North- Ch’in, the emperor, and Lao Bi, the after seven years of imprisonment for the west (Harbour $29.95) with Thetis Is- artist, all filtered through Geddes’ im- murder of his desperately ill daughter. lander Andy Lamb. Their illustrated agination. The story of that mercy killing and its guide identifies 250 fish by species and Geddes has simultaneously released judicial and social aftermath is re-told in common names, with detailed de- Swimming Ginger (Goose Lane Bauslaugh’s Robert Latimer: A Story of scriptions of habitat, distribution $17.95), based on the Qingming Justice and Mercy (Formac $29.95), en- and behaviour. 978-1-55017-471-7 Shanghe Tu scroll, sometimes called dorsed by the Honourable Kim “Spring Festival by the River” or “Go- Campbell and lawyer/novelist ing Upriver on a Bright, Clear Day.” A Gary Geddes’ The William Deverell. 1-55277-519-4 copy of this ancient scroll came into Terracotta Army has been republished to Geddes’ possession along the coincide with the banks of the Yangtze shortly Canadian tour of The after the events of September is for Clark Warrior Emperor and 11, 2001. The scroll is thought China’s Terracotta to have been painted by Army, which opened T.C. CLARK’S SECOND NOVEL, Zhang Zeduan before at the Royal Ontario Love on the Killing Floor (Now 1127. T.C. Clark Museum in June of or Never Publishing $19.95), is 2010 and will come For more info, visit about a down-and-out photographer in to the Royal B.C. www.abcbookworld.com Toronto who has an unexpected love Museum in Army 978-0-86492-634-0; Ginger 978-0-86492-626-5 affair with a black woman who is none- Victoria in 2011. too-keen on white folks. 978-0-9739558-8-0 continued on next page

31 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA steamed to obtain their final shape, were once essential to Haida culture. The is for Haynes book discusses how the Haida were first taught to make canoes by supernaturals IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE BUSH? IN and how the bodies of supernatural be- Wake-Up Call: Tales from a Frontier ings, like SGaana or Killer Whale, can Doctor (Caitlin $19.95), Sterling transform into canoes. The Haida lan- Haynes recalls when one of his pa- guage has also been influenced by the tients left the dressed carcass of a four remarkable dug-out vessels. Expressions point buck in his waiting room as pay- of welcome or agreement can be traced ment for the Williams Lake doctor hav- back to the time of canoes. Modern-day ing delivered his first son. Another time, carvers also discuss tips on design of ves- one of his patients swallowed a spoon to sels and paddles, and others talk of re- avoid solitary confinement. It’s Haynes’ cent journeys undertaken by canoe.” second collection of medical memoirs, 978-0-920651-30-8 both of which he credits to a left hemi- sphere stroke that partially paralyzed his right foot but liberated the right creative is for Katz side of his brain. “I think I got the better of the deal,” he says, “a new brain in trade TRADEWIND BOOKS PUBLISHER MICHAEL for a foot. The funny episodes in my medi- Katz has been honoured with a com- cal practice became hilarious. The sad, munity award from the Asian Canadian melancholy parts of my life’s memories Writers Workshop for his contribution looked less bleak.” 978-1-894759-44-1 to the Asian Canadian literary community. With Carol Frank he has published children and youth books such as Abby’s Birds, The Jade Necklace, Bamboo, is for Ihigaq What Happened This Summer, Henry Chow and The Bone Collector’s Son. The

ANDY SIBBALD WORKED IN THE ADDIC- latter title by Paul Yee is the only chil- tions field in Nunavut, the Northwest dren’s book to have won the City of Van- Territories and Yukon for a combined couver Book Prize. period of 20 years. Ihigaq: The Little People’s Arctic Quest Home (Lunatic $11.95 plus shipping) is the first book in his proposed trilogy for young teens. The story follows a colony of 30-cm tall Little People, known as Ihigaq in Inuit lore, who leave no imprints in the snow. They must continually move northward FOR to stay safe from predators and mini- 2011 mize the impact of global warming on Try the their lives. 978-0-9812961-1-1 Pearl Luke Creative is for Jones is for Luke HEATHER RAMSAY AND KWIAAHWAH Jones have compiled and edited Gina NOVELIST PEARL LUKE ON SALT SPRING Waadluxan Tluu: The Everything Ca- is starting BookClubBuddy.com de- noe (Haida Gwaii Museum Press $40). signed to help authors promote both This full-colour, soft-cover book contains new books and their back list to targeted Business almost 80 pages of current and archival individual readers and book clubs. The pictures, book excerpts, quotes and intent is to “provide another venue that more. According to publicity materials, connects readers and authors and keeps it “offers insights from carvers, elders, as many books as possible visible over the artists and voices from the past on the year. We post cover images, interviews, Calendar great cedar canoes. These canoes, carved reading guides and more.” from a single old growth tree and continued on page 35 If you refuse to be pigeon-holed into 30-minute time slots. If you recognize that our lives are more than just our work – then this is the calendar for you! 2011 POLESTAR BUSINESS CALENDAR

Polestar Calendars CREATIVE TIME-MANAGEMENT AT YOUR FAVOURITE BOOKSTORE TODAY www.polestarcalendars.com 1-800-296-6955 Andy Sibbald (left) in an igloo at Holman (pop. 450), northeast of Inuvik, located north of the 70th parallel on Victoria Island.

32 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Canada’s Truly Independent Publisher

Yannis Ritsos: Still Waters Poems a novel by Translated by Doris Reidweg Manolis paperback “Told in clear, understated prose, paperback 9 x 6 in 236 pages Love on the Killing Floor is a rare, 9 x 6 in 546 pages ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-926763-06-4 sharp work of social realism, providing 978-1-926763-07-1 $23.00 a vivid portrait of Toronto at a $34.00 precise moment in time.” ~ Quill & Quire Grass Widow Nukes poetry by on the 49th Apryl Leaf a novel by Love on the Michael Zrymiak paperback 9 x 6 in 109 pages paperback illing loo ISBN: 9 x 6 in 195 pages K F R 978-1-926763-04-0 ISBN: $17.00 978-1-926763-05-7 $23.00

Observations Within These A Novel by From Off Bonds the Grid a novel by poetry by Loreena M. Lee Angela Long paperback paperback 9 x 6 in 169 pages Trevor Clark 9 x 6 in 136 pages ISBN: Available wherever fine books are sold. ISBN: 978-1-926763-01-9 978-1-926763-02-6 $20.00 ISBN 978-0-9739558-8-0 $19.95 $18.95 non Libros Libertad Publishing Ltd • [email protected] • www.libroslibertad.ca Now Or Never Publishing PO Box 45089 • 12851 16th Ave • Surrey, BC • V4A 9L1 • Canada nonpublishing.com

NEW from the Royal BC Museum

Studio Billie’s Calendar A Perpetual Calendar by Emily Carr Share a year in the life of Emily Carr’s faithful Billie dog. Follow his adventures and record your own important dates on this entertaining perpetual calendar. Each month features an original drawing by Emily Carr, along with her hand-written description of Billie’s adventures. Join Billie as he does “lots of posing”, gets “too much tubbing” (baths) and enjoys mostly “splendacious occasions”. Each month also has spaces $15.95 for you to record your own ISBN 978-0-7726-6150-0 splendacious occasions. 12 colour illustrations.

Return to Northern British Columbia A Photojournal of Frank Swannell, 1929–39 by Jay Sherwood

Chronicling the final adventures of one of BC’s most famous and important land surveyors. $39.95 ISBN 978-0-7726-6283-5 200+ photographs.

Royal BC Museum books are distributed by Heritage Group. For more information about Royal BC Museum books, go to www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca and click on Publications.

33 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 I Have a Story Hancock House Publishers A then-and-now pictorial to Tell You The memoir and The woman A US military catastrophe insights of a top BC Wyatt Earp over coastal BC during Seemah C. Berson, editor cardiologist tried to forget the Cold War $26.95 paper • 318 pp. • 978-1-55458-219-8 Life Writing series Based on extensive interviews, these stories of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to Canada in the early twentieth century tell of their travails on Time Travel in leaving home and their struggles in the North Vancouver: sweatshops and garment factories of Canada. A Doctor’s NotesNotes Mattie: WyattWyatt Earp’sEarp’s BrokenBroken ArrArrowow ##1:1: A peek into the past T.F. Godwin, MD, FRCP(C) Secret Second Wife The World’s First Sharon J. Proctor Seemah Berson was born in Calcutta, 978-0-88839-654-9 E.C. (Ted) Meyers Lost Atomic Bomb India, and has lived in Vancouver for many 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 368 pp 978-0-88839-628-0 John Clearwater 978-0-88839-629-7 years. $29.95 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 288 pp 978-0-88839-596-2 8.5 x 11 • sc • 112 pp $19.95 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 160 pp Wilfrid Laurier University Press $14.95 $19.95 toll-free 1-800-565-9523| www.wlupress.wlu.ca facebook.com/wlupress| twitter.com/wlupress www.hancockhouse.com | [email protected] | 800-938-1114

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34 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 From Mohammad to mouse: Laura Marks in Syria, at the Ummayad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus.

Identifying continued from page 32 Mavor Moore is for Page A Historical and Literary Study is for Marks by Allan Boss

REPOSITIONED IN “CONTEMPORARY ART HAS ISLAMIC ROOTS Fernie, Oolichan and usually doesn’t know it,” says Laura Books retains some An astounding account of Marks, SFU’s Dena Wosk University of its coastal connec- a cultural giant who has Professor for the Contemporary Arts. tions with titles such been lost to history. Having travelled for eight years as Uirapurú (Ool- throughout the Muslim world, studying ichan $19.95), a classical and contemporary art, Marks P.K. Page haunting children’s coming this December explores the relationship between con- story by the late P.K. Page, illustrated from playwrightscanada.com temporary media art and classical Islamic by Kristi Bridgeman, and based art in Enfoldment and Infinity: An Is- on a Brazilian legend. Page lived in Bra- lamic Genealogy of New Media Art zil during the late 1950s when her hus- (MIT Press $37.95). She draws connec- band W. Arthur Irwin was Canada’s tions between the imageless, text and cal- ambassador to that country. Juvenile Fiction ligraphy-inspired work of traditional 978-088982-264-1 Islamic art, and the modern works of new-media and contemporary artists, AA GirlGirl CalledCalled TennysonTennyson suggesting that the pixel-based abstrac- is for Queer tion, artificial life and virtual worlds we byby JoanJoan GivnerGivner find in computer media already existed WHILE DANISH-BORN METTE BACH’S COL- in Islamic art 800 to 1100 years ago. umn for Xtra West magazine is cleverly 978-0262014212 called Queer to Eternity, she has opted for a much more sedate title for her ex- is for Newsworthy amination of her hometown in the Fraser delta, Off the Highway: Growing up AT THE VICTORIA BOOK PRIZES, in North Delta (New Star $19), origi- Sylvia Olsen received the third an- nally a UBC MFA project that was en- This classic fantasy quest takes readers on an adventure written in the nual $5,000 Bolen Books Children’s couraged by Daphne Marlatt. British tradition, fused with a contemporary voice. Givner alludes to the Book Prize from Bolen’s co-owner Having grown up on Scott Road, Bach work of Tennyson, as “Tenn” loves poetry, story and rhyme; in fact it will be her Samantha Holmes for Olsen’s has produced an historical memoir that love of great writers that helps her in her quest and leads her to success. young adult novel Counting on Hope offers insight into the preservation of (Sono Nis). Children of the Klondike Burns Bog and the effects of building Thistledown Press • www.thistledownpress.com (Whitecap) by Frances Back- the Alex Fraser Bridge for Expo 1986 ISBN 978-1-897235-83 • $12.95 house won the seventh annual $5,000 and the Deas Island Tunnel. “Starbucks City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. and Chapters and Cactus Club do not a city makes,” she writes. 978-1-55420-049-8 is for Olson

AT 496 PAGES, YOU GOTTA STOP AND MAR- vel at Ralph Maud’s revised edition of Muthologies (Talonbooks $39.95), poet Charles Olson’s collected lec- tures and interviews. There are five new pieces that were not included in the original 1978 edition, so Muthologies is the motherlode of Olson talk. As one of the founding English professors at Simon Fraser Uni- versity in 1965, Ralph Maud got to know Olson during a two-year stint at In 1949, engineer George Massey (with pointer), shows the location the State University for the Deas Island Tunnel that of New York at Buf- opened in 1959. It was later Charles Olson falo. 978-088922-639-5 renamed after Massey.

35 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA is for Robinson

WRITER IN RESIDENCE AT THE VANCOUVER Public Library until January, sc-fi veteran Spider Robinson, Spider Robinson has published his writer in residence, at 36th novel, Very Hard Choices (Baen the Vancouver Public Library: “Many have $7.99), in which Smelly the hermit, the noted its physical world’s most receptive telepath, reunites resemblance to a Star with his old college roommate Russell, a Trek set, making it a sixties survivor entering his sixties, to natural home for evade sinister government forces. Russell cutting-edge literally finds himself up Howe Sound experiments like turning a writer’s without a paddle—with a collapsed workshop into a lung. 1-4391-3303-4 podcast.” is for Shymanski

WENDY SHYMANSKI’S EDUCATIONAL novel for children, ages 7-12, Sparky: The World’s Most Lovable and Mischie- vous Bear Cub (iUniverse $15.95), is PHOTO about a grizzly cub’s first year of life. The KUN setting is the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary and the main characters are a mother and cub that Shymanski KRISZTINA observed over a ten-year period. It also includes is for Unity is for eXceptional extensive information about the THIS YEAR’S WINNER OF THE GEORGE RYGA THE BIG EASTERN CANADIAN LITERARY natural history of Award for Social Awareness in B.C. lit- awards tend to eschew books from both the temper- erature, A Thousand Dreams Vancou- B.C. Occasionally a B.C. author gets ate rainforest and ver’s Downtown Eastside and the Fight the nod if they are published from marine area sur- Wendy Shymanski for its Future (Greystone), by Larry outside B.C. Sarah Leavitt’s ex- rounding the Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori ceptionally frank and compelling Khutzeymateen Provincial Park/Grizzly , documents the volatile hu- graphic novel Tangles: A Story about Sanctuary. “I hope to draw attention to Culbert man and political dynamics of a rich, Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me the importance of the preservation of the vibrant and frequently misunderstood (Freehand Books $23.95) has been fragile grizzly species, and our planet,” community. While outlining various pit- shortlisted for the $25,000 Rogers she says. “Without a healthy planet noth- falls in government policy, the book pays Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. ing can survive, including humans.” tribute to the instinctive goodwill and Co-published with the McMichael 978-1-4401-8754-4 hope of the Downtown Eastside. Canadian Art Collection of Ontario, Douglas & McIntyre’s Defiant Spir- its: The Modernist Revolution of the is for Taylor Group of Seven by Ross King was is for Vancouver also nominated in the non-fiction HAVING WRITTEN 7,500 SPORTS COLUMNS, category. Tangles: 978-1-55111-117-9; Defiant Spirits: 978-1-55365-362-2 three times as many radio shows and FRANCIS MANSBRIDGE’S VANCOUVER Capilano Suspension Bridge in published 13 books—most recently, Then And Now (Raincoast $22.95) con- North Vancouver And to Think I Got in Free: Highlights trasts archival photos of Vancouver lo- from Fifty Years on the Sports Beat cations with contemporary photos, he re-constructed the bridge with sec- is for Yuxweluptun (Harbour $22.95), Jim Taylor re- mirroring a concept in previous Vancou- ondary cables in 1914. It has remained ceived the 2010 Bruce Hutchison Life- ver books by Roland Morgan and one of Vancouver’s primary tourist at- NEO-NATIVE DRAWINGS AND OTHER time Achievement Award for B.C. Michael Kluckner. One of the tractions with approximately 80,000 Works (Curatorial Projects $20) docu- journalism at the 24th annual Jack subjects is the Capilano Suspension visitors per year. The current version was ments and expands the exhibition of the Webster Awards dinner on November Bridge first built in 1889 with hemp built in 1956 by owner Rae same name by Lawrence Paul 1st at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in rope by August Jack Mitchell, who sold ownership to his Yuxweluptun at the Contemporary Vancouver. 978-1-55017-499-1 Khahtsahlano and his brother for daughter Nancy Stibbard. Art Gallery in Vancouver in 2010. Texts Jim Taylor and Wayne Gretsky North Vancouver developer Mansbridge reports visitors have in- by Peter Morin and curator Petra as seen by cartoonist George Grant Mackay. cluded The Rolling Stones, Watson accompany drawings span- Bob Krieger. Its next owner, Bruno Marilyn Monroe, Margaret ning a time period of three decades. Stelzer, replaced the Thatcher and Kevin Costner. 978-0-9732583-1-8 original hemp-and-ce- 978-1-59223-917-7 dar crossing with steel cables in 1902. At 250- is for Zrymiak feet high, and 450- feet across, it was the is for Wilson WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF CANADA HAD longest and nuclear weapons and the Americans highest sus- THE REMARKABLY UNSUNG JOHN didn’t like it? Would we become as es- pension Wilson originally from Edinburgh, tranged as India and Pakistan? bridge in the Scotland, has published his 24th and Michael Zrymiak’s techno-thriller world. After 25th titles since 1995, Crusade: The Nukes on the 49th (Libros Libertad owner Heretic’s Secret, Book 1 (Key Porter $23) envisions the CIA working with Edward $12.95) and Grail: The Heretic’s Secret, anti-nuclear supporters in Canada. How Mahon added a Book II (Key Porter $12.95), both about long would it take before American para- teahouse the crusades and each one more than noia led to the overthrow of Canada? in 1910, 300 pages. 978-1-55470-322-7; 978-1-55470-306-7 978-1-926763-05-7

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37 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Haida Eagle Treasures Tsath Lanas History and Narratives Pansy Collison who’s hot Haida Eagle Pansy Collison, a Treasure Haida woman, contains an speaks for Maltese herring eclectic her people collection of and to her From Kelowna to the Mediterranean, Alan Bradley goes global writings that people in this capture the illuminating title. OR A WHILE, THE HOTTEST FICTION ing to its publication in a dozen coun- culture and life writers from B.C. were being tries, including Canada. Bradley’s series of the Haida people Fcherry-picked from the UBC has since been sold to more than thirty Isbn: 978-1-55059-388-4; creative writing program. Lately the territories around the world. from the perspective $25.95; pb; 200 pages; hotshots for sales worldwide include the In Bradley’s follow-up, The Weed That of an insider. b&w; illustrated. prolific Jack Whyte with his new Strings the Hangman’s Bag, Flavia inves- Scottish history saga, ex-realtor-turned- tigates the sudden death—mid-per- NW B Detselig Enterprises · 210 1220 Kensington Road , Calgary, A · thriller-novelist Chevy Stevens and formance—of a master puppeteer p. 403-283-0900 · f. 403-283-6947 · www.temerondetselig.com now Johnny-Come-Lately named Rupert Porson who ar- Alan Bradley, from rives in the hamlet of Bishop’s Kelowna. Lacey in a broken-down van. A True Story Having written a memoir of In Bradley’s forthcoming his mother called The Shoebox third instalment, A Red Her- Bible and winning a children’s ring Without Mustard literature award in Saskatch- (Doubleday $29.95), Flavia de Christy JORDAN-FENTON & ewan, Bradley, at 70, pub- Luce comes to the rescue when Margaret POKIAK-FENTON lished the first novel in his a gypsy is charged with the ab- Alan Bradley artwork by Liz Amini-Holmes projected six-volume, adult duction of a local child. Flavia mystery series featuring an eleven-year- The moving story of an Inuit girl who must draw upon her encyclopaedic endures hardship at a residential boarding old detective named Flavia de Luce. knowledge of poisons to prevent a mis- school, only to emerge with her spirit The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie carriage of justice and to solve a greater intact. Ages 9–12 (Doubleday 2009) focuses on the mystery: What really happened to her sleuthing of the enthusiastic and preco- long-vanished mother? cious Flavia, a chemistry buff, who lives ✍ in an ancient family house somewhere BORN IN 1938, BRADLEY BECAME DIRECTOR in England in the 1950s with a stamp- of Television Engineering at a new me- collecting father and two very nasty dia centre at the University of Saskatch- older sisters. ewan in 1969, where he remained until The manuscript received the Debut taking early retirement in 1994. | annick press | www.annickpress.com | available from your favourite bookseller Dagger Award of the British Alan Bradley recently moved from Crimewriter’s Association in 2007, lead- Kelowna to Malta. 978-0-385-66586-5

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38 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Awards

Gillian Jerome has won the 2010 Precious few novels published from B.C. At the River’s Mouth: Writing Migra- ReLit Award for her debut poetry col- make a dent. An exception is Ian tions (ICR $20) by Daphne lection, Red Nest (Nightwood $17.95) Weir’s first novel Daniel O’Thunder Marlatt, a book designed by for which she received the ReLit ring (D&M $22.95), thus far nominated for Robert Bringhurst and published comprised of four moveable dials the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Ca- by the Institute for Coastal Research marked with the alphabet, for spelling nadian Authors Association’s Award for (ICR) at Vancouver Island University, words. The ReLit Awards (Ideas, Not Fiction, the Commonwealth Writers’ has won second prize in the prose non- Money) were founded in 2000 and cel- Prize Best First Book Award and the fiction category of the Alcuin Society’s ebrate new work released by independ- Amazon.ca Annual First Novel Award. 28th Annual Awards for Excellence in ent Canadian literary publishers. ReLit 9781553655640 Book Design in Canada. 978-1-896886-21-3 is short for Regarding Literature, ✍ ✍ Reinventing Literature, Relighting Lit- Scott Steedman has been one of Kamloops-raised Wendy Phillips’s erature. 0-88971-241-7 Vancouver’s leading editors of non-fic- young adult novel Fishtailing (Coteau) ✍ tion in the 21st century. With Vancou- is shortlisted for the Governor Gener- Masako Fukawa, principal writer ver Art Gallery senior curator Bruce al’s Award for Children’s Literature. It and managing editor, and her husband Grenville, he has won the City of follows the lives of four Vancouver teens Stanley Fukawa, translator and Vancouver Book Award for Visions of as they spiral out of control. Other B.C. contributing writer, have won a British Columbia: A Landscape nominees in the category include the $10,000 Canada-Japan Literary Award Manual (D&M $40). Visions of British Sunshine Coast’s K.L. Denman for for their work on Spirit of the Nikkei Columbia is based on an exhibition at Me, Myself and Ike (Orca) and Gina Fleet: BC’s Japanese Canadian Fisher- the VAG that coincided with the 2010 McMurchy-Barber for Free As A men (Harbour $39.95). 978-1-55017-436-6 Winter Games. 9781553655008 Bird (Dundurn). Fishtailing: 9781550504118; Me, ✍ Gillian Jerome ✍ Myself & Ike: 9781554690862; Free As A Bird 978-1-55488-447-6

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When They Sailed the World Egeria & the Millidge Family Ships by Eric Lawson Searching for the Imperial Illustrated by John McKay Queen's Cowboys Vancouver Island Track This: My Wonderful Raised by Committee Who was Who 1850-1950 A Book of Relationship A history of the New Brunswick by Tony Maxwell Nightmare Can a committee raise a child, sailing ship Egeria. Built in or replace a mother's love? Filming a documentary in South by J.F. Bosher by Stephen Bett Spiritual Journals Inspired by Cancer 1859, it has been in the Falkland Africa about a Canadian by Carollyne Haynes Islands since 1873. Still in use. regiment, Strathcona's Horse, that (hc) 978-1-4599-5963-3 • $34.95 Published by BlazeVOX Books by Erin Higgins & fought in the Anglo-Boer War. (sc) 978-1-4500-5962-6 • $24.95 (Buffalo, N.Y) Alma Lightbody 978-1-4269-2144-5 [sc $24.95] MARITIME ISBN 978-0-9780998-1-7 • $49.95 HISTORY ISBN 978-0-9683256-1-2 • $19.95 HISTORY (e-book) 978-1-4500-5964-0 • $9 POETRY ISBN 978-1-60964-033-0 • $16 HEALTH ISBN 978-1-4251-8725-5 • $18.95 NOVEL 978-1-4269-2234-3 [hc $34.95] HISTORY www.newwestminsterfrasersbaseballclub.blogspot.com www.maritimeheritage.ca www.captainjoesteachingresources.com www.trafford.com www.writerstrust.com www.gangranchtherealstory.com

Rocky Mountain Tales The Frasers THE WRITERS’ TRUST PRESENTS by Ken McIntosh & Women of Pender Wit and Wisdom of the Wild West Harbour: Their Voices, by Arlene Pervin MARGARET ATWOOD Gang Ranch Rod Drown Feb. 3, 2011 In a performance of The Year of the The Real Story How young pro baseball dreams Their History The Captain Joe Series Eclectic stories of southern Flood. Plus silent & live auction. B.C, and Alberta gleaned from Fairmont by Judy Alsager came to New Westminster in 1974. by Emily Madill Hotel All proceeds go to support writers Fifteen of the 31 players tell of by Dorothy Faulkner, newspapers and other research, A true account of the tragedy Life lessons for children. from the late 19th century and Vancouver across Canada via the Writers’ Trust that befell a million-acre cattle days which, though not always Elaine Park & Cathy Jenks and The Woodcock Fund. glorious, were memorable. BC early 20th century. LITERARY BC empire in the Cariboo. SPORTS ISBN 978-0-9865564-0-1 • $19.95 HISTORY ISBN 978-0-9865605-0-7 • $45 KIDLIT ISBN 978-1-926626-08-6 • $39.95 HISTORY ISBN 9781426931703 • $17.95 EVENT Tickets: [email protected] HISTORY ISBN 978-0-9682883-0-6 • $22.95 thelistenergraphicnovel.wordpress.com www.drtomgodwin.com www.libroslibertad.ca CONTACT www.diamondriver.ca www.choosingtosmile.com : [email protected]

A Doctor’s Notes Choosing to Smile Taken from Both Sides In My Mother’s Garden Inspirational life stories of three of the Bedsheets Opera Bufa The Listener White Loon... by Connie Kurtenbach friends who happen to have cancer by Manolis by T.F. Godwin by David Lester and other stories Short stories that make us laugh, by Glenda Standeven, True medical stories explained in “A delight to read, these poems, A tale of complacency, art, cry, moan, and even shiver at the by Jean E. Speare dark side of humanity. Julie Houlker, layman's terms. All profits go to filled with rage and passionate power, and murder. Michelle Rickaby MEDICAL the Royal Columbian Hospital. desire... unforgettable...” GRAPHIC Available Spring, 2011, from SHORT Stories with a Cariboo flavour SHORT ISBN 978-0-9811376-9-8 • $16.95 SELF MEMOIR ISBN 978-0-88839-654-9• $29.95 POETRY ISBN 978-1-926763-09-5 • $17 NOVEL Arbeiter Ring Publishing, STORIES ISBN 978-0-9691480-1-2 • $16 STORIES Book available at [email protected] HELP ISBN 978-0-9865227-0-3 • $19.95

39 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 Now entering North Delta indies Off the Highway Growing Up In North Delta by Mette Bach Lasqueti Find it here genius People’s Co-op Bookstore • Pulpfiction Books, HE EXTRAORDINARILY GIFTED AND Main St. & W. Broadway locations • Sitka chronically underpaid Georgia Books on West 4th Avenue • Black Bond Books TStraight illustrator, cartoonist and Don Sawyer • BC Ferries • UBC Bookstore • Save-On-Foods comic book artist Rand Holmes of started out writing Lasqueti Island died at age 60 in 2002. on his daughters’ lunch bags. • Chapters | Indigo | Indigo.ca • Amazon.com His Harold Hedd comics are collectors’ TRANSMONTANUS 18 items and he was respected across North www.NewStarBooks.com America in the sixties and seventies as a peer of cartoonist Robert Crumb (Mr Natural) and Gilbert Shelton BAG LIT (Furry Freak Brothers). Cannabis Culture magazine ran a profile on Holmes and ou’ve heard of 1001 Arabian Nights, now there’s 1001 Lunch Bags. his art exhibit on Lasqueti Island in Y For years, Don Sawyer, of Salmon Arm, March of 2007. Patrick added jokes and pictures to the lunch bags City of Love and Revolution Rosenkranz of Portland, Oregon, has that he sent to school with his two daughters. Vancouver In the Sixties compiled a 328-page biography and ret- Farish and Melissa liked them so much, they rospective art book devoted to brought them home to complement the family by LAWRENCE ARONSEN Holmes’career, The Artist Himself: A photo albums. Rand Holmes Retrospective Now Sawyer’s The Lunch Bag Chronicles (Playfort $19.99) traces events in Find it here (Fantagraphics $39.99 U.S.). 978-1606991701 their lives—from volleyball tournaments to People’s Co-op Bookstore • Sitka Books & Art • Halloween trick-or-treating—accompanied by classic jokes for children. Eighty lunch bags Blackberry Books, Granville Island • Royal BC Museum were selected to comprise the contents. Shop, Victoria • Pulpfi ction Books on Main • Pulpfi ction “I always got a smile out of it myself,” Books on Broadway • UBC Bookstore • Indigo Books + Sawyer says, “I’d think about them opening Music • Chapters • Amazon.com • but not, sadly, BC Fer- their lunch, laughing—or groaning—at the joke, and sharing them with their friends. ries (we think you’ll be able to guess why) “I’m no illustrator, but I had a lot of fun coming up with pictures to go along with the jokes. Most people are very charitable and www.NewStarBooks.com insist they are at least charming. “But this practice, for me, was also a kind of meditation on them. The whole process made me think about who they were, and how Harold Hedd with banjo by Rand Holmes their lives were unfolding.” 978-0-9813164-0-6 Every Day In the Stiff upper Brits Morning (slow) ETIRED HISTORY PROFESSOR tem only works for people who live in by ADAM SEELIG John Bosher of North the USA. The author will be glad to sup- R Saanich spent ten years writing ply soft-cover copies at $45, postage an A-to-Z volume of 769 biographies paid. Write to [email protected] Find it here for his 839-page Imperial Vancouver “What I am trying to do with my Island: Who was Who 1850-1950 present project,” he says, “is to treat the (Xlibris, 2010). Bosher says if the twenty- British Empire and the Imperialists in People’s Co-op Bookstore • Sitka Books & Art • first century did not find rambling Vic- their own terms in order to understand Blackberry Books, Granville Island • Pulpfi ction Books on torian titles intolerable, it could have them better. The whole subject belongs Main • Pulpfi ction Books on Broadway • UBC Bookstore • been called Some Im- in history now, no Indigo Books + Music • Chapters • Amazon.com perial Campaigners longer in politics, be- and their Friends on cause the British dis- www.NewStarBooks.com Vancouver Island solved the Empire half from the Cariboo a century ago. Too many Goldrush and the In- Canadians, like our dian Mutiny to the American neighbours, Invasion from Main- treat it as though we Bad men, bad deeds, badlands — and one very, very, very land Canada after the were still struggling good woman. The classic genre send-up, now back in print. Second World War, Sir Clive Phillipps-Wolley is the only against it. And the truth 1850-1950. B.C. author to be knighted. Buried in is that WE never had to Most of the 769 Duncan, he is one of 769 people in struggle. London could Caprice people in Imperial Imperial Vancouver Island. hardly wait to get rid of Vancouver Island us. But as a result of our by GEORGE BOWERING were born in Britain or in British India perverted (partly Irish-American) stand- or elsewhere in the Empire at a time point and our myths, we don’t under- Find it here when Canada was part of it. There are stand the Empire and the Imperialists Mosaic Books, Kelowna • Tanner’s, Sidney • Galiano Island entries for Sir Charles Bell, world very well. I also think, of course, that a Books • People’s Co-op Bookstore • Sitka Books & Art • expert on Tibet and a friend of the variety of different points of view is all Dalai Lama, Sir Frederic Maze, to the good in history.” Blackberry Books, Granville Island • Crown Publications, ex-director of the Chinese Maritime John Bosher studied at the Sorbonne Victoria • Pulpfi ction Books on Main • Pulpfi ction Books Customs, and several other exotic and gained his Ph.D in history from Lon- on Broadway • UBC Bookstore • Indigo Books + Music • knighted Imperials, as well as Lady don University. He taught history at Chapters • Amazon.com Mary Emily Swettenham, King’s College London, University of widow of a governor of Jamaica. British Columbia, Cornell University www.NewStarBooks.com Bosher sent his manuscript to one of and York University. He has written or the do-it-yourself publishers in the U.S. contributed to eight other books. and discovered the e-mail ordering sys- 978-1-4500-5962-6

40 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 7th Annual George Ryga Award for Social Awareness

Th is year’s George Ryga Award For Social Awareness in BC Publishing has been awarded to A Th ousand Dreams: Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the Fight for its Future, published by Greystone Books, and written by Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert. It captures the volatile human and political dynamics at play in an incredibly rich and vibrant community, and reveals the pitfalls in government policy that threaten such a community and the instinctive goodwill and hope that rises up from that community regardless.

2010 Short-Listed Finalists

god of missed connections by Elizabeth Bachinsky, Nightwood Editions Where Th e Blood Mixes by Kevin Loring, Talonbooks

The George Ryga Award is sponsored by The George Ryga Society, BCBookWorld, CBC Radio One and Okanagan College

41 BC BOOKWORLD WINTER 2010-2011 PRINTERS • EDITORIAL SERVICES • PUBLICITY BOOKS HOW& WHEN YOU WANT THEM

Self-Publish.ca O Visit our website to find out all you need to know about P self-publishing The Vancouver Desktop Publishing Centre call for a free consultation PATTY OSBORNE, manager 200 – 341 Water Street # Vancouver, B.C. v6b 1b8 #$%&' ( Ph 604-681-9161 )(* + www.self-publish.ca + ,%-.. helping self-publishers since 1986

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