2 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 Is for Bachman

2 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 is for Bachman

HE CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR WRITING AMERICAN Woman because he wrote These Eyes. He avoided classic rock star burnout partly WHO’SWHO’S because he was a Mormon. He has hob- nobbed with pop music royalty but re- mains level-headed. Now veteran guitarist and Salt Spring Islander Randy Bachman has gathered more of his mu- sical memoirs for Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap Stories (Penguin $32), a Randy spinoff from his CBC Radio program. Bachman WHOWHO His previous memoir was Takin’ Care of (right) with BRITISH COLUMBIA Business (McArthur 2000). 978-0-670-06579-0 Neil Young

is for Anti-Saints is for Davis is for Fawcett is for Holsinger

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE FRENCH REVO- WADE DAVIS’ THE SACRED HEADWATERS: PRINCE GEORGE-RAISED BRIAN FAWCETT A MUTUAL LOVE OF SAILING, FISHING AND lution, poet and journalist Sylvain The Fight to Save the Stikine, Skeena, is taking the route of Brian Brett beachcombing brought June Maréchal wrote satirical, skeptical and Nass (Greystone $50) is described and Patrick Lane, revisiting his Cameron and Paul Holsinger studies of the lives of female saints to dis- as a visual feast and plea to save an ex- roots for a memoir, Human Happiness together and has resulted in their book courage religion. Medievalist and politi- traordinary region in North (Thomas Allen $24.95). 26 Feet to the Charlottes, Exploring the cal activist Sheila Delany has America for future generations. Commenting on the genesis Land of the Haida (Heritage $19.95). retrieved her audacious work from ob- The Vancouver Writers Festival of his book, Fawcett says, “Like In 1983, after three summers of calm scurity for Anti-Saints: The New is sponsoring his preview address most people in North America sailing together, the couple decided to Golden Legend of Sylvain Maréchal (U. on the book in September. during and just after the Second cross Hecate Strait in Paul’s 26-foot of Alberta $34.95) due in October. 978-1-55365-880-1 World War, I grew up without wooden sloop Wood Duck. As June and 978-0-88864-604-0 the faintest curiosity about the Paul visited uninhabited First Nations Wade Davis people who’d brought me into villages, a remote logging camp, a de- is for Esi the world, and even less about funct whale meat cannery and aban- the ancestors who had gotten doned gold and copper mines, they were Victoria’s Esi Edugyan's sec- them to our staging grounds. struck by how hard it could be to make ond novel, Half-Blood Blues Toward the end of my parents’ a living in the Charlottes. 978-1-894974-61-5 (Thomas Allen $24.95), about lives I began to understand that black jazz musicians in Berlin this lack of curiosity was a seri- during the late 1930s, was ous mistake, and in part, this Esi Edugyan Sheila longlisted for the Man Booker book is my attempt at restitution: is for Incredible Delany Prize in 2011. Among the black musi- this is about them, but it is also for them.” cians whose lives are threatened by the 978-0-88762-808-5 BRUCE HUTCHISON’S BIOGRAPHICAL onset of World War II, there's a brilliant portrait of Prime Minister William trumpet player, Hieronymus, and a nar- Lyon Mackenzie King, The In- is for Campbell rator, Sid, who uses a distinctive Ger- is for Greig credible Canadian, received a Governor man-American slang. General’s Award after it appeared JENNIFER CAMPBELL, AS THE OWNER/ Half -Blood Blues was slated to be HAVING EARNED HIS BACHELOR OF LAWS in 1952. Vaughn Palmer has operator of Heritage Memoirs, a per- published by Key Porter Books until the degree in 1986 from the University of provided an intro- sonal history business, has written Start Ontario company shut down in 2011, Victoria, David R. Greig of Van- duction for a & Run a Personal History Business but it was published on schedule in the couver specializes in matrimonial and reprinted paper- (Self-Counsel UK by Serpent’s Tail. A Cana- family law. After eight editions back edition $23.95) to advise dian edition will appear from of If You Leave Me, Put It In published by others how to write Thomas Allen. Writing (Self-Counsel), he has Oxford Univer- personal histories The winner of the Man produced The Separation sity Press ($19.95). (autobiographies) Booker Prize, to be announced Guide (Self-Counsel $19.95) as 978-0-19-543890-1 as a business oppor- in October, receives £50,000 a companion to forms for The tunity. (approximately $77,000). Separation Agreement. Bruce Jennifer Campbell David R. Greig Hutchison continued on 978-1-77040-058-0 9780887627415 978-1-77040-057-3 next page

AUTUMN Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Hannah Main-van der Kamp, John Moore, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, Laurie Neale, For this issue, we gratefully 2011 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Roxana Necsulescu, 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, continuous partner since 1988. Society. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. Consultants: Sharon Jackson, George Maddison BOOKWORLD Vol. 25, No. 3 BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Jeremy Twigg Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. Deliveries: Ken Reid In-Kind Supporters: Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Simon Fraser University Library; Email: [email protected]. Annual subscription: $25 All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at Editor/Production: David Lester www.abcbookworld.com Vancouver Public Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA

Kwiaahwah Jones

continued from page 3 they were considered persons under the law, who fundraised, sewed, canned, and knitted to establish Chilliwack’s first hos- is for Jones pital. The book can be bought at the Chilliwack Hospital Auxiliary Thrift

KWIAAHWAH JONES AND HEATHER Shoppe. 978-0-9868333-0-4 Ramsay have compiled and edited Gina Waadluxan Tluu: The Everything Canoe (Haida Gwaii Museum Press $40), containing 80 pages of current and archival pictures, book excerpts, quotes and more. The Everything Canoe discusses how Andrea the Haida were first taught to make ca- Lister noes by supernaturals and how the bodies of supernatural beings, like SGaana or Killer Whale, can transform into canoes. Expressions of welcome or agreement in the Haida language can be traced back to the time of canoes. Mod- is for McMullan ern-day carvers discuss tips on design of vessels and paddles, and others talk of PETER MCMULLAN HAS CONCEIVED AND recent journeys undertaken by canoe. co-authored a book about sport fishing 978-0-920651-30-8 on the Babine River, its history and challenges: Babine: A 50-Year celebration is for Kahn of a World-re- nowned Steelhead and Trout River HIKING THE GULF ISLANDS OF BRITISH (Amato Publica- Columbia (Harbour $24.95) by tions $49.95), with Charles Kahn is the expanded third Pierce Clegg of edition of his guidebook first published Babine Norlakes in 2004. This edition includes details on Peter McMullan Lodge. walks, hikes and In addition to writing and editing, paddling for kayak- McMullan was responsible for the or- ers. Each Gulf Is- ganization and co-ordination of all con- land has its own tents and photography in the book, an chapter, including assignment that extended over three the more obscure years. A special limited edition version is Texada, Lasqueti Charles Kahn also available for four times the regular and Thetis islands. hardcover price. 978-1-57188-462-6 Born in Montreal in 1945, Charles Kahn moved to Salt Spring Island in Libraries change lives. 1992. He is also a member of the Salt Spring Island Historical Society. is for Nicholson 978-1-55017-511-0 So can you… AS A VANCOUVER-BASED COMMUNITY organizer who administers the Down- is for Lister town Eastside Women’s Centre, Cecily Support the Vancouver Public Library Nicholson has written her first book Foundation and make a difference in ANDREA LISTER IS THE NEW EDITOR OF of poetry, Triage (Talonbooks $16.95), British Columbia History, replacing his- that presents “a polyvocal narrative of your community for years to come. torian John Atkin. Having recently human communities struggling at the designed David B. Reid’s Fields of brutal margins of Seams and Dreams: A History of Plowing the neoliberalized 604-331-4094 in the Valley, Lister has now published state,” and exam- [email protected] Commitment To Caring: Chilliwack ines women’s crea- Hospital’s Auxiliary’s 100 Years, 1911- tive resistance to vplfoundation.ca 2011 ($20). both physical and Commitment To Caring tells the story systemic violence. Cecily Nicholson of determined women in a time before 978-0-88922-657-9

4 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 No More Mac ‘n’ Cheese: The Real-World Guide to is for Origami is for Quadra Managing Your Money for 20-somethings by Lise Andreana ORIGAMI DOVE (M & S $18.99) IS THE FIRST ONCE UPON MUCH LIVELIER TIMES, THE collection of poems in over a decade sparsely populated Discovery Islands • Master the successful transition from Susan Musgrave, who has (Read, Cortes, Sonora, Maurelle, from family home to ﬁrst apart- published 14 books of poetry over Hardwicke, Stuart, Redonda and ment. the course of 41 Thurlow) were rife with oddballs, as • Discover how to save for future made clear in years—her most re- Jeanette Taylor goals such as a car, marriage, cent being a much- Tidal Passages: A History of the Discovery anticipated return Islands (Harbour 2008). Taylor has given mortgage, and retirement. to the dark humour much the same treatment to the largest • Explore employment beneﬁt plans; budgeting, invest- and haunting poet- of the Discovery Islands for The Quadra ing and debt control; and many more topics. ics that she’s known Story: A History of Quadra Island (Har- Susan Musgrave $18.95 Paperback + CD-ROM for. 978-0-7710-6522-4 bour $32.95). 978-1-55017-495-3 Your First Home: A Buyer’s Kit For Condos and Houses! is for Prain by Kim Egerton • From the decision to purchase,

YARN BOMBING: THE ART OF CROCHET to moving day, this guide will help & Knit Graffiti by Mandy Moore you every step of the way. and Leanne Prain (Arsenal 2009) • Avoid typical home buying mis- received front page coverage in The New takes — make an offer, negotiate York Times’ style section in May, followed like a pro, and close the deal on by stories in the Associated Press, Today your first home. Show’s blog, Forbes magazine, and Time magazine. A third printing was neces- • Learn the key questions to ask when assessing home sary in the summer. Prain’s new book, features such as location, privacy, and security. Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Em- $21.95 Paperback + CD-ROM broidery (Arsenal $22.95) profiles artists and offers readers twenty-eight Writing Historical Fiction embroidery projects to create. by Mort Castle Prain says that, “Yarn Bombing suc- Clea Roberts cessfully connected knitters with the • Break free from outdated for- world of street art,” and she hopes that mulas and take your work to the Hoopla “receives a similar response from next level. stitchers. Modern crafters are not just is for Roberts • Learn how to research for this hobbyists; they are artists, anarchists, unique genre and carefully advocates, protesters, and rabble- CLEA ROBERTS’ FIRST BOOK OF POETRY, choose your facts. rousers. Both books strive to propel those Here is Where We Disembark (Free- • Develop style in your writing who make handicrafts to broadcast po- hand Books $16.95), is described as a and successfully market your litical or social statements, and to create “perceptive ecological reading of Cana- finished work. positive change in their communities. I da’s North past and present.” Based on hope that Hoopla will inspire stitchers her experiences in northern BC and the $22.95 Paperback to explore the age-old tradition of em- Yukon, these poems have been described broidery as a modern method of com- by Don McKay as “exquisite frostbit- Start & Run a Computer munication and art.” ten brevities.” 978-1-55111-851-2 Repair Service Yarn 9781551522555; Hoopla 978-1-55152-406-1 continued on page 6 by Philip Spry & Lynn Spry • Turn your tech skills into a money-making venture! • Ride the technology wave to a profitable business. • Choose a business plan that best suits your market; mobile/onsite or brick-and- mortar storefront. $22.95 Paperback + CD-ROM Start & Run a Pet Business by Heather Mueller • Transform your love of animals into a profitable career; manage your start-up costs while generating clientele. • Learn how to run a successful, ethical, and humane pet business. • Examine the numerous niche business opportunities the pet “Yarn Bombing has worked its way into the popular vernacular. industry offers; many require little to no training. It has been used in cell phone campaigns in Ireland, mentioned $22.95 Paperback + CD-ROM by Queen Latifa on Martha Stewart, used by Arthur Black in an essay, and even been the subject of a Threadless t-shirt. The book has been a spark which has helped ignite knit graffiti into a www.self-counsel.com worldwide social phenomenon.” — LEANNE PRAIN 1-800-663-3007

5 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA continued from page 5 is for Schroeder is for Xtraordinary WITH ALMOST 1,000 PARKS AND PROTECTED areas, B.C.'s provincial parks cover more WHILE ADDING TO his list of twenty than 13 million hectares or 12.26% of books with a new the province's land base. There are 340 Young Adult non- campgrounds, 126 boat launches and fiction title, Duped! 6,000 km of hiking trails. James D. (Annick $12.95), Anderson’s British Columbia's Mag- Andreas nificent Parks: The First 100 Years Andreas Schroeder Schroeder is see- (Harbour $44.95) brings supernatural ing his classic fictional account of a real- B.C. to your coffee table. 978-1-55017-507-3 life Saskatchewan shipbuilder, Dustship Glory, re-issued by University of Athabasca Press $19.95). is for Yamauchi Duped: 9781554513505; Dustship: 978-1-926836-22-5

WILLOW YAMAUCHI’S ADULT CHILD OF Hippies (Insomniac Press $19.95) looks is for Toews-Andrews fondly at her own counter-cultural up- bringing with deprecating wit, mixed PHOTO

with a nostalgic respect for idealism. As AGNES TOEWS-ANDREWS’ SELF-PUB- lished The Goddess Lives: Poetry, Prose an ACOH (Adult Child of Hippies), TWOROWSM

and Prayers in Her Honour (Isis Moon Sheri-D Wilson she believes this

Publishing $24.95) looks at the tradi- JAMES tion of Goddess worship, particularly group of survivors is “Goddess Sophia,” and the need for a under-represented matrilineal society today. Toews-An- in present-day culture. Some of her drews recounts her travels to research is for Wilson Willow Yamauchi Goddess worship around the world. retro-vision is hilari- ous, and all of it is alarmingly true. 9780968676530 EDITED BY SHERI-D WILSON, THE Spoken Word Workbook: inspiration Yamauchi recently appeared at the from poets who teach (Banff Centre Galiano Island Writers Festival. The is for Understated Press $20), is a resource for writers whose blissed-out-looking hippie chick on the vision is to say their words/sounds out book jacket is her sister. 978-1-897415-24-5 BASED ON FIFTY ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS, loud. The collection brings together Daphne Marlatt and Carole twenty-seven “poets, griots and bards” Itter’s Sound Heritage classic from working in jazz, hip hop, dub, story-tell- is for Zero 1979, Opening Doors, was the first book ing and sound from across North about Vancouver’s Strathcona district, America. Wilson and Mona Fertig THE ZERO-MILE DIET: A YEAR-ROUND near Main Street. In a re-released, large were headliners at the 2nd annual Guide to Growing Organic Food (Har- format version, Opening Doors: In Van- Hazelwood Herb Farm Writers Festival bour $32.95) by Carolyn Herriot couver’s East End, Strathcona (Harbour in Ladysmith in August. 978-1-894773-40-3 has been short-listed for the 2011 Ca- $24.95), Nora Hendrix, who ar- nadian Culinary Book Awards. It follows [Participating artists in the anthology in- rived in Vancouver in 1911, is described a year of sustainable homegrown food clude José Acquelin, bill bissett, Regie in a caption as the grandmother of Nora Hendrix in 1977, at age 94 production, growing healthy organic Cabico, George Elliott Clarke, Paul Jimi Hendrix who “became a noted food, eating seasonal recipes from the Dutton, Ian Ferrier, John Giorno, Louise musician in the 1960s.” 978-1-55017-521-9 stories that was launched in Gimli, garden, saving seeds for future harvests Manitoba, centre of all things Icelandic- (Sky Dancer) Bernice Halfe, Bob and storing food for the winter. Canadian. The stories capture the expe- Holman, Kaie Kellough, Shane Koyczan, In 2011, Herriot wrote A Year on the riences of Icelandic settlers in Canada Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Billeh Nickerson, Garden Path: A 52-Week Organic Gar- is for Valgardson as W.P. Kinsella’s mentor at UVic, Hilary Peach, Robert Priest, Steven Ross dening Guide. Also shortlisted is Bill Valgardson, presents new myths and Smith, Quincy Troupe, Anne Waldman, Michele Genest’s The Boreal AFTER A PUBLISHING HIATUS OF MORE THAN legends in the old style of eddas and sa- Sheri-D Wilson and d’bi young. With es- Gourmet (Harbour $26.95) written af- a decade, W.D. Valgardson returns gas. Recently, he was the editor of says by Brian Brett, Klyde Broox, Corey ter Genest moved to the Yukon in 1994 to adult fiction for What the Bear Said: Lögberg-Heimskringla, the Icelandic Frost, Heather Haley, Richard and discovered how to incorporate in- Skald Tales from New Iceland community newspaper in Canada. Harrisonm, Wendy Morton, Sarah digenous boreal ingredients. (Turnstone $19), a collection of short 978-0-88801-3804 Murphy and Eugene Stickland.] Zero 978-1-55017-481-6; Boreal 978-1-55017-475-5 th Celebrate Vancouver’s125 birthday with the reemergence of 10 quintessential Vancouver books » for more information please visit www.books.bc.ca

Along the No. 20 Line: The Inverted Anhaga: A Hard Man to Reminiscences Opening Doors: Pyramid Pray for Hardship Vancouver’s East Class Warfare Beat of the Vancouver Who Killed Janet A Credit to Your Crossings Bertrand W. Sinclair & Other Poems End D.M. Fraser Day and Night Howie White Waterfront Smith? Race Betty Lambert Jon Furberg Daphne Marlatt & Dorothy Livesay 978-1-55017-551-6 Rolf Knight Edward Starkins Truman Green Carole Itter, eds. $21.95, Oct. 2011 978-1-55420-061-0 Harbour Publishing $21.00, TBA New Star Books

978-1-55380-128-3 978-1-55152-427-6 978-1-55152-430-6 978-1-55017-551-6 978-1-55152-428-3 $18.95 • Sept. 2011 978-1-55017-521-9 978-1-89753-586-8 $19.95 • Sept. 2011 978-0-88982-281-8 $15.95 • Sept. 2011 $21.95 • Oct. 2011 978-1-89753-585-1 $15.95 • Sept. 2011 Ronsdale Press 978-1-55420-061-0 $24.95 • Apr. 2011 $18.00 • Sept. 2011 Arsenal Pulp Press $18.95 • Sept. 2011 Arsenal Pulp Press Harbour Publishing $24.00 • Sept. 2011 Arsenal Pulp Press $24.00 • Sept. 2011 Harbour Publishing Anvil Press Oolichan Books Anvil Press New Star Books

6 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 I Just Ran Percy Williams, World’s Fastest Human Samuel Hawley

The untold story of the Canadian who came a struggle to deal with fame and the harsh out of nowhere to win double gold in the realities of elite amateur sport. When asked to 100 and 200 metres at the 1928 Amsterdam explain the secret of his speed, Percy himself Olympics. It begins as the Cinderella story of would only shrug and say: “I just ran.” This an inexperienced young runner who seizes the is the story he did not want to tell. With 45 title “World’s Fastest Human,” then takes us b&w photos. behind the headlines to reveal the personal struggle of this reluctant and enigmatic hero, 978-1-55380-126-9 332 pp $23.95

The Inverted Pyramid The Private Journal of Bertrand Sinclair Capt. G.H. Richards Here in a new edition for the first time since The Vancouver Island Survey (1860–1862) 1924 is Sinclair’s finest novel: an account of British Columbia at the time of WWI, with an array of Linda Dorricott & Deidre Cullon, eds. unforgettable characters and a gripping account Published for the first time, this journal is an exciting of the corruption of the new financial sector in addition to the history of BC with valuable insights Vancouver. into the native peoples and colonial society. With 40 978-1-55380-128-3 290 pp $18.95 b&w photos and maps. 978-1-55380-127-6 200 pp $21.95 The Opening Act Spit Delaney’s Island Canadian Theatre History, 1945–1953 Jack Hodgins Susan McNicoll Back in print! — the collection of short stories Drawing on personal interviews with actors of the that started Jack Hodgins off on his award-studded period, McNicoll explores such companies as Everyman literary career. Winner of the Eaton’s Book Prize and in Vancouver, New Play Society in Toronto, and Théâtre finalist for the Governor General’s Award, it placed du Nouveau Monde in Montreal — revealing what made British Columbia definitively on the literary map Stratford’s opening in 1953 possible. With 50 b&w photos. of Canada. 978-1-55380-113-9 7-1/2 x 10 280 pp $24.95 978-1-55380-111-5 200 pp $18.95

Runaway Dreams Beckett Soundings Richard Wagamese Inge Israel Having gained an impressive reputation for his In her new collection of poems — her fourth with novels and nonfiction as a Native writer who explores Ronsdale — Inge Israel slips into the mind of contemporary First Nations life, Richard Wagamese Samuel Beckett to explore his life and the sources now presents a debut collection of stunning poems, of his novels, plays and poems, especially his belief ranging over topics such as nature, love, jazz, spirituality that language (mis)informs all that we know. and the residential school experience. 978-1-55380-112-2 100 pp $15.95 978-1-55380-129-0 132 pp $15.95

Young Adult Books

Ghosts of the Run Marco, Broken Torn from Pacific Run Trail Troy Philip Roy Norma Charles Jean Rae Baxter Patrick Bowman In his fourth volume in the When Marco witnesses his In 1780, in the middle of the In this unusual rewriting of Submarine Outlaw series, father being kidnapped in American Revolution, 13- Homer’s Odyssey, Alexi, a young Alfred travels though the Buenaventura, Colombia, he stows year-old Broken Trail Trojan boy, is captured by the Northwest Passage on the way away on a freighter to Vancouver is caught between conflicting hated Greek, Odysseus. Forced to to Saipan in the South Pacific, to find help. Marco has to evade worlds. White by birth but sail with him to Ithaca, Alexi where he sees the results of the drug dealers, security guards and Oneida by adoption, he must must choose whether or not to war in the Pacific and learns to the “authorities” who would choose between two ways of help the Greeks when they come to terms with the dark return him to Colombia — into the life. Or is there a third and encounter the Cicones, the Lotus side of human experience. arms of his father’s kidnappers. better way? Eaters and the Cyclops. 978-1-55380-130-6 978-1-55380-131-3 978-1-55380109-2 978-1-55380-110-8 266 pp $11.95 186 pp $11.95 246 pp $11.95 200pp $11.95

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

7 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 8 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 featureview NON-FICTION

BC BOOKWORLD STAFF PICK

These four women were working on the Avis farm in Perry’s, on July 1, 1946, after the internment of Japanese- Canadians officially ended. CROPCROP CIRCLESCIRCLES The Third Crop: A personal & historical enough to show the clothing, journey into the photo albums & Rita Moir lets the pictures do the talking in her history hands and faces. In other words: shoeboxes of the Slocan Valley 1800s to early 1940s by Rita Moir (Sono Nis $24.95) “Let the pictures do the talking.” of the people of the Slocan Valley, 1800s to 1940s Enlarged and elegantly repro- ITA MOIR’S THE THIRD CROP duced, these images are woven is much more than a in and around the text, confirm- R tribute to her home of Tensions with the larger com- Sons of Freedom, dynamited a painstaking search, since few ing the narrative, or casting sur- thirty years. This pictorial history munity severely strained the the post office in Crescent Val- families in the early days owned prising, unexpected light on it. of the Slocan Valley illustrates the Doukhobor pacifist creed. They ley. When the orthodox cameras. Many of the items she The faces say so much—such process by which disparate immi- resisted public education for Doukhobor leader, Peter unearthed, like the pictures and as the anxiety etched on the grant groups work through natu- their children and refused mili- Verigin, was mysteriously killed sketches of the since-demol- faces of Japanese-Canadians be- ral disasters and bitter conflicts tary conscription in keeping by a bomb blast in 1924, suspects ished Lemon Creek camp, de- ing deported at the end of the to forge a coherent community. with the Christian-based philoso- included members of the pict scenes that, either through war to Japan, a country they had Moir has taken her title from phy of Adamite simplicity. Doukhobor community. The shame or neglect, have other- never known. At the same time, the annual harvest: It produces Doukhobor means ‘spirit culprits were never found. wise been long forgotten. the faces of interned children an anticipated first crop, then, wrestler.” It was first a deroga- In the early 1940s, the Slocan A friend advised Moir to in class with other schoolchil- with luck, a second. tory term applied to Valley became the site of the make the photographs large dren in the Slocan are surpris- Rarely, it yields a third them by the Russian Lemon Creek camp, ingly cheerful. crop, one that ensures Orthodox Church. one of the infamous in- Without exception, the livestock will prosper They embraced it. In ternment camps in groups of galena miners and through the winter. mid-1920s, Doukhobor which, following the Doukhobor brick-makers look For Moir, that’s “a protests in Canada took War Measures Act, dour and suspicious. Were they metaphor for what the form of nude thousands of Canadians angry at having their work happens when a group Joan marches. The Cana- of Japanese descent stopped, being lined up for such of people work hard dian government re- (among them David a frivolous purpose? In contrast, enough and long GIVNER sponded by criminal- Suzuki), stripped of 68-year-old Molly Stoochnoff, enough, go that extra mile, and izing public nudity. Mass arrests their homes and posses- the head cook, presiding over celebrate together, too: some- ensued, resulting in three-year sions, were held as “en- the borscht (fold, don’t stir) for how they get to that third crop— jail sentences on Piers Island, emy aliens.” a traditional Doukhobor wed- a strong culture.” situated off Sidney, B.C. Moir illustrates the ding, looks proud and con- Moir’s metaphorical third As tensions arose within the historical record with tented. crop of Slocan Valley people in- Doukhobor movement between photographs from ar- Many pictures depict or- cludes the younger generation those adhering strictly to tradi- chival collections and chards, fields of produce, and who want to stay, continuing the tional values and ‘modern’ from private memora- baskets of fruit that testify to the hard work of those who have Doukhobors open to change bilia buried in the abundance of the land; others gone before, celebrating their and new customs, a radically fun- shoeboxes, trunks and give details of celebrations and varied heritage. damentalist splinter group, the attics of local families— A 462-lb. white sturgeon caught in 1925 occupations. A white sturgeon, ✫ caught during a blasting opera- THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF THE tion (the largest one ever Slocan Valley were obviously the caught in the area, it weighed First Nations, who lived unhin- 462 lbs) appears to be seven feet dered by Europeans until the long. A rare First Nations pic- late 1800s when the precious ture shows three fishermen in a metal galena—containing silver sturgeon-nosed canoe used by and zinc—was discovered. The the Sinixt and Ktunaxa. subsequent boom brought immi- There is one photo that illus- grants, mines and railways, send- trates the third crop of the title. ing the Ktunaxa and Okanagan In order to preserve their yield, tribes west to the East Kootenay, the farm family cut down hun- and the Sinixt south to Washing- dreds of small trees, planted ton State. them in potholes, cut off most The next wave of immigrants of the branches and hung the consisted of six thousand green hay on the remaining Doukhobors, aided by Leo ones to dry. The family recorded Tolstoy, who fled Russia to es- their feat in winter when their cape from orthodox churches, handiwork was covered by sev- secular governments and milita- eral inches of snow. 978-1-55039-184-8 rism. Conflicts in Manitoba and Saskatchewan dispersed them Joan Givner writes regularly on further west to the rich agricul- Doukhobor workers display bricks they have made from the clay of the Slocan River banks at Kirpichnoye, biographies and autobiographies. tural land of the Slocan. north of Winlaw, in 1914. The bricks were used in Doukhobor villages in the Slocan Valley. She lives in Mill Bay.

9 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 featureview GULF ISLAND ACTIVE PASSAGES As a neophyte Gulf Islander, Grant Buday describes his evolution from urban wordslinger to humble recycle depot attendant.

Stranger On A Strange Island: From Main Buday learned a lot about his Street to Mayne Island by Grant Buday (New Star Books, Transmontanus $19) fellow islanders from how they separated their plastics, and the N STRANGER ON A STRANGE number of scotch bottles they ISland: From Main Street to left behind. He also learns the IMayne Island, city boy and mysterious ways of the B.C. Ferry novelist Grant Buday describes service (a classic love-hate rela- how he made the leap that many tionship, but necessary to cross of us dream about: trading fran- the “watery divide”), how to earn tic, traffic-choked city life for an the trust of quirky and eccen- idyllic Gulf Islands existence. tric island neighbours, and how [Here we cue some gently to understand where one fits lapping waves and a close-up of into the island’s social hierarchy. gnarled arbutus trees.] “Only newly-arrived ourselves, Buday moved with his wife we were rated slightly higher Eve and their young son Sam than the week-ender.” Tourists from East Vancouver to Mayne occupy the bottom rung, Island initially for economic rea- mocked because they tend to, sons. His teaching job was gone, “drive along at one-and-a-half and $600 rent will get you a kilometers an hour, wander the three-bedroom house perched roads three and four abreast, or above Active Pass. Their move halt in the middle of the street came during the dog days of to snap photos of deer.” summer, which then trans- Mayne Island life includes formed into the gloomy gales of the intricacies of what Buday fall: numbing isolation, power calls non-verbal communication. blackouts (unprepared, they When encountering another had no candles or lamps, and a driver on the road one can sim- serious lack of flashlight batter- ply nod or flash a peace sign. ies) and a growing com- That’s just for starters. pulsion to hoard “Some people thrust firewood. their entire arm out There’s not much the window and flap it call for a novelist on around, the equivalent Mayne. Buday man- of a slap on the back ages to survive by stitch- and a bellowed: “How ing together odd jobs, Mark are you?” including hooking up Sometimes this com- with an all-rounder FORSYTHE munication smacks of named Evan who can fix motors, show biz. “Some do what I call run a fishing boat and build al- the Wayne Newton: this is a most anything. One of their first four-part greeting that consists of jobs together involves retrieving a point, wink, then a cluck of the an illegally moored fishing boat tongue, finishing with a rakish, on a rainy winter day, then re- Vegas-style smile.” And they warn locating an uncooperative float us cell phones are distracting? and ramp away from lashing Island etiquette also frowns winds. upon walking past a person with- Our greenhorn narrator out acknowledging them. City doesn’t have a clue, and isn’t dwellers may find this awkward, dressed for the job. being more accustomed to ignor- “You go to the city to “My wet denim stuck to me ing people. There are diversions like depression,” he writes. “My into the joys of stacking and burn- pale and pink hands resembled ing firewood (fir is best), how to bled pork, my back was in spasm. tame a chainsaw and a mesmer- “As for my teeth, I was izing whale watching excursion seek your fortune; clenching them so tightly with his young son Sam. against the cold that I feared for Buday’s funny bone reverber- my dental work. Evan was carry- ates throughout this slim vol- ing on quite nicely in all- ume, and sometimes he veers you go to the country weather gear.” into fictional waters. HMS The two men come to an Plumper charted the region in agreement: Evan will trade his the 1850s, attaching crew mem- know-how and survival skills for bers’ names to islands, channels a word-of-the-day from his book- and coves at places like Bedwell, to find yourself, or ish colleague. They begin with Pender and Mayne. At one sprezzatura which means, “grace point Buday fashions a tale that under pressure,” something weaves together the exploits of Buday sees and admires in Evan Lieutenant R.C. Mayne—the is- run away from it.” in spades. land’s namesake—and a pomp- Eventually Buday lands a ous ship’s surgeon named part-time job at the local recy- Billings, and a cocky island raven. cling depot, and this makes him Leave a novelist on an island “feel as though I’d established long enough, and he’ll find his myself, however modestly, how- ground. 9781554200573 GRANT BUDAY ever humbly, however grubbily. Within days of starting, I was Mark Forsythe is the host of transformed into a recycler.” CBC radio’s BC Almanac.

10 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 11 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 ! # # ' ! #$! ! ! " ! # " $ ! ! " ! %R " # R ! ! !

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12 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 featureview NON-FICTION

BY JOHN MOORE which combinations of all three Policing the Fringe: The Curious Life of weigh heavily on the judgment a Small-Town Mountie (Harbour $24.95) Tragedy on Jackass Mountain: and interpersonal skills of the of- More Stories from a Small-Town Mountie ficer who answers the call. (Harbour $24.95). COP SHOP TALK Both by Charles Scheideman Sometimes, the rule of law WITHOUT FEAR, FAVOUR or AFFECTION has to get bent in the interests UMEROUS LITERARY AND of justice; when a woman is be- television accounts Officers of Charles Scheideman’s generation will never get credit for ing beaten by her husband and Nhave been devoted to a couple of her male relatives lay the glitz and squalor of urban all the people they saved from tragic fates brought on by stupidity. such a monumental shit-kicking police work. In Canada, televi- on the guy that he becomes a sion programs like Corner Gas and THE HARDEST YEARS FOR CHARLES Scheideman served in intimidating a cowboy town like model husband, you can forgive the old Beachcombers series have Scheideman, a straight-arrow Williams Lake, where the local Clinton, B.C., where a rifle rack the local Mounties for borrow- also tended to treat small-de- farm boy from Stony Plain, Al- vagabond drinking fraternity was in the pickup is a functional ac- ing the blindfold of justice for tachment Mounties as figures of berta, were those when he tried known as the Troopers. A friend cessory, not a decorative one. the evening. Discretion is the fun, bumbling Dudley Do-rights. to be true to his RCMP training of mine served in a similar unit After gang-beating a couple better part of policing. Forget that. while serving under lazy or cor- called the Iron Creek Cavalry in of cowboys in the tap-room of Despite his distaste for law- Charles Scheideman’s two rupt ‘senior’ officers inherited another Interior town. No one the old Clinton Hotel, the bik- yers adept at twisting the law to volumes of memoirs, Policing the from the old BC Provincial Po- has satisfactorily explained the ers soon found themselves sur- free the guilty and some opin- Fringe and Tragedy on Jackass lice service. cavalry nicknames these groups rounded by a large posse of ions that will inflame the ’roids Mountain, provide an uncompro- “During my police experi- of wandering drunks adopt, but cowboys, mostly Native and of the politically correct, mising look into the lesser- ence, I found that the smaller it may be simply a mocking ref- mostly heavily armed. They re- Scheideman is also highly criti- known world of small town law and more isolated a community erence to the Mounties, a.k.a. quired an RCMP escort all the cal of the new breed of RCMP enforcement. In Scheideman’s was, the more colourful were the the Horsemen, who are the op- way down the Fraser Canyon. officers who subscribe to the series of tales, crime-lab-less of- local characters,” he notes. His position to be outwitted. Famili- You could hear the laughter in doctrine of overwhelming force. ficers often find themselves re- stories abound with the kind of arity with the cast of characters Montreal. Satan’s Angels dis- He points out that the Taser- sponsible for not only a town, marginal characters who might in a small town beat has advan- banded soon after. Surviving death of a Polish man at Vancou- but its rural hinterland and a fade into the wallpaper in an tages—when a case of members are probably still push- ver Airport a few years ago could stretch of major highway as well. urban setting, but in a small whisky mysteriously ing brooms at your local Sunday probably have been avoided if We’re not going to Dog community, they have the disappears from school, glad just to be alive. the call had been answered not River here. ✫ stature of titans, the back of a truck, Scheideman’s story “The by four Mounties, but by one— for good or ill. you know Gunpowder Cure” recounts his who would have had to use in- where to harrowing visit to ‘the Camp,’ a terpersonal de-escalation skills look for the collection of abandoned com- second nature to any small town Troopers, the emp- pany houses on the edge of town officer, instead of relying on ties… and sometimes occupied by eccentric squatters, force to resolve the situation. the bodies. one of whom has decided to end Many of the stories in Polic- One of the funniest his marginal life by shooting ing the Fringe are necessarily an- stories is recounted in himself in the head with a Lee ecdotal, especially the stories “Clinton 1, Bikers 0,” an event I recall from “Tip-toeing through a gruesome death scene, the newspapers in the young Mounties are startled by a resurrec- 1968 when a bunch of Hell’s Angels tion as miraculous, and a lot messier, than wannabes calling that of Lazarus.” — CHARLES SCHEIDEMAN themselves Satan’s An- gels tried to imitate Enfield army rifle. Tip-toeing Scheideman recounts of misad- the movie The Wild through a gruesome death venture on the highways due to One by taking over scene, the young Mounties are driving unfamiliar roads, lack of a small Interior startled by a resurrection as mi- sleep and over-supply of alcohol. town. Unfortu- raculous, and a lot messier, than Police officers usually only see nately for them, that of Lazarus. people at their worst, when im- being urban After extensive reconstruc- paired judgment and bad luck scum proved tive surgery, “he never at- put them in harm’s way. But they to be poor tempted suicide again,” also see the worst people at their prepara- Scheideman observes dryly. worst—frequently—and know- tion for “Whatever had been bothering ing the family history of some of him had apparently been shaken those whose sad short lives he loose by the blast.” memorializes conveys a sense of ✫ how impossible it is to protect LAW ENFORCEMENT IS ARGUABLY THE certain people from their fates, most stressful job anyone can and how emotionally difficult it do—a routine of duty, rectitude is to watch them go down with- and attention to detail, enli- out being able to save them. vened by unpredictable chances What RCMP officers of to be killed and, in countries Scheideman’s generation will with strong constitutional pro- never get credit for is the tection of individual rights, the number of people they probably frequent experience of watch- did save from tragic fates ing the guilty walk smirking from brought on by stupidity. the courtroom to re-offend at Back in Scheideman’s rookie the first opportunity. years, when I was in my teens, I Some police officers fall into mouthed off at a six-foot consta- the bottle or vent the stress in ble who just laughed as he ways that make for disgraceful tapped me lightly behind the headlines. ear with a flashlight packed with A few, like Charles four D-cell batteries. When I Scheideman, write it all down woke up, he informed me in the in an attempt to set the record friendliest way that if I contin- straight. For Scheideman, ued to lie down in the street, integrity is abso- he’d have to arrest me for va- lutely essen- grancy. I never mistook a police For 27 years, tial for any officer for a legitimate target of Charles Scheideman officer tasked my existential angst again. (seen here circa 1960s) with enforcing the They’re just ordinary human served in the small communities of the Interior of B.C. law in any circumstance, not only beings doing a very extraordi- His rookie years as a cop in far-flung rural areas. The nary job. Policing: 978-1550174823; coincided with the RCMP’s RCMP book says the law is to be Tragedy: 978-1550175509 takeover of law enforcement enforced “without fear, favour or from the sometimes corrupt affection” and Scheideman re- Novelist and critic John Moore keeps B.C. Provincial Police. counts abundant incidents in the peace in Garibaldi Highlands.

13 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 reviews FICTION

and newborn son in the nearby town of Montmédy, home of the HORROR regional headquarters of the SD (a branch of the German secret police). IS IN THE A few days later, the Ameri- cans liberate Montmédy. With the help of a new friend, la veuve DETAILS de pays boisé (the widow of the woodlands), Pascal begins to heal his mind and body. When BY ERINNA GILKISON the German offensive approaches once more, Pascal The Gate by Michael Elcock (Oolichan $18.85) finds himself in Belgium, where an unexpected reunion awaits. ANY CANADIANS TODAY FEEL But as is so often the case in war- geographically and his- time, his joy is fleeting. M torically removed One of the many horrific from the horrific events of events of WWII is about to take WWII. Michael Elcock reminds place in the villages of Grune us that our connections are not and Bande. always as distant as we may think To tell any more is to say too in The Gate, telling the “small, much. Michael Elcock has used human stories” of those who can- onsite research, including first- not so easily forget. hand accounts of the key histori- ✫ cal events, to create a WE BEGIN IN SEPTEMBER OF 1984: heartbreaking and suspenseful PHOTO Etienne drives his BMW from novel.

SHIAN ✫

Vancouver to the farm in

Pemberton where he grew up. XAN MICHAEL ELCOCK WAS BORN IN FORRES, He has not visited for many Michael Elcock of Sooke is the new BC/Yukon rep on the national council of the Writers’ Union of Canada. Scotland, and grew up in Edin- years. His grand-mère, appar- burgh and West Africa. He im- ently his only remaining family After his grand-mère’s that memories of WWII are near the Belgian border, and migrated to Canada when he was member, is dying. death, Etienne flies to Europe, never far from their minds. discovers she is due to give birth twenty-one and worked in pulp He arrives in time for his meets with a client in Germany, “There wasn’t a family in Europe in two months. Marie hopes the mills, in the woods, on fishing grand-mère to recount a sketch and then sets out to find his mys- that wasn’t touched by the war. Germans will have left France boats and as a ski instructor, of her past and that of his terious relatives in Belgium. I don’t believe it was the same by then. “I don’t want him to earning along the way a B.A. and mother, who he believed until Etienne has no reservations in North America. There are still come into the world while they M.Ed at the University of Victo- now had died giving birth to about doing business with Ger- many of us here who haven’t are here.” ria. He was athletic director at him. It turns out this story was a mans, but upon his arrival in a forgotten about it.” Marie, who has her own UVic for ten years, and then convenient lie, with the real small Belgian village, the atmos- Jacques and Françoise pro- heartrending reason for having CEO of Tourism Victoria for five. story yet to be uncovered. phere changes. “Vous êtes ceed to tell Etienne the story of joined the Resistance, insists on In 1990 he moved to Andalusia “‘The letter. You have the Allemand?” asks an elderly his parents and his infancy. In accompanying Pascal to hide to work on developing Spain’s letter? . . . It will help you,’ she woman, as her “narrow eyes” no- June of 1944, Etienne’s father, out in Signy, another French Expo 92. Elcock has also pub- says in French. Her eyes are tice his German license plates. Pascal, parachuted into Belgium, border-side village. In this uncer- lished two works of non-fiction, closed. ‘I am so sorry Etienne.’ Etienne finds his aunt and landing near the Franco-Belgian tain territory, suspicion and du- A Perfectly Beautiful Place They were her last words.” uncle, Françoise and Jacques, border. The fictional Pascal was plicity abound. (Oolichan, 2004), and Writing In this letter, from people still living at the same address a member of an inter-allied Re- Pascal arrives home one day On Stone (Oolichan, 2006). who call themselves his “aunt and that was written on the letter. sistance mission with the code to find German soldiers in his 978-0-88982-272-6 uncle in Belgium,” they refer to They are both shocked to learn name Citronelle—an organiza- farmyard, waiting for him to re- Etienne as “a little miracle, and that he knows nothing about tion that actually existed. turn. He lies still and listens, his Erinna Gilkison is a Vancouver a brave one.” They remark that them or his own early years in After a botched mission, Pas- rifle beside him, the box of am- editor who previously reviewed “his hands and feet have healed Europe. cal finds his way back to his wife munition in his hand. He begins Amanda Hale’s In the Embrace well.” Jacques explains to Etienne Marie in Hirson, France, a town a desperate search for his wife of the Alligator.

As a follow-up to her TV series, Alice, I Think, SUSAN, WE THINK Susan Juby has released her first adult novel

BY LINDSAY WILLIAMS Woefield is a multi-perspective novel about a young The Woefield Poultry Collective by Susan Juby (HarperCollins $21.99) urbanite name Prudence who inherits her uncle’s decrepit t’s still possible that you haven’t heard of Susan Juby, Vancouver Island farm. the fast-moving, literary chameleon. Since her emer- Peripheral characters are sparkling with life and serve as gence in 2002, the Nanaimo-based Juby has mas- a reminder of Juby’s wonderful and elastic imagination. We tered a time-traveling style of writing in which she meet Sara, a precocious young girl with a group of clucking channels her younger self. show chickens, and Seth, an alcoholic and selectively agora- IFirst, her three Young Adult novels about a girl growing up phobic celebrity blogger. Earl, the grizzled farm foreman tee- in Smithers became the basis of a TV show, Alice, I Think. ters on the edge of cliché with his heart of gold. That trilogy was followed by two widely acclaimed Young Adult The age ranges that are used for these characters sea- novels, Getting the Girl and Another Kind of Cowboy. son this funny and contemporary tale. I, for one, am pleased Then she switched genres for a memoir about overcom- to see Susan Juby’s departure (at least temporarily) from ing teenage alcoholism, Nice Recovery, recently included in Young Adult fiction. Juby’s writing is too strong to be hindered the Top 100 of 2010 by the Globe & Mail. As a succinct recol- by content and language restrictions imposed by the Young lection of times gone very, very blurry, Nice Recovery was Adult genre. In Woefield, Susan Juby’s mature talents have praiseworthy, but I grunted through the last fifty pages. come home to roost. Nice Recovery, as a whole, was PG-13. I wanted more W.P. Kinsella once wrote, “I had just about given up on dirt and less calm revelation. I felt slighted until I realized that humour in Canadian literature, when, as I was wending my the most important thing about the memoir was to cross the way through the sometimes good, sometimes bad, but gen- genre boundary and make the recollections of a very adult erally humourless nominees for the Books in Canada First matter available and readable to young people who need the Novel Award, all of a sudden I started laughing out loud, and benefit of someone else’s hindsight. calling to my wife, saying ‘Listen to this! Listen to this!’ The Now Juby is nicely cracking the adult fiction market with book that excited me was Alice, I Think by Susan Juby.” The Woefield Poultry Collective, published in the U.S. as Home In whichever genre she chooses, Susan Juby is still laugh- to Woefield. A rather inauspicious-looking cover told me that I out-loud funny. 978-1554687442 would laugh out loud, which is generally an indication that I Susan Juby likely won’t. In this case, I was wrong. I did laugh out loud. Lindsay Williams is a bookseller on Galiano Island.

14 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 A NEW NOVEL FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF Tamarind Mem AND The Hero’s Walk ANITA RAU BADAMI when your secret is too dangerous to keep... TELL IT to the TREES

Watch the video trailer at www.anitaraubadami.ca

KNOPF CANADA Visit www.RandomHouse.ca to read from the book

15 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 reviews KIDLIT

In What is Real, Karen Rivers he can’t—or won’t—admit. You discover Dex has been withhold- Dex returns to his ing information from both you and his conscious self. He simul- hometown to care for taneously searches for reality his father who has and obscures it, editing and re- editing his history like a film- given up defending maker editing the final cut. It’s difficult to put down marijuana growers in What is Real—literally—because his law practice—to we want Dex to discover the truth so we can, too. We search become one himself. and question with him. We want to find out if Olivia is real, if al- BY LAURIE NEALE iens did create those crop cir- cles, if Our Joe is really a What Is Real by Karen Rivers (Orca $12.95) pedophile, or if it’s all part of Dex’s suppressed, drug-in- eality is hard enough to duced imagination. find and understand TeenageTeenage Ultimately, What is Real deals R when you’re a teen- with the challenges of being a ager, but 17-year-old Dexter teenager and the difficulty of Pratt’s life is more complicated sorting through emotions, grap- than most. His parents divorced pling with truth, and losing PHOTO

when he was young, his father your innocent views of the has attempted suicide, and his world. beloved stepbrother died of a Karen Rivers has capably il- VANDERLEE heroin overdose—or did he? luminated the teenage struggle MEG WASTELAND Dex has been a star basket- WASTELAND to cope with life’s challenges: ball player, but now he is ad- decipher what is real. The book And most of all, do you want it Dex’s character is layered losing loved-ones, being ne- dicted to the pot that he and his is written from Dex’s point of to? and convoluted. At the begin- glected, realizing you may not wheelchair-bound father, an ex- view, and since Dex cannot Rivers’ prose is splintered ning of the book, you believe achieve your dreams and deal- lawyer, grow in their farmhouse grasp reality, the reader cannot and abrupt, just like human what he’s telling you about his ing with failure. basement. Suspended in limbo either. thoughts can be, and her writ- life. You meet him in the mid- And, disturbingly, she effec- created by his drug use, Dex What is real? Can you really ing style creates a sense of im- dle of a movie about his life in tively reveals how sometimes liv- tries to navigate his way toward trust your memory’s account of mediacy and confusion by which he is the director. His only ing in reality isn’t actually as reality in Karen Rivers’ YA the past? Can the nerve impulses throwing the reader into the problem is that he has forgot- desirable as living a lie. novel, What is Real? that bombard your brain with middle of the action, sub- ten what the script is about. 9781554693566 One of the most compelling raw sensory data be trusted, and merged in Dex’s thought pat- Halfway through the story, aspects of this novel is that, just can your brain be trusted to terns, as clueless as Dex in his you are no longer sure Dex can Laurie Neale is with the Print like Dex, the reader cannot fully properly interpret these signals? search for reality. be trusted. He knows stuff that Futures program at Douglas College.

16 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 reviews POETRY

Sleep, You, A Tree by E.D. Blodgett (University of Alberta Press $19.95) THE DIVINITY OF ALL THAT PASSES EA GAZING IS MUCH LIKE GAZ- ing at lilacs, the moon, and Mystical poetry is an elusive door in Sapple trees in blossom or a familiar field in snow. It’s al- E.D. Blodgett’s Sleep, You, A Tree ways the same and always different. frustrated. There isn’t a single Not the seedy, pie-plate This same is not “same old hard edge in this collection. splat of shit on the lawn same old;” that would be boring. For some readers the re- or the branch torn ragged This gazing is a new “same old” peated petals falling or wind from the yellow plum tree and that induces trance states. over snow will seem too bland, and left mangled, at the top E.D. Blodgett would under- but mystics, contemplatives and of the driveway;… stand. dreamers will find this lack of But this: His new collection of substance appealing. the visitor himself, mid-day unrhymed sonnets, Sleep, You, A In Drifting, a poem ostensibly lumbering calm up the street Cornelia Tree, is a long contemplation in about lilacs, Blodgett allows their toward the trees…. seventy-eight parts—with re- scent to drift him into memory: 978-1-897535-68-4 Hoogland: peated motifs that include infin- “How can we breathe without the saying yes to ity, eternity, silence, unsayability, breath of childhood, the cries / that Language Is Not the Only Thing E.D. Blodgett: infinity, paradise, That Breaks by Proma Tagore the wolf darkness, whiteness, rush among the leaves, death and the tears of God (Arsenal Pulp $14.95) childhood, paradise, their taking of the world, God, moon and stars— the stars that fill / their ALKING UP CAUSES, A POET in which almost every eyes, the innocence that runs the risks of erasing poem includes a tree. sheathes their bodies, Tpoetry’s subtleties. At SEEING RED Blodgett’s weaving childhood that is / its own times, strong advocacy can result BY KARA A. SMITH of form and content is eternity where nothing en- in some predictable lines. Born in India, Proma Tagore Woods Wolf Girl by Cornelia Hoogland rare in contemplative Hannah ters but itself.” (Wolsak and Wynn $17) is a political poet in the overt poetics. “And so the col- MAIN-VAN DER KAMP Blodgett, who won our of the air is the colour a Governor General’s sense of the term. She immi- HE EARTHY SEXUAL TENSION of the sea when it in absolute trans- award some years ago, has re- grated to Canada when she was between a B.C. wolf and a four years old and is now active T parency wells up before our eyes, the cently moved to the West Coast. girl named Red is the subject for clouds the only waves, and all that Especially skilled at evoking in anti-racist, feminist, queer Cornelia Hoogland’s comes in sight is what eternity holds childhood, he is a welcome ad- and migrant justice organizing. Woods Wolf Girl, a series of up, the sound of it inaudible and dition to the B.C. poetry scene. In her first collection, Tagore monologues, or victim reports, lapping at our skin.” 978–0-88864 554 8 explores takes on Big Subjects such as colonization, imperial- in which readers experience the Blodgett’s rhythms, both for- The Song Collides by Calvin Wharton mal as in traditional sonnets but (Anvil Press $16) ism, globalization, capitalism and rumbling, boiling interior of a also relaxed in their line ends war, as well as the experience of teenager who just needed one Y CONTRAST, THE SONG COL- and break-up of rhythm, are de- immigration as a child (she was instinctual meeting on a cross- lides is a highly readable born in Kolkata), anti-racism, licious to the ear. Such poetry is roads, in the woods, to have her made to be read aloud. When and accessible collection same gender loving and femi- B concealed interior explode. read silently off the page, these in which Calvin Wharton has a nism. She almost succeeds to do pieces have a tendency to blur. flair for the felicitous phrase. so without sloganeering. This is fairy tale moralism They are so alike in their soft- “The humming bird busy sewing up Language Is Not the Only Thing turned upside-down. In Woods edged, gentle ruminations that the morning light, birds lever out into That Breaks is recommended for Wolf Girl, we meet the woods- a reader could be excused for the open sky, the jitterbug of insect Proma Tagore: poetic outrage readers who dwell on “higher man, a Cardinal Richelieu-type asking if she has not already read wings, the subtraction that is au- things” and have lost their en- witch hunter, who pursues Red tumn.” difference in chronological age gagement with what really is: the this one. simply to point out her original It seems as if Blodgett has Wharton is a complete con- as in perception. The world has broken things. sin. And, in contrast to the judg- used the same hundred words trast to Blodgett. His work is room for both perspectives. One From a poet whose first lan- mental woodsman, we meet the for every poem. He held the humorous, mostly local and em- cannot know stillness unless one guage is not English, a poet words in his hand, scattered bodied whereas Blodgett is uni- has been raucous. whose speech is “the hybridized natural world, wolf. them and then made a new versal and ethereal. Wharton And again, trees… tongue of immigrant children,” Wolf acts as the catalyst for poem out of their different ar- writes of real food (Chinese, who breaks up the language Red’s innate desires: “he shows rangements. It’s a legitimate way with onions and black when it cannot express the her/ sapphire, the sky in fall/ bean sauce), whereas depths of grief, this is a notable of poem making … if the poet when yellow poplars clap so there’s no mention first book of poems. has no intent for linear sense. loud/ you just have to look up. / “If God / is everywhere, then he of real sustenance Best of all, Proma Tagore Yes, she says,/ yes.” For the is here in this passage where you have in Blodgett. shows how a skilled poet can stopped / but it is God that is the Whereas convey outrage without losing first time in her life, the woods simplest tree that bears the air alone Blodgett is poignancy or tenderness. is released, and “it was [Red] / above itself, and all that moves metaphysical “You are mistaken for the ar- doing the inviting.” within its compass stands within the about death, mour you’ve become but don’t know Hoogland’s lyrical narrative Wharton vis- large divinity of all that passes.” how to carry…”, draws the reader through the its the pallia- “… skin worn from keeping What do such passages meandering pathways of the mean? They are not rational nor tive care too much quiet” woods, our natural, shared, are they childlike pre-rational. ward with 978-1-55152-399-6 It is a different mind that can its masks feminist mythology of Red Rid- receive this kind of writing, a and the Gazing at tides, Hannah Main– ing Hood, and enables us to feel transrational mind. They are like tubes, “the van der Kamp, whose first lan- the cemented girl breaking kirtan chanting in Sanskrit of the lungs’ noisy guage is not English, trances out through her social bars and be- sacred names. dream of oxygen.” on the Upper Sunshine Coast while coming the food of the forest: Whereas keeping a sharp eye for real bears. Mystical poetry is an elusive “her mouth ripe as the berry door. The content in Sleep, You, Blodgett’s se- bush.” A Tree is not the point; rather it’s rene words are Why do we repress our in- the effect that chanting pro- those of an elderly Calvin Wharton: retains duces. You either really get it or sage, Wharton’s a youthful sparkle nate, natural selves? To what you don’t. The knowing is not- phrasing retains a purpose, and for whom? As Red knowing, the unknowability of youthful sparkle. experiences a coming of age, divine things. When inner re- This is not so much a realizing, “how [her] body has al- ceptiveness is present, the ways wanted to be a basket of “transported” state can be elic- gifts,” readers will recognize this ited in a moment by a phrase. girl’s future perception of the ag- Of course, there is the irony of a poet saying skillfully how ing wolf (and world) as just a unsayable are these things: in- man, “hoping to fluff up his hair.” finity, paradise, death and the This is an exceptional retell- tears of God. A reader who is ing of an age-old fable. looking for specificity, the name 978-1-894987-53-0 of the bird, or the star, will be

17 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 NEW from the Royal BC Museum...

Feeding the Family 100 Years of Food and Drink in Victoria Nancy Oke & Robert Griffin

This richly illustrated book focuses on the bakers, butchers, grocers, brewers and other suppliers of food and beverages in Victoria’s early years. It includes stories about the many colourful characters, the businesses that succeeded or failed, the innovators and the crooks. Illustrated with more than 200 Now in stores photographs, Feeding the Family gives $29.95 readers a glimpse of what it was like 978-0-7726-6342-9 to live, work, eat and drink in a west- 9 x 9, pb, 176 pages coast frontier town. 225 b/w and colour photos

The Whaling People of the West Coast of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery Eugene Arima & Alan Hoover

An intimate account of the traditional ways of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Dididaht, Pacheedaht and Makah peoples, who enjoyed a highly organized culture for centuries before Europeans arrived. It also desribes the drastic changes after contact withEuropeans. October 2011 The Whaling People features 18 stories and myths told by First Nations elders and illustrated $19.95 by the celebrated Hesquiaht artist Tim Paul. 978-0-7726-6491-4 6 x 9, pb, 256 pages 50 b/w photos and drawings

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.

BRANCH OUT. Discover an extraordinary new novel from Frances Greenslade

“Unforgettable. I was glued to every page.” —Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach

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PHOTO: STUART BISH STUART PHOTO: author of Every Time ® We Say Goodbye

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18 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 a forum for & about writers # 44 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected]

LOOKOUTLOOKOUT TWIGG PHOTO

rowing up in Van- ✍ ANOTHER WRITER FROM THIS couver, I had al- period was Bud Osborn. ways wanted to We published his debut collec- G tion, Lonesome Monsters, (unless make books but had no idea you count Black Azure, a rarity how I’d go about it. How printed up by a friend who worked at Coach House Books would I find the authors and in Toronto). Bud’s work came good manuscripts? And how at us like a scream from the cel- in hell would I finance the en- lar. His stories of addiction, pov- erty, and family violence were deavour? like raw nerve wires snapping In 1991, I ran into a friend, and zapping all your senses at Rachel Mines, who was pursu- once. ing her Masters in linguistics. She Publishing Bud would start told me about her dissertation and a long-time commitment to wondered if it might be appealing publishing books about and by to a general readership. I told her residents of the Downtown I’d give it a read. It was titled A Toi- Eastside, work that dealt with let Paper: A Treatise On Four Funda- the grittier aspects of our city mental Words Referring to Gaseous & of glass. Solid Wastes Together with Their Others that would follow in Point of Origin. This was a literary this loose “Vancouver Series” and scholarly work, and—most im- ANVIL ISLAND would be: portantly—it was funny. So this odd ANVIL ISLAND Bart Campbell’s The little title became Anvil’s first “book” Brian Kaufman describes how his Anvil Press Door Is Open (about his years even though it was only forty pages spent working in a Downtown and didn’t fulfil the UNESCO offi- imprint evolved into one of the country’s most Eastside soup kitchen). cial definition of a “book” (i.e. hav- Lincoln Clarkes’ Hero- ing at least 48 pages). enduring venues for audacious writing. ines, a collection of photo- A Toilet Paper was more of a pam- graphs that documented the phlet, saddle-stitched with historical plight of hundreds of illustrations provided by the won- Karen Green and Brian Kaufman of Anvil Press marginalized and drug ad- derful world of the Public Domain, dicted women of the DTES but we managed to break even on our printing and stores order more copies as the ones they had flew off from the late ’80s to the mid-1990s. mailing costs. the shelves? Would the big cheques start rolling in? Michael Barnholden’s history of Vancou- Around this time Dark Horse Theatre had a call Well, not quite. But Stupid Crimes did do well. It ver riots, Reading the Riot Act. out for one-act plays to receive a staged reading at received positive reviews across the country and we Eve Lazarus’s At Home with History (finalist the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. I sub- even managed to land a rave in the Globe & Mail. in the Vancouver Books Awards). mitted a play I was working on, Fragments from the We noticed a spike in orders and a spike in Signs of the Times, a print and poetry collabora- Big Piece, and it was selected as one of four plays to sales. tion between Bud Osborn and Strathcona receive workshop treatment. An upstart crow from B.C. was making some noise. printmaker and muralist Richard Tetrault. I met another playwright in the competition, It felt good; it made us think that publishing was easy. Gabor Gazstonyi’s A Room In the City, a col- Dennis E. Bolen, who had a novel that he’d been Ha! We basked in our naïve optimism, but that lection of intimate and emotionally stirring portraits of sending around to publishers without much luck. I wouldn’t last for long. I couldn’t have started a pub- residents of five DTES single-room occupancy hotels. told him I’d have a look. I also showed Dennis lishing company at a worse time (unless I was starting ✍ subTerrain magazine; he loved it and became involved right now!). I THINK THESE TITLES STAND TO EXEMPLIFY WHAT ANVIL immediately. That’s how Issue #3 featured an excerpt The recession of the early ’90s was in full swing. came to be known as—a publisher not so much from from Stupid Crimes, his excellent novel-in-waiting. We published for six years before receiving our first the academy but from the street. We needed a real office and found it in the ’hood BC Arts Council grant for Mark Leiren- The writers we tend to publish write out of life at 2414 Main Street (the pie-wedge building at the Young’s Shylock. The Canada Council’s “Support experience and not so much from schools of thought intersection of Kingsway and Main). We paid $300 a for Emerging Publishers Program” didn’t yet exist (I or theory (less dogma and more of the real meal deal). month and three of us—myself, Dennis and Law- was told later that this program came into being due So the tales they tell tend to be more immediate, pal- rence McCarthy—pitched in a hundred bucks to cases like Anvil—we were putting out good books pable, more pulsing and expectant than residing up each. We hung out our shingle: Anvil Press Publish- but there just wasn’t any money to help.) in your head. ers: Desktop and Graphic Design. Around the same time, the late Bruce Serafin I’m thinking of titles such as Salvage King, Ya! by We had to do a good deal of commercial work launched the original VR (Vancouver Review) maga- Mark Anthony Jarman, Stolen by Annette (posters, brochures, programs, publications) to bank- zine, a fresh breath of wonderfully cranky air, which Lapointe (Giller nominee) and Animal, stories by roll our first trade paperback edition, Dennis’ per- seemed to be in line with our own aesthetic. Bruce Alexandra Leggat (Trillium Prize Finalist)— fect-bound novel, Stupid Crimes. The cover: an put me onto the work of Grant Buday, someone and many, many others that I can’t list here. evening shot in front of Uptown Barbers (that’s me who Bruce described as kind of a cross between Collectively, they make me proud to have been and Dennis) suggesting a drug deal or a parolee and Charles Bukowski and Charles Dickens. given the privilege to find a vocation in the world of his parole officer. All noir and urban grit (photo by We published his story collection, Monday Night literary publishing. J. Lawrence), the design employed black, white, Man that became a finalist for the City of Vancouver ✍ and a slash of red. Book Award. We would later publish his outstanding [The Anvil Press imprint was preceded by Brian Thank god we didn’t think we could afford a full- Vancouver labour novel, White Lung, also a City of Kaufman’s subTerrain magazine. Issue #1 of colour cover. The image was perfect for the content: Vancouver Book Award Finalist. subTerrain appeared twenty-three years ago this Au- a hard-drinking, hopelessly romantic, over-worked Anvil Press was attracting more writers and friends gust. The early history of subTerrain can be found parole officer tries to guide his hapless charges toward willing to help out. People like Isabella Legosi under Brian Kaufman’s entry on abcbookworld.com] a life without crime. Mori, Angela Rhodes McIntyre, and We worked with our first small distributor (Mar- Heidi Greco—three fine poets whose work com- This is the seventh installment in BC BookWorld’s ginal Distribution) and waited. Now what? Would the prised the volume Siren Tattoo: A Triptych. ongoing series on the history of B.C. publishing.

19 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2011 aarrtt

Mary George, 1943 (top); Willie Seaweed, 1946 (bottom).

MildredMildred ValleyValley ThorntonThornton && EmilyEmily CarrCarr Mildred Valley Thornton, Mask Dance of the circa 1920s BY DAVID STOUCK Bella Coolas, 1943

heryl Salloum’s The Life and Art of Mildred Valley Thornton (Mother Tongue and, like Carr, had some training in the United tionally romantic and patronizing. terials to paint the forests and the skies. Here lies States. In 1913, when she was 23, she moved on At the same time her admiration and respect her transcendental, what some might call self-ab- $35.95) challenges the assumption that Emily Carr stands alone. His- her own to Regina where she met her future hus- for Native people was at the heart of what she sorbed, romantic vision. Thornton’s vision, on the torically these roughly contemporary B.C. painters have been compared band and established herself as one of Saskatch- regarded as her life’s mission—to paint portraits other hand, remained earth-bound. She created ewan’s prominent artists. But the Depression of as many Native elders as possible. Like Carr, her monumental collection of Native portraits, because they were women and because they painted this province’s land- ruined her husband’s restaurant business and she wanted to record a way of life she feared was but went on in her larger canvases to portray the scapesS and Native subjects. But the comparison has not been kind to Thornton who they relocated with twin sons to Vancouver in disappearing and, again like Carr, she went on activities of the aboriginal people—carving, whal- has been dismissed as technically inferior and lacking an artistic vision. 1934 where Thornton immersed herself in the long expeditions to find her subjects. She trav- ing, assembling for potlatch, engaging in ceremo- city’s artistic and cultural communities. Her gen- elled wherever she could get a ride, toting her nies, dancing. She is especially good at portraying When researching her subject Salloum Terrific is also a way of describing the pro- erous, outgoing personality and energetic style heavy supplies, and sometimes her young sons women at work—cleaning fish, erecting teepees showed Gordon Smith photos of Thornton’s duction values of this fourth volume in the were the opposite of the shy and abrasive Emily along. The result was more than 250 portraits of on the plains. These were different subjects and work. She tells us he was surprised by how “re- “Unheralded” series: selected watercolours and Carr. Forthright and sociable, she was a devoted the Native people of western Canada. It was what required different technical skills. ally, really good” Thornton is. “She did not make oils have been given excellent reproduction to wife and mother, and enjoyed friendly relations she considered to be the heart of her life’s work, ✍ pretty pictures” like most women of that era, he highlight the vibrancy of their rich colours and with her clients and members of the community. but it also became the source of heartache. Her THERE IS AN UNFORTUNATE NOTE IN AN OTHERWISE observed: “she was gutsy.” Smith’s response is key the painter’s bold brush strokes. Thornton may But she was like Carr in that she was a woman goal was to find a gallery or government agency informative foreword supplied by Sherrill to this book and its place in Mona Fertig’s not have embraced abstraction, but she was thor- determined to realize her ambitions as an artist. that would buy her “Collection,” but as she was Grace. She writes that for every major artist important “Unheralded Artists of BC” series be- oughly modern when she highlighted the act of Especially important to that goal were her re- excluded from the art establishment none was to like Emily Carr there are hundreds of artists like cause, as part of a younger generation that in- painting itself by making visible the rough tex- lations with First Nations. Salloum gives us a very be found. In her last years, Salloum tells us, she Thornton who play minor roles in the develop- cluded B.C. Binning and Jack tures of paint and brush, this post-impressionist balanced view of those relations. Thornton ad- experienced the kind of discouragement that Carr ment of an art form, its appreciation by the pub- Shadbolt, Smith had dismissed Thornton technique is especially evident in the mired and respected Native people knew much of her life, and in a codicil to her lic, and its acquisition by less wealthy art lovers. chiefly because she was not moving towards ab- book’s cover scene of boats at and worked hard to dispel negative will she directed that her First Nations portraits To keep Thornton in the shadows this way is ex- straction. As art critic for the Vancouver Sun she Kitsilano Beach. stereotypes on their behalf, but in to- either be auctioned off or destroyed. Fortunately actly what Salloum’s book does not want to do. had carried the banner for representational art Salloum gives us a lucid, engag- day’s terms her efforts were limited that codicil was improperly witnessed and the Rather it is designed to celebrate a painter whose into the 1940s and 50s and seemed dated, out ing account of the artist’s life. by being outside the culture. For ex- work remained intact. work is unique and to extend the boundaries for of touch. But Smith now sees her work differ- Mildred Valley Thornton (1890- ample, she advocated for better edu- ✍ making judgments about art. This Salloum does ently, as containing something of “the freshness 1967), the seventh in a farm family cational opportunities, but did not ULTIMATELY, THORNTON AND CARR SHOULD NOT BE exceptionally well. 978-1-896949-05-5 of Tom Thomson,” and has pronounced cer- of fourteen children, was born and recognize the destructive nature of compared because, in what is perhaps their best tain pieces such as the remarkable Hao Hao raised in southern Ontario, attended residential schooling. Her retelling of Mildred Valley Thornton in work, they do very different things. Carr, who David Stouck is a novelist, short story writer Sheryl Salloum Dance of the Bella Coolas as “terrific.” classes at the Ontario College of Art Native myths and stories was uninten- her Vancouver studio, 1959 painted few portraits, moved beyond Native ma- and the biographer of Ethel Wilson.

20 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2011 21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2011 Taking My Life Deeply moving and elegantly witty, Taking My Life probes in emotional and intellectual terms the larger JANE RULE philosophical questions that were to preoccupy Jane Rule throughout her literary career, and showcases Afterword by Linda M. Morra the origins and contexts that gave shape to her rich Discovered in her papers in 2008, Jane Rule’s auto- intellectual life. Avid followers of her work will be biography is a rich and culturally significant document especially delighted to discover another of her books that follows the first twenty-one years of her life: the that has, until now, remained unpublished. complexities of her relationships with family, friends, Autobiography · 288 pages and early lovers, and how her sensibilities were fash- $19.95 · 978-0-88922-673-9 ioned by mentors or impeded by the socio-cultural practices and educational politics of the day. Filled with deeply personal revelations, Taking My Life In writing about her formative years, Rule is conveys the confusion, poignancy, defiant rebellions indeed “taking” the measure of her life, assessing its and historical realities of Jane’s first footsteps toward contours of pleasure and pain, accounting for how it womanhood, toward becoming a lesbian, toward her evolved as it did. Yet not allowing the manuscript to destiny as one of our great writers. —Katherine V. Forrest be published in her lifetime was an act of discretion: she was considering those who might have been With her signature wit, intellect, and insight, Jane Rule affected by being represented in her work not as recounts her childhood, youth, and coming of age as confidently emancipated as she had always been. She a young lesbian in 1950s America, as it was on its crest must also have appreciated the ambiguity of the title toward the civil rights, gay, and women’s movements. she chose, with all its implications of suicide: at the The seeds of Rule’s passion for writing and for social end of her writing life, she was submitting herself to justice resonate in this thoughtful, textured, honest critical scrutiny, allowing herself to be vulnerable as memoir. —Karen X. Tulchinsky a person to the critique of her readers.

The Strange Truth textual vishyuns: Vancouver Anthology About Us image and text in the work of bill bissett Second Edition M.A.C. FARRANT CARL PETERS EDITED BY STAN DOUGLAS

This tell-all book by self-proclaimed “anthropologist bill bissett is recognized internationally as a pioneer Featuring a newly designed hardcover format and a of the absurd” M.A.C. Farrant offers readers nothing of visual, concrete, sound, and performance poetry, new afterword by Stan Douglas, the second edition of less than The Strange Truth About Us. yet very little critical work exists on his poetry, and Vancouver Anthology coincides with a renewal of the A three-part novel-length work of prose fragments, almost no critical discourse exists on his visual work. Or Gallery’s mandate to promote critical discourse snippets, questions, speculations, and meditations, it Drawing primarily from manifestoes of aesthetic both within and outside of the Vancouver art scene. is by turns philosophical, dark, comedic, and lyrical in theory, textual vishyuns locates bissett’s textual and Essays by: Keith Wallace, Sarah Diamond, Nancy Shaw, its attempts to imagine a multitude of possible futures visual artistic praxis within the larger context of the Maria Insell, William Wood, Carol Williams, Robin Peck, for the world we’ve all made such a mess of. history, theory, and practice of art. Robert Linsley, Scott Watson, and Marcia Crosby.

Short Fiction · 208 pages Non-fiction / Literary Criticism / Art Criticism · 224 pages Non-fiction / Art Criticism · 320 pages $16.95 · 978-0-88922-668-5 $24.95 · 978-0-88922-661-6 $35.00 · 978-0-88922-614-2

Rebuild Ordinary Time novel SACHIKO MURAKAMI GIL McELROY bill bissett

Sachiko Murakami approaches the urban centre This collection of poems sets out to give shape to bill bissett latest book, “a novel with connekting through its inhabitants’ greatest passion: real estate, time. Opening with childhood memories of impending pomes n essays,” is a demonstrative response to where the drive to own engages the practice of tearing Cold War armageddon, the book’s second section, Derrida’s famous argument in Of Grammatology that down and rebuilding. The poems of Rebuild engrave counted out on the Julian calendar, discovers that it is any investigation of meaning cannot escape the themselves on the absence at the city’s centre, its our movement through space that lends time its opposition of speech and language central to the bulldozed public spaces. These poems crumble in the dimensionality. Its third section works within the Western philosophical tradition. Against this tradition, time it takes to turn the page, words ﬂaking from the Anglican lectionary to make manifest the arc of a year- bissett posits Stein’s modernist observation: “Every- line like the rain-damaged stucco of leaky condos. long cycle of both “Sacred” and “Ordinary” time. thing is the same except composition …”

Poetry · 96 pages Poetry · 128 pages Poetry · 176 pages $16.95 · 978-0-88922-670-8 $17.95 · 978-0-88922-675-3 $17.95 · 978-0-88922-671-5

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22 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU

week after being named the specialty the major university libraries and the two pean digital library called Euro- eBOOKS ARE: bookseller of the year by the Canadian large Canadian “national” libraries [Li- peana? 1. TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS Booksellers Association, the Flying brary and Archives Canada, in Ottawa, PW: Europeans got upset with the and Bibliothèque et Archives nationales 2. UGLIFICATION OF READING Dragon Bookshop in Toronto closed. Google initiative to digitize all of the BCBW: Is it true that major Canadian du Québec, in Montreal]. Some say that books in the world, so they want to con- 3. THE ONLY WAY FORWARD research libraries are now deciding they do not have the resources to collect trol their own content in the digital en- 4. NOT REALLY BOOKS AT ALL which libraries will specialize in certain and preserve everything anymore, so vironment. But currently European 5. ALL OF THE ABOVE kinds of books? they are proposing a solution which dis- Union copyright laws are impeding li- PW: There are discussions taking place tributes responsibility for collecting in brary mass digitization efforts. Pick one. on establishing “trusted repositories” certain subject areas. There has been vig- BCBW: French president Nicolas You’re right. across the country to coordinate the col- orous opposition from the Canadian As- Sarkozy has pledged 750 million euros The future of books and so- lection and preservation of both print sociation of University Teachers. for the digitization of France’s “cultural called eBooks—as well as librar- and digital works. We are talking about BCBW: What is this new, pan-Euro- patrimony.” continued on page 24 ies, publishing, bookselling and reading—is undefined and daunt- ing territory. That’s why Canada Council hired Paul Whitney, former chief librarian for the Burnaby Public Li- brary and the Vancouver Public Li- brary, to investigate the impact of eBooks for Canada’s Public Lend- FUTUREWORLD ing Right program. Whitney was interviewed by UTOPIA or ANATHEMA B.C. BookWorld’s Alan Twigg.

BC BOOKWORLD: I just saw someone outdoors in a coffee shop, reading a real book. It was oddly uplifting. PAUL WHITNEY: I prefer print-on- Paul Whitney paper books, too. I take it you don’t own has completed a a Kobo or a Kindle or a Sony Reader? new report for BCBW: I live app-free and I see eBooks as the uglification of reading. It’s an aes- Canada Council thetic stance. on the potential PW: I’m happy to see folks reading in impactimpact ofof eBooks.eBooks. whatever format they choose. BCBW: But faster, cheaper technology is not always a good thing. Look at what happened to the music industry. PW: I don’t think piracy will be as prevalent with the written text as with music. You have to remember publishing has been much slower moving to digital distribution, largely due to paranoia about losing control of the content. The executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers [Carolyn Wood] pointed out to me that people shouldn’t be surprised by this slow move to digital. Publishing is an industry which has experienced 1.5 format changes in 500 years. And that .5 change was paperbacks! [laughter] BCBW: So no wonder people are in a tizzy. PW: In the United States, in the first quarter of 2011, trade print book sales were down 19%. That decline is increas- ing. Even if you stop and consider the U.S. economy and the bankruptcy of Borders, the second largest book chain in the U.S., much of that decline of sales is attributable to people moving to eBooks. It’s less pronounced in Canada, but it’s early days yet. I worry that conventional trade book publishers will be increasingly vulnerable with more agile eBook-only publishers not encumbered by having to deal with moving physical objects around. But the most vulnerable sector in the short term is the brick and “Many commentators have compared mortar bookstore. I deeply regret that I can’t foresee a happy ending to this story. eBooks today to the early days of the BCBW: I was in Victoria recently. They automobile. With the Model T, no one could still have plenty of bookstores. PW: I think Victoria is the exception have predicted the societal impacts which which proves the rule, aided in part by would play out in the ensuing decades.” its demographic composition. Mean-

PHOTO —PAUL WHITNEY while the climate for new bookstores in —

Canada is dismal. Just this summer, one TWIGG

23 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU continued from page 23 per databases. Libraries could have a digitization. The impetus behind many BCBW: One of the biggest questions PW: The French always have valued menu of purchase options for eBooks of the digitization projects underway is is: Will eBooks deliver new markets or their culture. with the price determined by a range of fundamentally democratic. The conten- are they just repositioning readers in a BCBW: And the Dutch are now digi- variables: how long do you have the tious issue is how libraries deal with the different format? tizing every Dutch book, pamphlet, and book in your collection? how many peo- overwhelming book glut confronting us PW: The potential exists to deliver new newspaper produced from 1470 to the ple can read it simultaneously? how all. The harsh reality is that there are too markets but this doesn’t appear to be present. The Japanese Diet has voted for many total “loans” are permitted? what many books in the world and they keep happening to any extent as yet. The U.S. a two-year, 12.6 billion yen crash pro- is the size of your user population? We coming in unsustainable waves. Librar- January–April publishing revenues gram to digitize their entire national li- are still in the very early days of coming ies have always discarded low-use titles showed print down 19% and eBooks up brary. Are Canadians lagging “behind” to terms with how to deal with this to in order to make room. We have to en- 163% with a combined first quarter Europe in your view? Or are we right to address the needs of all parties. sure that the right decisions are made decline of 4%. As these are dollar be cautious? BCBW: Should libraries pay more for when this is happening. Don has no changes, it does not mean that fewer PW: It’s not really caution, it’s respect- an eBook than for a regular book? And doubt seen situations where libraries are books are being purchased because ing the law. Right now, we can’t digitize what is the situation with publisher prof- getting rid of titles which he thinks are eBooks most often sell at a lower a local newspaper that ceased to publish its and author royalties? worthwhile. price. in the 1950s because of copyright. The BCBW: Mike Shatzkin, CEO of book Dutch negotiated an agreement with consulting company Idea Logical, claims their publishers to enable the digitization overall shelf space devoted to printed of “orphan works” [books still under books in the U.S. dropped 15 percent copyright protection but not commer- over the past year. He claims it will only cially available and the copyright owner take about three years for stores to cut can’t be traced]. When you have a rela- space for printed books by 50%. tively small group of publishers publish- PW: Well, this sounds reasonable to ing in a language not widely spoken, such me. Chapters notified Canadian pub- agreements are much easier. lishers late last year that they would be BCBW: Many individual writers feel reducing shelf space devoted to books the emergence of eBooks is a juggernaut by 25% and this certainly seems to be and they are losing control of their work. happening. Combine this with book- Who is looking after their interests? stores closing and it is not a pretty pic- PW: Every sector is nervous about loss ture. of control and what the digital future BCBW: Are all types of books equally will mean for their survival. For instance, successful as eBooks? with digital content, libraries can now PW: Genre fiction sells particularly well effectively be denied the right to add as eBooks. This is borne out by the fact content to their collections which is oth- that the biggest decline in print sales has erwise commercially available. Authors been with mass-market paperbacks— and publishers can dictate what digital down 41% in April in the U.S. In 2010, works are sold to libraries and under romance and historical sagas comprised what terms and conditions the work can Paul Whitney with one of his favourite authors Joy Kogawa, 2008 14% of the global eBook market, 7 times be made available to our users. If they their share of the print market. Science think availability of their work in librar- PW: These are important issues. Clearly BCBW: Margaret Atwood says “The fiction and fantasy have a three times ies is detrimental to their economic in- there are advantages to libraries with librarian is the key person you don’t greater share of the eBook market than terests, through licences they can dictate eBooks; they don’t wear out or get lost, want to remove from a school.” What is the print market. that the work must be sold for individual they don’t have to be moved around, the future of the teacher librarian? BCBW: So what will our libraries look private use only and not for lending by labeled, emptied from the night return PW: I agree with her, but I am not opti- like ten years from now? And will there libraries. box etc. This could be a justification for mistic when it comes to the future of the be fewer librarians? BCBW: Digitization has thus far most libraries paying more. Publishers have well-staffed school library. The only way PW: I believe public libraries will still radically affected university libraries, has lower costs due to no need for physical this can change is from political leader- be thriving in 2021. They will still be it not? warehousing and shipping but they have ship at the provincial level which makes recognizable as libraries to anyone walk- PW: Digital collections are now domi- been challenged by the insistence of school libraries a priority in labour nego- ing in from 2011, or 1970, for that nant in university and college library monopoly distributors such as Amazon tiations. We’ll see how things play out this matter. There will still be staff but the collections. That change reflects both the and Apple that retail prices are low. fall with the BCTF contract negotiations. focus of some work will change. While nature of academic publishing and the Authors appear to be receiving lower The necessity of an appropriately staffed the personal contact between staff and computer savvy user population. There royalties in dollars from eBook sales, in and stocked school library should be library user will remain important, I an- are now discussions taking place which part due to the lower list price. This is raised with your local MLA. The ticipate our users will be more self-suffi- refer to “heritage print collections” of all a work in progress but it will get sorted Internet alone is not an acceptable re- cient. The staff number question will be books to be stored in collaboratively-run, out. placement. subject to both operational changes— remote, storage centres. Libraries could BCBW: Even though Amazon now BCBW: Orca Books in Victoria now some adopted willingly and some possi- concentrate on digital collections to be sells more eBooks than print books, pub- offers more than 400 of their own titles bly imposed—and at the end of the day selected and licence-negotiated by a con- lic libraries remain fairly conventional. in digital format. Readers can purchase the outcome will be determined by po- sortia of libraries, often national in PW: True. While eBook use is growing a “multi-user digital subscription” for litical will at the local level and global scope. quickly in society, it is still very small com- children’s books. But their level of ad- economic forces. BCBW: Aren’t they planting the seeds pared with the borrowing of print books. aptation to the digital environment is As we are currently seeing in the UK of their own destruction? The spring survey we carried out for the abnormal in Canada, is it not? and California, if the money runs out, PW: They would argue that this ap- Public Lending Right Commission in PW: Yes. Orca and several other pub- library service suffers. The political proach is a pragmatic response to large urban public libraries indicated that lishers are to be applauded for wading musings currently taking place in To- changes in publishing and the needs of in January and February of 2011 eBook in and making an effort. eBook readers ronto on closing library branches and students and faculty who often prefer circulation in those libraries was less than were marketed here [in Canada] later outsourcing library services should serve the convenience of digital content in a 2% of print book circulation. and publishers were slower to distribute as a warning that complacency regard- “learning commons” approach to physi- BCBW: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit their content than in the U.S. ing local politics is not cool. cal space in post-secondary libraries. 451 imagined a hedonistic, anti-intellec- BCBW: Do you think the eBooks trade While we are seeing unprecedented BCBW: Currently the library in Prince tual America, around now, when books will eventually gravitate towards a sin- change, I believe that writers will con- George has to pay the same amount for were being burned. The antiquarian gle use device, such as Kobo? Or a multi- tinue to write and readers will continue a book as the library system in Toronto bookseller Don Stewart believes we are use device, such as the iPad? to read. The intermediaries, publishers, that serves 2.5 million people. Can undergoing a 21st century equivalent of PW: I expect there will continue to be retailers and libraries, will experience eBooks introduce a more equitable price Fahrenheit 451—and libraries are a place for the dedicated eReader which greater change, some of which will be model? complicit. offers a more aesthetically pleasing read- wrenching, but they will still have a role PW: The concept of licencing digital PW: I would say there is a big differ- ing experience, and that there will also to play. content using per capita service popula- ence between seeking to suppress writ- continue to be many readers who choose BCBW: And what do you think is the tion to set the price is well established ing, as in Fahrenheit 451, and in seeking to use other hand-held devices to access future for B.C. BookWorld? with electronic magazine and newspa- to increase access to writing through eBooks. PW: Irreplaceable!

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26 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU

OMMISSIONED WORKS don’t always engage a C wider audience. The Library Book: A History of Service to British Columbia (BC Library Association $50) is a welcome exception. To mark the 100th anniversary of the B.C. Library Associa- tion, Dave Obee has told a fascinating tale of banned books, anti-communist witch hunts, skir- mishes between libraries and dedicated souls who have served the province’s book-lovers. This is a large format book by and for book people, with plenty of illustrations, including inci- dental cartoons by Adrian Raeside. Better still, The Library Book has pictures of bookmobiles. Lots of ’em. There are bookmobiles wheezing up dirt roads in the Fraser Valley, edging along a snowy John Hart Highway (between Prince George and Dawson Creek) and stopped in Fraser Valley Bookmobile, 1940s, the middle of nowhere, flagged from The Library Book down by eager readers. When the Okanagan Re- gional Library retired its mobile unit in 1992, the and Vancouver Island. North Shuswap The 1960s saw turf wars between the hamlet of Celista Greater Victoria board, which claimed took off the tires, dominion over all lands south of the put a flower box on Malahat, and the Nanaimo-based Van- the hood and made CENTURY couver Island Regional Library, which Shane it a permanent planted its flag as far southwest as McCUNE branch. 1 Colwood. As a boy I loved Richmond was the biggest contribu- books and I loved trucks, so the Shane McCune reviews The Library Book tor to the Fraser Valley system until it bookmobile was second only to the ice by Dave Obee to mark the 100th anniversary pulled out in 1975, sparking a feud that cream truck in the pantheon of wheeled took six months, a court action and a heroes. of the BC Library Association $100,000 payment to settle. Surrey soon Maybe Obee and book designer withdrew as well, though with less ran- Roger Handling felt the same way. ince. The B.C. Library Association was Such internecine sniping dogged the cour. ✍ launched at a meeting in his office. fitful growth of library networks for dec- But infighting among libraries has ALONG WITH 2,500 OTHER COMMUNITIES He died in 1919, the year the Public ades. The PLC’s decision in late 1929 to often been overshadowed by conflicts in the English-speaking world, Vancou- Library Commission was created. It soon launch the world’s first regional library with municipal politicians. The most ver, Victoria and New Westminster heard from book-hungry library trustees network in the Fraser Valley angered notorious example of this was the firing launched their first true public libraries in Nanaimo, Duncan, Alberni and other regions, especially the Okanagan of John Marshall, to which Obee with seed money from U.S. tycoon Sidney. All borrowed devotes an entire chapter. Andrew Carnegie, who spent the books from the Victoria In 1954, with red-baiting at last years of his life giving away some of library, to be exchanged a fever pitch, the Victoria Pub- the fortune he had amassed by paying four times a year, for a lic Library Board fired Marshall steelworkers $10 for an 84-hour week charge of $65 for every two months after he had been and housing them in slums. 100 books. hired to launch a mobile book In an echo of that paternalism, the When Victoria’s city service. earliest lending libraries in remote parts council demanded more No reason was given, but it of the province were often small book money from neighbour- soon emerged that some “pub- collections provided by employers in ing municipalities for use

BOOK lic spirited citizens” told the company towns and work camps. of its library, Saanich and board that Marshall had LIBRARY It took the baroquely named Esquimalt balked, and continued on page 28 THE Ethelbert Olaf Stuart their residents were cut OF Scholefield, B.C. provincial librar- off. Monitors were posted In 1951, after the Burns Lake library moved to a ian at the beginning of the last century, to make sure interlopers

COURTESY new home, the original to start the march toward organized from the suburbs didn’t library still had its sign

public libraries throughout the prov- slip into the reading room. PHOTOS above the door. THE FUTURE IS ALREADYHAPPENING heard of him either. But supposedly this guy has a personal Honey, you smell like Shakespeare library of 300,000 books. So, of course, Paper Passion will be According to the hype, the eccentric designer Karl Lagerfeld, marketed inside a hollowed book. Get out your Kindle, fondle as creative director for Chanel and Fendi, has announced a your iPad. Sniff your partner. In the Dark Ages, a book was an fragrance called Paper Passion. No, it won’t smell like a musty, exotic item. Welcome to the New Dark Ages. mouldy old paperback. The goal is to replicate the odour of a freshly printed hardcover. Here at BC BookWorld, we’ve never Karl Lagerfeld: Ooo-la-la, books are sexy.

27 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU

Blacklisted Victoria librarian John Marshall A tale of two cities Sheila A. Egoff, children’s literature librarian Toronto library cuts

URING THE ABSURD HOCKEY riot in Vancouver, hooligans D barely damaged the Vancou- ver Public Library, located near the hockey arena. At the top of the list of civic ameni- ties they value, Vancouverites recently Madge Aalto, chief chose their library system. The city has librarian, Vancouver, consistently recognized its library system 1995 as a budgetary priority for decades. Meanwhile financial duress in Toronto has led some politicians to consider if libraries might be expendable. Here is a recent sign of the times from Ontario:

Petition If you love the Toronto Public Library, Vancouver Mayor Gordon Campbell with horseshoe in hand at Basil Stuart-Stubbs, Members of the Aeriosa Dance Society bounce off you need to come to her defense the ground-breaking for Vancouver’s new central library, 1993 UBC librarian the Vancouver Public Library, 2010. right now! The cost cutting agenda continued from page 27 of Toronto City Council could target worked for a leftist paper in Winnipeg the TPL within weeks. Local and attended a Toronto peace confer- branches could be closed and some ence widely believed to be a communist or all of the library’s operations could front. be privatized, unless we act now. The story hit the front pages and kept Please send a message to Mayor growing. Victoria Mayor Claude Ford telling him our libraries are not Harrison said he would happily burn for sale. A copy of your message any “subversive literature” found on li- will be sent to members of the To- brary shelves in his furnace. ronto City Council Executive Com- Author Roderick Haig- mittee and your own city councillor. Brown called him a dimwit. Please tell city council that our The B.C. Library Association passed public libraries are not for sale. a resolution condemning Marshall’s firing, and its federal counterpart followed A Forum Research poll conducted on suit — prompting a Vancouver Sun edi- July 4, 2011 found that 74 per cent of torial headlined: “No place for Reds in Toronto residents disagree with the idea our public libraries.” of closing local library branches as a way Half of the library’s full-time employ- of solving the city’s deficit. ees resigned and for years the library had The poll was commissioned by the trouble attracting qualified staff. Toronto Public Library Workers Union Decisions on whether and where to (TPLWU), Canadian Union of Public build libraries and how much to spend Children’s librarians and writers Sarah Pretty much every library in the Employees (CUPE) Local 4948 repre- on them have been political minefields. Ellis (left) and Judith Saltman at the country has Internet access, and many senting 2400 Toronto Public Library When it came time to relocate Vancou- Dunbar Public Library in Vancouver lend eBook download devices such as workers. ver’s main branch to Burrard and the Kobo. But it may be that the library’s The union gave Toronto’s Mayor Robson, some civic leaders expressed fears at my knees, under the desk, waiting to traditional charms—kindred souls in a Rob Ford an oversized ceremonial li- that the Downtown Eastside denizens be picked up by the person who had relaxed sanctuary—will be valued brary card to remind him that 1.25 mil- who took refuge in the Carnegie build- asked for it,” librarian Lois Bewley even more in an age of impersonal gadg- lion Torontonians have a library card ing would do the same in the new library. later recalled. “I thought, I’m damned etry. and use it regularly. And when it moved again in 1995, if I’ll give you a book.” As librarian and author Sarah “I have more libraries in my area than to its $100-million home in Library On the other hand, the Victoria li- Ellis puts it in her foreword: “We go I have Tim Hortons,” exaggerated To- Square, Vancouver Mayor Gordon brary locked James Joyce’s Ulysses because we like to browse shelves and ronto City Councillor Doug Ford on Campbell was happy to cut the rib- in its vault from 1922 to 1949. check out the displays and people-watch. July 14th. Shortly afterward, his brother, bon, but a year later he cut the budget, ✍ We go because it is free and fun and be- Mayor Rob Ford, launched his plan to forcing the spiffy new library to shorten DO LIBRARIES HAVE A FUTURE IN THE VIR- cause the folks there seem pleased to see dramatically cut funding to the Toronto its hours. tual universe? Absolutely, says Obee. us. When it comes right down to it, we Public Library. Other dustups involved controversial At its first meeting in 1927 the Pub- go there for the chairs.” 9780969261490 Meanwhile Calgary has just allocated books. In 1961 an RCMP officer ar- lic Library Commission mulled the pos- $135 million for a new central library rived at the Vancouver library seeking sibilities of lending sheet music and The Library Book is available online at: and Surrey has just opened a “spectacu- to confiscate any copies of Henry phonograph records, and librarians have http://thelibrarybook.bclibraries.ca lar temple to books” (according to Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. enthusiastically embraced every techno- Maclean’s), the Bing Thom-designed, “The only copy was a circulating copy logical leap since then. Shane McCune writes from Comox. $36-million, City Centre Library. THE FUTURE IS ALREADY HAPPENING ing banned from selling digital versions of the series. Heads are Rowling “It’s another madness of the digital publishing world,” said J.K. Rowling is now making all her Harry Potter books avail- Tom Hunt of the Norfolk Children’s Book Centre in England, able electronically, via her Pottermore website—effectively cut- “that doesn’t support the booksellers that have sold the books ting booksellers out of the profit picture. and supported them. It’s just another step on the path to death After helping Rowling to become the richest woman in Eng- by 1,000 cuts.” land, richer than the Queen, some booksellers say they are be- J.K. Rowling A spokesman for JK Rowling declined to comment.

28 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 ARSENAL PULP PRESS

HOOPLA WE SURE CAN! Leanne Prain Sarah B. Hood An astonishing alt-embroidery book by the co-author of Celebrating the new “Canvolution”: new Yarn Bombing. preservationists reinventing the lost art of jams and 978-1-55152-406-1; $29.95 pickles. 978-1-55152-402-3; $24.95 STAN DOUGLAS: ABBOTT & CORDOVA, 7 AUGUST 1971 THE ONLY POETRY THAT MATTERS Stan Douglas Clint Burnham A stunning art book on the Vancouver artist’s photo A history of Vancouver’s seminal Kootenay School of installation about the Gastown Riot. Writing. 978-1-55152-413-9; $40.00 978-1-55152-429-0; $23.95

THE INVERTED GAZE François Cusset; trans. by David Homel The queering of the French literary canon by American CROSSINGS scholars, by the author of French Theory. 978-1-55152-410-8; $17.95 Betty Lambert A Vancouver 125 Legacy Book: Betty Lambert’s devastating 1979 novel about a destructive relationship. 978-1-55152-427-6; $19.95

BEAUTY PLUS PITY Kevin Chong Kevin Chong’s ﬁ rst novel in ten years: a tragicomic modern immigrant’s tale. CLASS WARFARE 978-1-55-152-416-0; $17.95 D.M. Fraser A Vancouver 125 Legacy Book: D.M. Fraser’s extraordinary stories about Vancouver’s disenfranchised. 978-1-55152-428-3; $15.95 arsenalpulp.com | BLOG: arsenalia.com Celebrating forty years of publishing in 2011

29 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 ALASKA’S PREDATORS: from THEIR ECOLOGY & CONSERVATION BRUCE WRIGHT

Highlights 22 top terrestrial, marine and avian predators and their essential function in Alaska’s complex ecosystems. Dispels the myth of bloodthirsty killers and provides compelling reasons for their protection. ROCKY MOUNTAIN THE MOUNTAIN WOLVES OF STORY OF EAGLE WILDLIFE GRIZZLY THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS ACTIVITY BOOK Beautiful colour images throughout. D. Hancock, B. Wolitski Michael Quinton Dick Dekker D. Hancock, S. Lansonius 978-0-88839-622-8 0-88839-567-1 0-88839-417-9 0-88839-416-0 978-0-88839-641-9 8.5 x 11, sc, 120 pp, $29.95 8.5 x 11, sc, 96 pp 8.5 x 11, sc, 64 pp 5.5 x 8.5, sc, 240 pp 8.5 x 11, sc, 24 pp $24.95 $14.95 $17.95 $6.95

Hancock House Publishers hancockhouse.com | [email protected] | 800-938-1114

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30 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU

FANNY KIEFER: How did you get into SS: For the last ten years, the li- the library business? brary has been trying to receive approval SANDRA SINGH: I’ve been a library user to build a full-service library in the down- since I came to Canada when I was a town eastside and Strathcona child, and I remember my first library neighborhoods. We’re delighted that we was a bookmobile, in Calgary. received approval last October from city FK: I love the bookmobile! Where did council to go ahead. What they told us, you live before? though, was to try to find housing, to SS: I came from Fiji. And I’m Indo-Ca- partner up with the library. So we are re- nadian. ally fortunate that Dr. Penny Ballem, the FK: That doesn’t explain why you be- city manager, connected us with the came a librarian. YWCA. So we will be building the new SS: Well, libraries are also fundamentally Strathcona library along with housing for about social justice and equality, and en- Sandra Singh on Studio 4 with Fanny Kiefer. Much has changed single mothers and their children. suring that everyone in the community in library land, but the friendly librarian persists. FK: And you’ve also been involved with has access to the same information and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre the same opportunities for self-develop- at UBC? ment. So I have a real strong sense of the SS: I was the director. Mr. Barber came importance of that type of equity and that back to UBC and said, “I want to build commitment to social justice. And, as well, OR a learning centre. I want to evolve librar- there’s the importance of information to ies into the libraries of the future.” But a robust economy and democracy. I think ASK TWEET he also said that it can’t just be for UBC, that we’re all better as a community if it can’t just be for Vancouver, it has to we’re informed and we make well-in- YOUR LOCAL CYBRARIAN be for the entire province. So the learn- formed decisions. ing centre has a mandate to serve the FK: We know about the fire chief and Two bookmobile lovers collide as province of British Columbia. police chief. What does a chief librarian FK: What advice did the former chief do? Fanny Kiefer interviews Chief Librarian librarian, Paul Whitney, give to you? SS: Basically I oversee 21 branches and Sandra Singh of Vancouver. SS: Paul is one of the great book men. our virtual branch. People borrow 10 I’m fortunate to have had him as a men- million books a year from us, with six people like us, the average consumer of your device and download books to them tor for most of my entire career. He said, million in-person visits, and four million information—started in the mid ’90s. I using your library card. The publishing “Steady as she goes, one step after an- visits to our website every year. We an- think it was http that made networked industry is really catching up right now other, keep your eye on the future and swer a million reference and research information really friendly. From there to digital books. It has really accelerated read the news everyday.” questions every year. We’re governed by it just skyrocketed. As you know, jour- this year. I think the next couple of years FK: So what is the future of the library? a citizen board appointed by the mayor nal and magazine publishing moved are going to be really critical to see how SS: The future of the public library will and council, and we really try to be com- online. Now we’re heading into the age book publishing responds to digital likely look different in each community. munity-led in our decisions. of digital books. Everything that we do books. And for libraries, that is some- Each community is going to need to de- FK:Tell me about the cybrarian part of is technology-based now in libraries. thing that we really need to be knitted cide, How is our library going to uniquely your job. FK: As people bring in their into, that whole discussion and process. contribute to our community’s SS: Back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, smartphones, their iPads, their Kindles, Because how they decide how to sell and sustainability and development? And to I was the head cybrarian for an online will they be able to download War and license material will have a direct impact the lives of the members? learning community called suite101.com. Peace? on us, and how we can serve our com- Some public libraries are going to say, We were essentially an early web 2.0 com- SS: They can right now. munities. “Our unique contribution in this world munity of people around the world— FK: You’re allowed to use those devices FK: You’re not only the youngest chief is deep research.” Others are going to based out of Vancouver—people who in a library today? librarian in the country, you also have a say, “We’re going to be the cultural hub had expertise in a variety of subjects and SS: Absolutely. We have extensive e- big social justice button. Tell me what of the community.” Some will say, “We’re were interested in sharing that expertise. book collections online. You can take you’re doing in Strathcona. the intellectual centre. We’re where all For instance, we had grandpar- the thinking and the mulling ents who wanted to share about over civic issues comes into what it was like to be a grand- play.” Others will concentrate parent; we had pediatricians on children. Others will try to who wanted to share about how do a little bit of everything. to raise healthy children. It was FK: Do we still have my job to organize it all, to cre- bookmobiles? ate the architecture underlying “The future of the SS: We have the storybus. It it, so that people could access the “The future of the goes around the city with chil- different articles, the different in- public library will dren’s programs. It’s funded by formation. likelylikely looklook the Vancouver Public Library FK: So you have a bit of geek different in each Foundation. background. different in each FK: I loved when the SS: I do. [Laughter] community.” bookmobile would come FK: How could you be a librar- SANDRA SINGH through the neighborhood. ian today without that? You know there was the ice SS: I don’t think you could. Eve- cream truck, too, but then rything we do in libraries is fun- there was the bookmobile. You PHOTO damentally based on couldn’t take your ice cream in. technology. I would say that the SS: But it was a world of ideas. SAWCHUK information and the digital

revolution for information—for LAURA RECORDED APRIL 4, 2011 THE FUTURE IS ALREADYHAPPENING “Our future as a public library is far from certain,” Sandra Singh told B.C. how our work can support theirs, and working hard to position VPL as a centre BookWorld, “and we need to fight for public libraries as cornerstone institu- for learning and knowledge exchange, including physical books and more. We tions in democratic society. The commercial sector would be more than willing want to give the community a greater sense of ownership through community to take over what we do for a fee, and that would have detrimental ramifica- engagement... I don’t think most people understand that if we continue the tions for society. We are doing a number of things now to position ourselves way we have always operated, we will be in dire straits and that many of the for the future, such as working at a national level with Canadian publishers on changes we are implementing are about positioning the library so that we will eBook licensing models, connecting with our equivalents in the US to see be here and in full force in the future.”

31 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU

RANGANATHAN’S jor urban library system has meant collecting in a wide range of languages, providing resources online and re- motely, and providing many non-traditional types of materials. For many years now, libraries have FIFTH collected more than just print materials—videos, CD music, talking books as PRINCIPLE MP3s, and video games. As older for- mats are discontinued, we will consider streaming content. N THE EARLY 1930S, LIBRARY PHILOSO- At the same time, market forces have pher Shiyali Ranganathan I had significant impacts on the publish- created The Five Laws of Library Science. ing industry, impacting what to collect 1. Books are for use. and from whom. Multinational merg- 2. Every reader, his book. ers lead to some concern about the con- 3. Every book, its reader. tinued access to, and promotion of, 4. Save the time of the reader. Canadian content and authors in an in- 5. A library is a growing organism. creasingly digital age. We invited Debbie Schachter The concept of the “book” is expand- to comment on how B.C. libraries are ing beyond its traditional format, and respecting these principles during this does not automatically lead to the de- period of rapid change. mise of libraries. Print will continue to ✍ be the most popular and significant for- EBOOKS HAVE BEEN HERALDED AS THE NEW mat for some time. library-busting paradigm. We will continue to purchase and Early evidence of library patron de- maintain collections important for our mand for ebooks and the lending of ebook local history and memory and interests, readers is in contrast to this prediction. “Print will continue while at the same time innovating and In keeping with Ranganathan’s Fifth to be the most popular experimenting to ensure our ongoing PHOTO Principle, libraries have always adapted and significant relevance to our patrons and our com- to changes in technology and publish- munities.

SAWCHUK format for some time.” ing, as well as the expectations of users.

The move by libraries to collect in this LAURA Prior to her new position at Douglas new format is merely evidence of how Debbie Schachter is the newly appointed Director of College, Debbie Schachter was libraries are evolving. Learning Resources—a euphemism for chief librarian—at Director of Collection Management Meeting the needs of patrons in a ma- Douglas College in New Westminster. for the Vancouver Public Library. this fall from ANVIL PRESS Who Killed Janet Smith? Shag Carpet Action by Edward Starkins by Matthew Firth Foreword by Daniel Francis These are absurd, raunchy, Who Killed Janet Smith? funny stories whose sharp, examines one of the most salty characters are boldly infamous and still unsolved credible and wonderfully murder cases in Canadian rendered by one of Canada’s history: the 1924 murder of most adventurous and twenty-two-year-old Vancouver courageous fiction writers. nursemaid Janet Smith. “[Firth] writes bravely about the “Starkins cuts away at the layers way we live now, and for that he should be congratulated.” ISBN: 978-1-897535-85-1 • $24 with the delicacy of a neurosur- ISBN: 978-1-897535-84-4 • $18 Quill & Quire 340 pps. • Non-Fiction • Sept. geon. What he uncovers almost — (starred 160 pps. • stories • October Vancouver125 Legacy Book defies belief.” review) — Quill & Quire

A Credit to Your Race Mayan Horror: by Truman Green How To Survive the End of Vancouver Noir: Vancouver 1930-1960 the World in 2012 by Diane Purvey & John Belshaw Set in Surrey, circa 1960, A Credit to Your Race is a by Bob Robertson This was an era of intensified concern disturbing and convincing with order, conformity, structure, and When the Mayan Calendar portrayal of how the full runs out on December 21, restrictions. The photographs—many weight of racism could of which have never been published in 2012, all manner of calami- come to bear on a young, tious chaos may be coming book form before—look like stills from interracial couple. a noir movie, featuring detectives with our way. Will you be ready? chiselled features, tough women, “If isolation is a key theme of This timely volume gives and bullet-ridden cars. black B.C. writing, Green’s you all the vital informa- ISBN: 978-1-897535-86-8 • $18 protagonist Billy Robinson is ISBN: 978-1-897535-87-5 • $20 ISBN: 978-1-897535-83-7 • $25 160 pps. • Novel • September tion you’ll need to come the most fully-drawn 192 pps. • Humour • October 224 pps. • 100+ b/w photos • November Vancouver125 Legacy Book through smiling after expression.” —Wayde Compton Armageddon wreaks havoc on the world. www.anvilpress.com • [email protected] available to the trade from utp | repped by the lpg the press with the urban twist

32 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 No Tame Cat Cinemazoo An HBC Captain’s Voyages between London & My Urban Safari The Vikings Return Victoria 1865–1885 Gary Oliver Robert J. Harvey with Wendy Bancroft Icelandic Immigration to Canada, 1870-1920 Drawn from family history and 600 pages Many of the animals seen Marian McKenna of HBC log books, this novel tells the in movies have been sup- gripping tale of an intrepid sea captain’s 16 plied by Gary Oliver. Not demanding voyages around Cape Horn. only is he their wrangler, This volume takes a new look from a Canadian 978-1-926991-03-0 $24.95 but also their protector. perspective at the so-called “Great Emigration”. Follow his adventures (and Attack of the Manorwood Brigade misadventures) on the road The chapters narrate their dramatic story, tracing Magnath Chronicles to Cinemazoo. Douglas May 978-1-894694-62-9 $24.95 the roots of discontent in the homeland, the The adventures of Smidge and his friends www.cinemazoo.com origins of the first tentative immigrating groups, are woven into a powerful tale where bravery, love and family loyalty are tested and the beginnings of a mass emigration. This modern saga deserves a re-telling against a brutish rat king and his relentless army. for not only those of Icelandic descent, but for all those interested in the human 978-1-894694-99-5 $14.95 condition and in these pioneering immigrants whose labors have helped to build New Liberalism www.granvilleislandpublishing.com the Canada we know today. Matthew Kalkman Tel: 604 688 0320 Toll Free: 1 877 688 0320 If a society is to maintain itself and evolve, a Publishing Books that Make a Difference Liberal responsibility to future generations New Authors Welcome must be taken into account. New Liberal- ism is this next step in the evolution of the Liberal paradigm. 978-1-926991-04-7 $19.95

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34 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 LIBRARIES, eBOOKS & YOU IVAN E. COYOTE WHAT WRITERS GEORGE FETHERLING ARE SAYING ark Twain was a major interna- Mtional celebrity when he took a cruise round the world, guiding a bunch TWUC’s Ten Commandments of well-off tourists. Wherever the ship called, he was tendered banquets and in- The Writers Union of Canada [TWUC] has issued a new Bill of Rights troduced to all the local achievers. In “To Respect the Rights of the Creators of Literary Works in Canada.” South Africa, where the original dia- After extensive consultation with their membership, TWUC’s list of twelve mond rush had been supplanted by a recommendations for the digital age includes what could be described gold rush, he was feted by Cecil Rhodes, as ‘Ten Commandments’ from the “creators” of books—including a pro- Barney Barnato and viso that writers receive 50% of eBook net sales. the other plutocrats. “I had been a gold 1. The publisher shall split the net proceeds of eBook sales equally miner myself,” he with the author. wrote, recalling his 2. The author shall retain all electronic rights not specifically early days in Califor- granted to the publisher or producer and shall have approval of any nia a half-century modifications made to the work. George Fetherling earlier, “and I knew 3. The publisher shall not exercise or sublicense eBook publish- substantially every- Writers have always ing rights without the express authorization of the author. thing these people knew about it, except been getting the shaft 4. When a book is out of print in print form, continuing sales in how to make money.” I believe this is electronic form shall not prevent a rights reversion to the author. the stage at which e-publishing is at now. from publishers. Now 5. For eBooks, the publisher in its contract shall replace the tradi- PHOTO tional “out of print” clause that triggers a rights reversion with a sales we’ll be getting the ALAN TWIGG volume clause (e.g. less than a specified quantity of eBooks sold in a SAWCHUK

“ e-shaft.” specified number of royalty periods) and/or a finite term of license (e.g. y choice, I have published my last LAURA five years). Btwo books without any contract. I LORNE DUFOUR 6. When rights revert, the publisher shall provide the author with have a gentlemanly agreement with Ron the digital file of the book. Hatch of Ronsdale. Ten years from now, really do not wish to ascribe to the fu- 7. The Public Lending Right Commission shall provide author who knows, it’s easy to imagine I will be Iture. For the better part of the last payments for eBooks and allot additional monies to this end. my own publisher and printer, and all forty years, and including this week, I 8. Libraries shall acquire digital copies of works in their collec- books will be marketed electronically. I have been logging with my horses. I tions only from rightsholders or their licensing agencies. want to control my e-rights like I want to found the horses and they found me, sort 9. EBook retailers shall require the rightsholder’s permission for control my body. I have a body of work. of like Andre Segovia being discovered any free preview or download of an electronic work, and the rightsholder by the guitar, all the magic and the mu- shall specify the maximum amount JOAN GIVNER sic just waiting to be released forever. to be made available. My direction is cherishing the past 10. Agents, publishers, while we move into the future. I see how aggregators, retailers, and librar- the machinery is taking over the planet, ies shall ensure that works in dig- how technology is slowly heading into the ital form will be well protected and direction where only technology exists. will not be shared, traded, or sold F—k it; just spend a day pulling some- outside the boundaries authorized thing like twenty logs out of the bush with by the contract. a team and you will discover something TWUC executive director Kelly no one else can discover unless they, too, These statues are designed to ensure the pro- Duffin visited BCBW recently and will lay it all out on the face of existence tection of intellectual property and appropri- talked about the future with a and let the dice roll where they will. ate compensation for rightsholders. Visit TWUC for more info: www.writersunion.ca rabble-rousing BC author. By all that is held holy and spiritual, you will never discover the same revela- know I won’t get rich, or make much tion from some computerized gadget at- MICHAEL ELCOCK tempting to direct our thoughts and our more than enough money to be able to lives. Writing and publishing, and the view my relationship with my new write off, say, an annual research trip to very fact that books are simply wonder- Ipublisher Randal Macnair of the fleshpots of Europe. But that’s fine Nothing makes me ful when they achieve what we aim to Oolichan Books as a partnership... My by me. That’s pretty well what my writ- more depressed than achieve—the cooperation of author, contract gives the e-rights to Oolichan ing income does for me. It all keeps my publisher and reader—will, to me, al- but they cannot exercise those rights brain from turning to porridge. walking into a uni- ways keep us connected. Computers are without my express permission. I think versity library and attempting to replace writing; they have that’s because Randal agrees with me Lorne Dufour is a horse-logger “ their own short-form vocabulary now. that every eBook distributor (or seller) near McLeese Lake who has written seeing computers in- So many of my old friends have been is different. Some have good security, three poetry books; Ivan E. Coyote stead of the lovely oak lost by replacing writing with instant, monitoring and reporting systems, and has written seven memoirs of short-form communication. They are a good many of them don’t. humour and sexuality; George card catalogues full of Fetherling has written 34 various lost and I have lost them as old friends. None of my books—hard copy or e- 3 by 5 cards and the titles; Joan Givner is a biographer, When me and my lady love started versions—can go to libraries unless we critic and children’s book author; bank of newspapers out with a team of horses, Andy and have a guarantee that they will not be Alan Twigg has written 16 various Prince, two beautiful Clydesdale wild digitised elsewhere. And, in terms of titles; Michael Elcock has written and magazines along animals, I wrote a poem about this very bookstores, I’d be perfectly happy if my three non-fiction books. See the walls.” issue. I called it Profile of Death. books just went to the independents. I abcbookworld.com for details. THE FUTURE IS ALREADYHAPPENING According to Paul Whitney’s new report for the Public Lending eBook sales compared with hardcover sales, publishers uniformly Right Commission in Canada, “Authors report greater difficulties earn greater revenues and authors consistently earn lower royal- in negotiating royalty rates on eBooks than on print equivalents… ties on eBook sales. As Margaret Atwood has noted, ‘Fair The U.S.-based Authors Guild, in their study ‘E-Book Royalty pricing is a work in progress,’ as is, apparently, consensus on Math: The House Always Wins,’ reports that on bestseller Margaret Atwood eBook author royalties.”

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Historian Richard Mackie, author of Mountain Timber (2009), is the new The Listener book reviews editor for BC Studies. Leilah Nadir by David Lester Editorial Services The Second Seraph Subversions BC Studies Laura Sawchuk “This demands to be added by L.A. Holmes-Boyle Anarchist short stories to any shelf on which Anne A journal of informed writing Freelance editing by This collection includes stories by on British Columbia's cultural, For High Quality Frank’s Diary, and Maus are The second coming of Christ is public relations professional unfolding—and it’s a girl child. Ron Sakolsky, Norman Nawrocki, political, and economic life, BC Author Photos available.”—School Library A fiction trilogy that entertains, Cara Hoffman and others. Contact: past and present. Subscribe Jeremy Twigg. Journal (New York) [email protected] PHOTO- Friendly and Affordable GRAPHIC SPIRITUAL and could save your soul. SHORT HISTORY today at bcstudies.com GRAPHY [email protected] EDITING 604.306.4036 NOVEL ISBN 9781894037488 $19.95 FICTION ISBN 978-1-897435-55-7 • $24.95 STORIES ISBN 978-2-9805763-2-4 • $12 MAGAZINE $68.25 • $47.25 (students) BCTOPSELLERS* City of Love and Revolution Broken Circle: (New Star Books $24) by Lawrence Aronsen The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools (Heritage House $19.95) by Theodore Fontaine All that Glitters: A Climbers Journey Through Addiction and Depression (Sono Nis $19.95) by Margo Talbot The Entrepreneurial Mom’s Guide to Running Alligator, Bear, Crab: Your Own Business A Baby’s ABC (Orca $9.95) by Lesley Wynne Pechter (Self-Counsel Press $23.95) by Kathryn Bechthold Retail Nation: Adventures in Solitude: Department Stores and the What Not to Wear to a Nudist Potluck Making of Modern Canada and Other Stories from Desolation Sound (UBC Press $32.95) by Donica Belisle (Harbour $26.95) by Grant Lawrence

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36 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2011 people AFRICAN DANCING KEEN Most of the 44 remarkable people profiled in KEEN Front Lines: Portraits of Caregivers in Northern British Columbia (Creekstone/Sandhill $32) work as physi- Gary Geddes' Drink the Bitter Root: A Writer's cians and nurses. One of the exceptions Search for Justice and Redemption in Africa is Stoney Creek social worker Barbie (D&M $32.95) describes his forays, at age 68, into Everett, inspired to care for others by Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of her maternal grandmother Celena John, Congo, Ethiopia and Somaliland. In a world of who raised more than 15 children in the Saik’uz reserve outside Vanderhoof. “My child soldiers, refugees and poets-turned–free- grandmother taught me that without dom fighters, Geddes is particularly impressed education,” she says, “we really by Somali culture in which poetry is a popular have nothing.” activity viewed as “a healing and All the caregivers express a subversive art.” 978-1-55365-458-2 positive attitudes about the BC privilege of helping BOOKWORLD others in a challenging STAFF PICK environment that requires improvisation and travelling great distances north of the 54th parallel—from Haida Gwaii to Dawson Creek; and from Vanderhoof to Dease Lake. Front Lines is a sophisti- cated coffee table book that celebrates innovation, cooperation and the restoration of pride. Text is by Sarah de Leeuw, photos by Tim Swanky, both raised in the North. 978-0-9783195-4-0

Stoney Creek social PHOTO

worker Barbie Everett was first taught to SWANKY

dance by her elders

at five years of age. TIM

Gary Geddes (right) and a friend in Uganda

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Friesens Printers...38 Libros Libertad Publishing...33 Random House...15, 18 Vancouver International Galiano Island Books...34 McArthur & Co. Publishing...25 Ronsdale Press...7 Writers Festival...12 BC INDEX Granville Island Publishing...33 Mother Tongue Press...33 Royal BC Museum...18 Village Books...30 BOOKWORLD TO ADVERTISERS Hancock House...30 New Society Publishers...2 Self-Counsel Press...5 VPL Foundation...4 Harbour Publishing...40 New Star Books...30 SFU Writer’s Studio...26 Wayzgoose...34 ABPBC...6 BC Library Association...12 The Heritage Group of Oolichan Books...16 Sidney Booktown...18 WestPro Publishing...26 Adaawx Publishing...30 Bolen Books...25 Publishers...8, 29 Orca Books...39 Sono Nis Press...11 Wilderness Anvil Press...32 Book Warehouse...12 Hignell Printing...38 People’s Co-Op Books...37 Talonbooks...22 Committee...26 Arsenal Pulp Press...29 Caitlin Press...25 Hollyhock...4 Playwrights Canada Press...34 Thistledown Press...34 Yoka’s Coffee...25 Banyen Books...34 Detselig...33 Houghton Boston...38 Polestar Calendars...34 Touchwood Editions...29 BC Book Prizes...33 Douglas College/EVENT...26 Knopf Canada...15 Printorium/Island Blue...38 UBC Press...15 BC Historical Federation...26 Friends of VPL...37 Leaf Press...37 Quickies...36 Vancouver Desktop...38

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