BOOK PRIZES 18-25 • YOUR FREE GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS TANYA LLOYD KYI Eyes and Spies on the web BC PAGE 35 BOOKWORLD

VOL. 31 • NO. 2 • SUMMER 2017

Tanya Lloyd Kyi

WADE’S WORLD

Three million people have seen Wade Davis’ five TED Talks. Now the public is invited to hear the National Geographic explorer in person. He will accept the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness RESOLUTE at the Vancouver Public Library for Wade Davis: Photographs.

See pages 22-23

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MY HEART FILLS WITH HAPPINESS by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Julie Flett Orca Book Publishers MARIA MAHOI A QUEER LOVE STORY BEST PLACES TO BIRD IN OF THE ISLANDS The Letters of Jane Rule and BRITISH COLUMBIA Rick Bébout by Jean Barman by Russell Cannings New Star Books edited by Marilyn R. Schuster and Richard Cannings UBC Press Greystone Books

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2 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 PEOPLE * TOPSELLERS A collage by Terri-Lynn Williams Davidson from her Out of Concealment.

Lynn McCarron BCBritish Columbia Lullaby (Sandhill Book Marketing $12.95) Pat Carney On Island: Life Among the Coast Dwellers (TouchWood Editions $22.95) Richard Wagamese Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations (D&M $18.95)

John Armstrong A Series of Dogs (New Star $21)

John Armstrong Roy Henry Vickers & Robert Budd Hello Humpback! (Harbour $9.95) Alice Jane Hamilton HAIDA WAYS Finding John Rae urreal images accompany Haida artist Terri-Lynn Williams- (Ronsdale Press $21.95) Davidson’s new book Out of Concealment: Female Super- PRIZES APLENTY Margriet Ruurs natural Beings of Haida Gwaii (Heritage $29.95), a book Former Vancouver Sun dance critic and author Max Wyman has received a lifetime achievement & Nizar Ali Badr of origin stories. In more than 30 photo collages, Williams- Stepping Stones: award—also named in his honour—at a Vancouver A Refugee Family’s Journey S Playhouse event at which Yosef Wosk announced Davidson illustrates Haida mythological beings that encourage readers (Orca $20) his endowment of a new Max Wyman Award for to see the feminine and the powerful in land and seascapes. It is also Marilyn Schuster, ed. Cultural Commentary. This $5,000 biennial prize A Queer Love Story: The Letters a call to respect the environment. The book will accompany an exhi- will celebrate critical of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout bition of Williams-Davidson’s art work at the Haida Gwaii Museum, writing on the arts. (UBC Press $50) ✫ opening in June. Born in Haida Gwaii and married to carver Robert Sculptor and writer Davidson, she is a lawyer who has represented the Haida Nation all the Carole Itter has way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2014, she received the West been selected as the 13th recipient of the Coast Environmental Law People’s Choice Andrew Thompson Award $30,000 Audain Prize for Lifetime Achieve- for environmental advocacy. 978-1-77203-160-7 ment in the Visual Arts, as selected by an independent jury. HARASSMENT DAZE Carole Itter ✫ This year’s $2,500 BC Nicola Peffers has emerged as the lead plaintiff in a class-action Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for historical writing lawsuit filed against the Canadian Armed Forces by a collection of sexual has been awarded to Anthony Kenyon for his trauma survivors. Peffers had left the Royal Canadian Navy Sage Birchwater comprehensive, self-published The Recorded His- five years earlier after five years of service at the rank tory of the Liard Basin 1790-1910 (Fort Nelson of Ordinary Seaman. Sage Birchwater News Ltd.). It was a runner-up for the Roderick Chilcotin Chronicles: In her memoir, Refuge in the Black Deck: The Haig-Brown Prize earlier this year. Stories of Adventure and Intrigue from Story of Ordinary Seaman Nicola Peffers (Caitlin British Columbia’s Central Interior Second prize went to Williams Lake’s Neil J. $24.95), she describes feeling isolated and threat- (Caitlin $26.95) Sterritt for Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan ened aboard the HCMS Winnipeg, often taking History (Creekstone Press), the winner of the refuge by hiding in the black deck, a dark and Carleigh Baker Roderick Haig-Brown Prize. Michael Layland Bad Endings cramped area of the ship that nobody else wanted took third prize for A Perfect Eden (Touchwood), (Anvil Press $18) to visit. At age 26, having graduated near the top also shortlisted for the Haig-Brown Prize and the of her training class, she had optimistically boarded Joel Solomon Duthie Booksellers Choice Award. The Clean Money Revolution the ship in 2009, only to soon discover she would be ✫ (New Society $29.99) mistreated by superiors and sexually harassed. The British Columbia Historical Federation intro- After years of struggling with post traumatic stress, Deborah Griffiths duced a new award this year, the Community Nicola Peffers was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and The Grant Writing & Funding Coach: History Award, and it went to Where Mountains Target & Acquire the Funds You Need put in a permanent medical category by the navy. Meet the Sea: An Illustrated History of (Self-Counsel Press $17.95) The categorization meant that she could the District of North Vancouver by not be promoted or receive any more Bev Sellars Daniel Francis (Harbour). Price Paid: The Fight for training, resulting in the end of her First Nations Survival naval career. She was honourably For more news on book prize (Talonbooks $19.95) Nicola Peffers discharged in 2012. 978-1-987915-43-3 winners see pages 19-25.

Eve Publication Mail Agreement Contributors: John Moore, All BC BookWorld reviews are posted at #40010086 Joan Givner, Mark Forsythe, www.abcbookworld.com Lazarus Return undeliverable Blood, Sweat, and Alex Van Tol, David Conn, BC Canadian addresses to: Cherie Thiessen, Jeremy Fear: The Story of BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Twigg, James Paley, Inspector Vance, BOOKWORLD Vancouver, BC, Canada V6R 2S3 Caroline Woodward, Vancouver’s Caitlin Woods-Rotering Produced with the sponsorship of First Forensic Summer 2017 Writing not otherwise We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive Pacific BookWorld News Society. assistance of Canada Council, a continuous partner since credited is by staff. Investigator Volume 31 • Number 2 Publications Mail 1988, and creativeBC, a provincial partner since 2014. (Arsenal Pulp Press Registration No. 7800. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics Publisher/Writer: BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 $21.95) Consultants: Eve Lazarus Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: Christine Rondeau, Sharon Jackson Editor/Production: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Photographers: David Lester Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6R 2S3 Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Proofreaders: In-Kind Supporters: * The current topselling titles from major Associate Editor: Email: bookworld@telus.net Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Simon Fraser University Library; BC publishing companies, in no particular order. Beverly Cramp Annual subscription: $25 Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix Vancouver Public Library; UBC Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 LAZY DAYS OF SUMMER

25 Places in Canada Every Family Should Visit Jody Robbins For families planning to explore Canada during the sesquicentennial anniversary celebrations, there is no better guide. Visit the 25 best destinations for all ages across Canada, starting with Victoria, Parksville–Qualicum Beach, Vancouver, and Penticton. TouchWood Editions | $24.95 pb | $12.99 ebook

An Extraordinary Destiny Measured for Murder Hidden Lives All the Sweet Things Shekhar Paleja A Forsyth and Hay Mystery True Stories from People Who Baked Goods and Stories from An intriguing and traumatic narrative inter- Janet Brons Live with Mental Illness the Kitchen of Sweetsugarbean lacing three generations of an Indian family. In the third instalment of this Arthur Ellis Edited by Lenore Rowntree and Andrew Boden Renée Kohlman “Epic . . . fulfills all the checkmarks for great Award-nominated series, DCI Hay of Scotland A collection of personal essays that illuminate A collection of delicious recipes, heartwarming summer reading.” —Minelle Mahtani, Sense of Yard doggedly tracks a murderer targeting what life is like for those who live with mental essays, and gorgeous food photography by Place, Roundhouse Radio young women in London. illness, and how it impacts their loved ones. one of Canada’s top food bloggers. Brindle & Glass | $19.95 pb | $7.99 ebook TouchWood Editions | $14.95 pb | $7.99 ebook Brindle & Glass | $19.95 pb | $7.99 ebook TouchWood Editions | $39.95 hc | $17.99 ebook

Beckoned by the Sea Sonny Assu Birding for Kids Explore the Wild Coast Women at Work on the Cascadia Coast A Selective History A Guide to Finding, Identifying, and with Sam and Crystal Sylvia Taylor Sonny Assu, with Candice Hopkins, Marianne Photographing Birds in Your Area Gloria Snively; illustrated by Karen Gillmore Nicolson, Richard Van Camp, and Evelyn Walker Damon Calderwood and Donald E. Waite A fascinating exploration of the lives of 24 Children aged 8 to 11 will delight in this women who work with the sea—as fishers, This stunning retrospective includes over 120 Filled with dozens of tips, tools and ideas, this beautifully illustrated story about a sister boat captains, engineers, artists and full-colour works by acclaimed artist Sonny colourful guide provides kids with everything and brother who learn about the marine passionate protectors of our endangered Assu, with commentary by leading observers they need to become successful birders. environment while cruising the coast with marine resources. of contemporary Indigenous art. Heritage House | $14.95 pb their aunt and uncle. Heritage House | $19.95 pb | $15.99 ebook Heritage House | $34.95 pb Heritage House | $22.95 hc

Cycling the Islands Seaside Walks on Popular Day Hikes 3 Popular Day Hikes 5 John Crouch Vancouver Island Gerry Shea Gerry Shea The ultimate resource for cyclists looking Theo Dombrowski Northern Okanagan South-Central Okanagan to explore the beauty and splendour of This bestselling guidebook is the perfect year- Essential hikes stretching from Grindrod in the A full-colour guide with 35 accessible treks BC’s Gulf Islands and the American San round companion for those looking to explore north to Vernon in the south, situated between around Kelowna, Penticton, Naramata, Oliver, Juan Islands. beaches, coastal forests and seaside meadows. the Okanagan Valley and the Shuswap. Osoyoos, Summerland, Peachland and Keremeos. RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $20 pb | $9.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $15 pb | $7.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $15 pb | $9.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $15 pb | $9.99 ebook

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4 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 PEOPLE A RARE HAPPY ENDING IN SYRIA

f Donald Trump was capable of reading a book, their homeland after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. She probably the best one to send him from among the was also assisting in the founding of a school for displaced seven that received BC Book Prizes this year would girls. She spent months searching for her friend, leading to a have to be Deborah Campbell’s A Disappear- hoped-for outcome. ance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and “There is so much to admire in the work of Deborah Camp- Survival in the Shadow of War (Knopf, 2016) bell,” wrote George Fetherling, one of the three Evans Prize ISeven years in the making, Campbell’s story recalls the jurists. “Whether she is writing about war artists, international 2007 disappearance of her guide and friend, Ahlam, an care-givers, the bafflingly complex politics of nuclear arms, undercover journalist who was forcibly taken from her home or the ongoing refugee crisis in the Middle East, she does not in Damascus by secret police. It has won the Hubert Evans shy from controversy, and is devoted to letting all voices find Non-Fiction Prize, having also received the 2017 Freedom to a place on her page.” Read Award and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Of the seven B.C. Book Prizes, the Evans Prize is by far Prize. the most difficult to win because it attracts the most entries. Campbell was in Syria reporting on Iraqis who had fled For more on the BC Prizes, see pages 19-25. 9780345809292

Deborah Campbell THE BEAUTY BURDEN Grant Lawrence

URELY ONE OF THE MOST HARROWING AND riveting tales of being raised by back- to-the-land idealists during the so- called counter-culture movement has to be Cea Sunrise Person’s North of SNormal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Counterculture Family, and How I Survived Both (HarperCollins, 2014). It took much of her adult life to get her bearings. She was removed from the outside world and raised in a canvas tipi by her naive, teenage mother and her grandparents, Grandma Jeanne and Papa Dick. HIGHWAY HIJINKS Hunting and scavenging for food, her free-range As a pop music aficionado, Grant Lawrence must have known before he decided to publish his memoir of being lead singer for his widely-trav- childhood left her vulnerable to abuse. elled, never widely-touted rock band, The Smugglers, that he had some hard Her recovery period from adolescence acts to follow. Having co-founded the Hard Rock Miners in 1987, Michael to motherhood has now been outlined Turner had already set the bar high with Hard Core Logo (Arsenal, 1993, in a second memoir, Nearly Normal: 2009), later made into a movie. John Armstrong’s Guilty Of Everything (New Star, 2001) was shortlisted for a B.C. Book Prize for recalling his Surviving the Wilderness, My Fami- exploits as Buck Cherry in Vancouver’s old-school punk scene with The ly and Myself (HarperCollins $24.99) Modernettes. And Lawrence would have been aware of the shadow Neglect and cruelties had led her cast by D.O.A. frontman Joe Keithley’s memoir I, Shithead (Arsenal, 2004), now into its third printing. The good news is Lawrence’s rework- to confusion: what the heck was ing of his tour diaries for Dirty Windshields: The Best and Worst normal? Her face led her to a mod- of the Smugglers Tour Diaries (D&M $26.95) contains some of the eling career at age thirteen, but best and funniest writing you’re going to find just about anywhere. Of what could trading on her good course, there’s no shortage of dismal circumstances and raucous tom- foolery, but Lawrence’s description of the band’s arrival in Los Angeles looks teach her? during the aftermath of race riots, in response to the acquittal of police Predators abound, in the for beating Rodney King, is riveting. “Los Angeles reeked. The stench bush or on runways, and no was a disturbing combination of exhaust fumes, campfire smoke and burning plastic...” amount of idealistic clap-trap Dirty Windshields cannot be dismissed as a paean to boy-band and self-righteous philoso- glory days; it’s a finely edited, very smart and wholesome On phizing is going to protect The Road. Okay, so Jack Kerouac didn’t come home to someone with the beauty his doting Mom and Dad, but Lawrence has his own style, his own adventures. The Smugglers never topped burden. 978-1443449052 Cea Sunrise Person the charts but this writing deserves a chorus of praise. 978-1-77162-148-9

5 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 Islands of light in the mystic blue ocean of the mind! celebrating 35 years of fine literary publishing New worlds from Ekstasis Editions

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6 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review SPORTS

Intrigue and heroism at the Commonwealth Games of 1954

HOW VANCOUVER CAME OF

Roger Bannister surges past John Landy at Empire Stadium, Vancouver, 1954

The Miracle Mile: on his right—and for the first less sportsniks. He lets us research, we learn about tiny, and a crafty realist who knows StoriesAGE of the 1954 British time two men ran a mile under glimpse the charmingly dash- feisty Marjorie Jackson-Nel- how to hook his readers. Empire and Commonwealth Games by Jason Beck four minutes. ing, gold medal-winning Trini- son who went from poverty in Having written articles on (Caitlin $29.95) Beck provides gripping, in- dad sprinter Mike Agostini as outback Australia to four gold the Bannister and Peters rac- depth accounts of how Ban- he cuts a Casanova swathe medals in Vancouver, followed es, I am envious and admiring nister triumphed gloriously, through the women of the by a happy marriage, work in of how much Beck manages IN THE MIRACLE MILE: STORIES OF Landy lost admirably. Equally Games village. charities and eventually six to add to previous knowledge, the 1954 British Empire and riveting is his description of He provides a deservedly years as governor of South and how vividly he recounts Commonwealth Games, Ja- the poor, heat-exhausted mar- full portrait of Jackie Mac- Australia. what he has discovered. His son Beck explores the planning, athoner Jim Peters who stag- Donald, who combined Mari- Doug Hepburn, born in Chapter 10 about Jim Peters, hitches and setbacks involved in gered, collapsed and nearly lyn Monroe blonde beauty Vancouver with a clubbed foot “Saturday August 7, 1954,” hosting an event that turned the died. The appalling footage of with the power and dedication and alcoholic father, some- is as good as historical sports world’s attention to Vancouver Peters’ failure nearly matched of one of the first women ever how develops his own new writing gets. for the first time. He revisits the notoriety of the Bannister/ to lift weights in training, techniques for weight-lifting Beck provides an almost the stories of the athletes who made those ten days a water- Landy mile at the time. also giving Canada a silver training and becomes the mile-by-mile account of the shed in B.C. history. Reviewer Along the way, Beck enter- medal in the shot put. She was strongest man in the world, heat and horror of that mara- Roger Robinson insists the tains us with characters and dumped from the discus by winning Vancouver’s only thon in which Peters was 1954 games helped transform stories we (in my case) never Canadian officials individual gold medal. Later filmed, dazed and confused, Vancouver from a colonial out- or barely knew. To open, we for suppos- he fails as a fitness gym busi- staggering, unable to get to post to a multicultural metropolis. get the loud and bullheaded edly in- nessman, lapses into alcohol- tape, even though he had en- Erwin Swangard, the sports fringing ism, recovers, writes poetry, tered the stadium far in the ROM JULY 30 TO editor who first conceived, amateur and becomes a philosopher lead. Stan Cox, the second August 7, 1954, announced, and shoved into rules — influenced by Eastern spiritu- English runner, also ended a little Canadian existence the whole idea of in effect, ality. Hepburn invents fitness unconscious in a ditch. city tucked away bidding for the Games. “Screw for looking equipment and breaks more This book shows the Games on the very edge Hamilton,” he reportedly said, too sexy. lifting world records in older were a seminal event in the Fof the western world hosted “Let’s get them for Vancouver.” Through age categories. history of Vancouver. Beck a previously minor sporting Then we meet the irrepress- Beck’s careful After reading this book, you asserts the community (de- festival quaintly called the ibly inventive Jack Diamond, will never think again that spite pre-Games intrigues “British Empire and Common- the meat-packing entrepre- sports stars are and squabbles) came together wealth Games.” The previous neur who thought up fund- all brainless and in volunteer unity and found Empire Games had occurred raising ideas, from cattle sales boring. confident, communal energy. in drab New Zealand in 1950, to celebrity dinners with Bob ✫ Beck documents how a city and nobody had noticed. Hope, from pre-season hockey JASON BECK, where few residents had ever Even now, history still games to a bowling-alleys-for- curator of the before seen a black African or drags its academic feet in the-Games Sunday that nearly BC Sports a Fijian opened their homes to recognizing the social and got him arrested for breaking Hall of Fame all athletes. He suggests that cultural importance of sport, the Lord’s Day Act. in BC Place the Games-long atmosphere of so it’s a treat to read a fine We follow the baby-faced Stadium, has genuine international goodwill book that fully records how workaholic general chair- proven him- was “perhaps one of the earli- important those Games were man of the Games, Stanley self to be a est signs of Vancouver’s future for Vancouver and the history Smith, as he somehow steers meticulous of pervading multicultural- of sport. the whole turbulent process researcher, ism.” 978-1-987915-00-6 Beck had no choice but of preparation. The stadium a compelling to call his book The Miracle construction is a teetering tale story-teller Roger Robinson lives in New Mile and put the familiar, of delays, design errors, and Zealand and New York. His iconic Roger Bannister/John sheer screw-ups. books include Running in Lit- Jackie Mac- Landy image on the cover. As Once the first gun goes, Donald: a star erature, Spirit of the Marathon, Landy glimpses over his left Beck reveals the competi- of the shot put and the Oxford Companion to shoulder, Bannister passes tors as real people, not face- and discus New Zealand Literature.

7 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 8 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review ENVIRONMENT ChangeDAVID & IAN VS. CLIMATE

Near the proposed Site C dam, the Meikle Wind Farm is the largest wind power project in British Columbia.

Just Cool It: The Climate Crisis Everything is connected. So •We can cultivate habits of will flood 80 square km of the tal Protection Agency, removed and What We Can Do by David Just Cool It gives exhaustive bicycling, walking, and using Peace River Valley containing restrictions from dumping Suzuki and Ian Hanington (Greystone Books $24.95) details about the effect of our public transportation instead valuable farmland and essen- highly toxic coal mining waste addiction to fossil fuels, our of cars. tial wildlife habitat. The justi- into streams and rivers and THE ORMSBY REVIEW profligate use of fertilizers, •We can resist anti-transit fication for it is that we need sent troops to clear Native BY JOHN GELLARD deforestation, overfishing and campaigns. another reliable “base-load” American protestors away the “massive swirling islands •We can insulate our homes power station. The authors from construction of the Da- A CATASTROPHICALLY NARCISSISTIC of plastic waste in the oceans.” and use energy-efficient light- argue that the base-load idea kota Access Pipeline. president in the U.S. believes If the oceans are being ing. is obsolete and that we should Our own government of climate change is a Chinese hoax ruined, can the land be far •We can install solar panels take advantage of the versatil- Canada has approved the and other politicians are being behind? The book gives vivid on our houses. ity of “variable renewables” Site C dam, and the Kinder- accused of taking illegal dona- accounts of desertification of •We can buy less “stuff” and hooked up to a “smart nimble Morgan pipeline which will tions from energy companies via grasslands, massive insect in- waste less. grid” that can co-ordinate sup- bring diluted bitumen to the surrogates, so David Suzuki and vasion of forests, catastrophic •We can eat less meat and, by ply and demand. coast to be shipped off in su- Ian Hanington have provided storms and floods, and migra- composting, waste less food. Renewables would include pertankers—400 a year. The realistic solutions in Just Cool tions of people escaping star- loaded tankers will inevitably It: The Climate Crisis and vation when droughts cause destroy the coastal ecosys- What We Can Do. If we can crops to fail. tem whether or not they run put a man on the moon, Suzuki Do you make fun of Al aground. says we can change the outcome Gore? Are you a climate of the dire crisis that is upon us. ✫ change denier or skeptic? SO WHAT IS TO BE DONE WHEN WE UMAN ACTIVITY IS Just Cool It examines how The have governments that are so profoundly al- Heartland Institute falsely ar- in thrall to the powerful, im- tering the bio- gues that “global warming is a personal force field of Capital sphere and, by myth; that it’s happening but that they are incapable of act- extension, the it’s natural … that it’s hap- ing in the best interests of the Hvery geology of the planet. The pening but we shouldn’t worry people and of the planet? atmosphere is heating up. It’s about it, that global cooling is It’s as if we were on a run- a result of human greed and the real problem … that CO2 away train. The First Class wilful ignorance. If we don’t is a benign gas that stimulates David Suzuki and Ian Hanington passengers are feasting and do something about it, the plant growth.” celebrating, and there’s a mad human species is done for by David Suzuki and Ian In our agriculture, we can solar, wind, tidal, and geo- engine driver at the controls. the end of the century. Hanington carefully point get away from factory farm- thermal. Development of these How do we stop the train be- The bulk of Just Cool It: out fallacies in such argu- ing and monocultures that systems is growing by leaps fore it reaches the bridge that The Climate Crisis and What ments, including the “false use GMO seeds requiring and bounds, and the costs are isn’t there? We Can Do is taken up with dichotomy” that pits “the nat- chemicals. We can “design an coming down. The Meikle wind Is revolt our only hope? solutions—things we can do ural environment against the agro-ecosystem that mimics farm, for example, near Site C, Marches? Petitions? Civil individually and collectively— human-invented economy.” the structure and function of now generates close to twenty disobedience? David Suzuki but first we must understand They convincingly dismiss the local ecosystems and replace percent of the expected power and Ian Hanington have done what global warming is. What notion that “economic growth” GMOs with “evolutionary of the dam at about a quar- such a thorough job of offering is meant by calling carbon necessarily offers happiness. plant breeding.” The authors ter of the cost per megawatt. solutions. dioxide a “greenhouse gas”? So what is to be done? praise the urban agriculture And the sixty-one beautiful The Epilogue in Just Cool It Why is methane a much more As individuals we can resist movement which uses space turbines have a far smaller begins to suggest some of our potent greenhouse gas than an economic system that en- within cities to grow food and “footprint.” next steps. 9781771642590 CO2? courages waste and consump- keep livestock. ✫ What is a “positive feed- tion and the careless use of Technological solutions IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT JUST COOL IT John Gellard is a retired teach- back” mechanism? What is fossil fuels. are most important. We must was completed before the elec- er whose articles have ap- the “albedo effect” that should • We can divest from the revolutionize the way we pro- tion of Donald Trump whose peared in the Globe and Mail keep the Arctic Ocean cold but fossil fuel industry and in- duce electricity. Right now, in new U.S. administration is and the Watershed Sentinel. doesn’t? Why is this particular vest in renewable energy. northern B.C., construction packed with climate change He was named Canada’s “Best geological epoch called the •We can use fuel-efficient has begun on the 1100 mega- deniers. Administrative orders High School Teacher” in a Ma- Anthropocene? cars or electric cars. watt Site C dam. The reservoir have gutted the Environmen- clean’s poll in August 2005.

9 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review FIRST NATIONS

Medicine Unbundled: and about listening. It begins A Journey Through the Gary Geddes tells it like it was: with a conversation between Minefi elds of Indigenous Joanie Morris Health Care by Gary Geddes sterilization, starvation, botched operations, Geddes and , a (Heritage House $22.95) sexual abuse, medical experiments, Songhees elder and survivor THE ORMSBY REVIEW of Kuper Island Residential absence of family and neglect. School. A photo of her mother, BY MARY-ELLEN KELM Mary Theresa Morris, who spent seventeen years in the HAROLD CARDINAL’S ASSESSMENT Nanaimo Indian Hospital, is of Canada’s Indigenous policy in featured on the cover of Medi- 1969 as “a thinly disguised pro- Genocide cine Unbundled. gramme of extermination” in The As Joanie Morris learns to Unjust Society is born out almost trust Geddes, she opens the fifty years later in Gary Geddes’ door to others who might wish non-fiction work of research and SLOW MOTION to share their stories with him. listening, Medicine Unbundled: IN They, in turn, introduce him A Journey Through the Mine- to more people until he has fields of Indigenous Health travelled halfway across this Care. country. They talk and they Along the way, Geddes coins challenge Geddes, and us, to the useful phrase “genocide in listen. slow motion.” Listening, as it turns out, By collecting first-hand testi- can be a problem for Canadi- monies from survivors of Indian ans. As Joanie Morris puts it, Hospitals, primarily in Western “the problem I have with white Canada, Geddes has generated people is that they don’t listen.” a valuable and necessary work, For decades, Canadians a non-academic complement to dismissed the testimony of Maureen K. Lux’s new study, Separate Beds: A History of In- residential school survivors dian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s- or simply refused to hear it. Some still wish to see the 1980s (UTP, 2016). “good” in the schools. ANDY MORRIS WAS The Truth and Reconcilia- worried when his tion Commission and its pub- brother Ivan did lic events across the country Snot return from offered all Canadians a chance surgery at the Na- to hear survivors’ testimony naimo Indian Hospital. Sandy and many thousands did just went to Ivan’s cot on a ward in that. Through the massive the hospital where he found TRC report, we can hope that two orderlies stripping it. the weight of such testimony Sandy recalls asking them has removed disbelief. what they were doing and Nonetheless some publish- where was his brother? They ers told Geddes, when he was responded by twisting his arm looking for a publisher for behind his back to punish the Medicine Unbun- impertinence of speaking to dled, that “no one them at all. in Canada cares As they walked away, one about Indians.” orderly said, over his shoul- As in his pre- der, that Ivan would be of no vious books on use to Sandy now; he was in violence and the morgue. reconciliation Tearfully Sandy ran to the in sub-Saharan basement of the hospital. He Africa, Geddes found Ivan on a gurney. is fascinated by Terrified and heartbroken, healing. Repeat- he pulled back the sheet to re- Joanie Morris, edly, he asks the a Songhees elder. veal Ivan’s face. Leaning forward people he speaks to kiss his brother one last time, with why they are not angry, he felt the subtle feathering of why they do not hate. They breath against his cheek. respond that in healing they And he realized Ivan was have let go of their anger. alive—and so his life was saved. They are turning inward to Clamouring noisily up the their own cultures, their lan- stairs as only a little boy can, guages, their foods, and their Sandy confronted the orderly medicines. asking him to bring his broth- This is what Indigenous er back up to the ward—he writers like Taiaike Alfred was not dead. and Lee Ann Betasamosake The orderly responded: Simpson call resurgence. It is “If you want your brother so healing for Indigenous people badly, bring him up yourself.” by Indigenous people. ✫ Mary Theresa Morris in Nanaimo Indian Hospital. She spent seventeen years there. When Geddes wonders SUCH STORIES NO LONGER SURPRISE whether he, as a white man, many of us Canadians as we with only three in Ontario. Indians with communicable moval of bone, gland and lung should be doing this work, learn more about what hap- They were opened in an era diseases and so they had tissue, long after such surgery Joanie Morris responds, “Hey, pened in residential schools. when health officials worried little choice but to go to these was considered ineffective Gary, no one has listened to us But Medicine Unbundled that intransigently high rates hospitals, often far from home treatment. for the last two hundred years, is necessary nonetheless be- of tuberculosis among Indig- and sometimes on a moment’s Not surprisingly, Geddes so why don’t you get off your cause Canadians know little enous people (status and non- notice. notes, few Indigenous people butt and be the first?” of the Indian Hospitals; their status Indians, Métis, and Their hospital stays could today are not wary of the Ca- 978-1-77203-164-5 history is only now being Inuit) would undermine the be long, lonely and traumatic. nadian medical system. documented. control over the disease that Geddes writes that the treat- ✫ Mary-Ellen Kelm is a profes- There were once twenty-two public health measures were ment offered in Indian Hos- MEDICINE UNBUNDLED IS NOT SO sor of history at Simon Fraser segrated hospitals along the gaining among Canadians. pitals was outdated. There much about medicine as it University specializing in lines of the Nanaimo Indian The Indian Act made treat- surgeons continued to perform is about human relation- medical history and settler Hospital, mostly in the West, ment compulsory for status procedures, including the re- ships, about conversations colonialism in the West.

10 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 “Enthralling fare for budding naturalists.” —Kirkus Reviews

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11 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 Judith Plant takes The Sacred Herb us on a journey andrew struthers

we’re not likely Not interested in simplistically celebrating cannabis as one of psychedelia’s ecstatic to forget. “doors to perception” nor in denouncing it as a trap door into reefer madness and the Her candour and bold gateway drug leading inevitably to heroin use, voting Trump and other pathological questions deepen activities, Struthers is up to something far more sophisticated. This book is all our own search for about nuance and wit rather that definitive relevance in a radically statements of “the truth.” changing world. —Tom Sandborn, Vancouver Sun

— Joanna Macy, author of A New Star double—2 books for the price of 1!! Widening Circles: A Memoir The Devil’s Weed Culture Gap andrew struthers TOWARDS A NEW WORLD IN THE YALAKOM VALLEY Judith Plant With his analytical apparatus constantly dialled up to 11, Struthers builds the book with cerebral playfulness . . . flipping Judith Plant’s memoir of the fleeting achievements and suppositions, inverting expectations, giving many uncommon good times of Camelsfoot, a philo- your skull a little shake so that things come a little unstuck and can settle back in a sophical commune out back of beyond, glows with wis- slightly new way. dom, complexity, and compassion. A noble read. —Stephanie Mills, author of Epicurean Simplicity and —Amy Reiswig, Focus Magazine In Service of the Wild

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12 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review MONEY

The Clean Money Revolution: nomic activist Social Venture Reinventing Power, Purpose, Network. He launched Re- and Capitalism by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge newal Partners in B.C. and (New Society Publishers $29.99) invested in budding green JOEL’S ODYSSEY ventures like Happy Planet, Capers, SPUD home organic Joel Solomon is a committed From Nashville strip malls to food delivery service and 7th capitalist with the heart and Cortez Island to Gregor’s election Generation, makers of non- soul of a 60s socialist. His newly toxic cleaning products. published memoir, The Clean “Less harm, more good.” the family business, so he at- ✫ Money Revolution is also a was exposed to local Indige- ✫ manifesto for changing the world tended Baylor Military School IN HIS TWENTIES SOLOMON LEARNED nous culture, read mountains SOLOMON IS ALSO CO-FOUNDER through Socially Responsible where, “racism and misogyny he had the same kidney con- of books on spirituality and of Tides Canada which the Investments (SRIs). That trans- were the norm” and later dition (Polycystic Kidney Dis- psychology, fought depression Harper government accused lates as ethical, sustainable and graduated from Vassar College ease) that would soon take and spent hours alone. of being comprised of “foreign aligned with values—at above with a political science degree. his father’s life, at age 63. He “Living meaningfully be- radicals” laundering money market returns. Here Mark He became a foot soldier in faced, “dialysis, transplant came my goal.” in Canada and highjacking Forysthe reviews his new book Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presi- or death.” This predicament In 1983 he received a the country’s need to develop co-written by Tyee Bridge. dential election campaign, placed him on a path, search- $50,000 payout from a fam- natural resources. and marvelled at how a pea- ing for clean food, air ily investment and HERE ARE TWO Tides was instrumental in nut farmer who came from and water. injected half into things to know helping generate donations to nowhere could win the White Consultation with Hollyhock, the re- right off the top: make the Great Bear Rainfor- House. alternative health mainder into Stony- Joel Solomon est agreement a reality, and ✫ guru Andrew Weil field, an non-profit chairs Renewal has provided some $158 mil- THE NOW ALMOST-FOROTTEN POWELL followed, with an organic farm. TFunds, a $98 million mission lion in grants. Memo of 1971 was pivotal for emphasis on non- Stonyfield broke venture capital firm, created The Clean Money Revo- Solomon, for it revealed how toxic foods, reduced ground in the U.S. in partnership with now B.C.- lution often reads like the business directly influenced stress and pursuit of MARK organic natural yo- based Rubbermaid heiress, script for a Renewal Funds politics. Lewis Franklin Pow- a spiritual purpose. gurt market and Carol Newman. FORSYTHE promotional video. We meet ell Jr. was a lawyer for tobacco This would become was later bought for He was an early backer of “change agents” using “angel giant Philip Morris (among his mantra for doing business: $180 million. Gregor Robertson’s Happy networks” for “impact invest- others). His memorandum as- “Helping to promote clean A year later his father was Planet organic juice company, ing” viewed through an “ethi- serted that business interests organic food, healthy envi- on his deathbed with renal fail- and later backstopped Robert- cal screen” to create “social must shape national think- ronments and a just society ure, pleading with his son to son’s mayoralty campaign mission based businesses.” ing. This was in reaction to a would be my life’s work.” not reject what the family busi- Solomon’s life story is A “gold mine of opportunity” rising consumer public inter- His quest for meaning and ness had created, imploring something of a history lesson awaits as $50 trillion is ex- est movement led by Ralph health included learning how him to, “do something with it.” on clashing values during the pected to change generational Nader, new environmental to be an organic gardener and Solomon inherited $3 mil- rise of the civil rights move- hands over the next 33 years. laws and occupational safety a self-described “soil freak.” lion, moved to Nashville and ment, anti-war dissent and Meanwhile, the concept of regulations. Solomon lived on Cortes invested money in small busi- environmental awakening. clean money is now embedded Powell wrote, “the Ameri- Island at a hippie farm, a nesses and grassroots organi- As a Jewish kid from Chat- in business schools; ethical can economic system is under forerunner to the non-profit zations that helped revitalize tanooga, Tennessee, he had investing through banks is broad attack.” His plan was educational institute Holly- the urban core. He calls this a a father who was shut out of a common option and the specific, with a 50-year time hock. When his mother visited “family legacy cleanup,” pretty the inner business circle but world’s largest asset manager horizon. Influential conser- she remarked that she had, much the opposite of building proceeded to build strip malls has started an Impact US Eq- vative think tanks like the “never seen people living this strip malls that suck the life across the U.S. South. uity Fund. Heritage Foundation, Busi- way by choice.” out of city centres. Solomon was groomed for Solomon has clearly ness Roundtable and the Cato One of Hollyhock’s found- In Nashville he helped get achieved his goal of living Institute emerged as a result. ers, Shivon Robinsong, do- a city councillor elected and meaningfully. 9780865718395 Business moved on Wash- nated a kidney in 2005 to help expanded his network of like- ington to lobby government save Solomon’s life. minded people who invested Mark Forsythe is the former head on, and CEOs got to Later Solomon worked for in “higher purposes.” host of CBC radio’s Almanac. know their senators. And it scien- The Threshold Foundation paid off. Lower taxes, business tist and (created with Carol Newman) friendly legislation and less Green- spawned the eco- government were the result. peace ac- So that’s partly how Solo- tivist Paul mon came to believe and Spong at understand that the socially OrcaLab progressive left should “play on Han- bigger” in the corridors of son Is- power. Meaning: Clean money land. He could overcome dark money.

Joel Solomon (at right).

One of Hollyhock’s founders, Shivon Robinsong, donated a kidney in 2005 that saved Soloman’s life.

13 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 WINNER of the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

Dying to Please You The Dwindling Rare is Everywhere Mapping My Way Home Indigenous Suicide A Daughter's Caregiving Journey Deborah Katz A Gitxsan History in Contemporary Canada on the Edge of Life Neil Sterritt Roland Chrisjohn et al Janet Dunnett Rare is Everywhere takes readers on a This important book shares stories of the journey through the animal kingdom, revealing Gitxsan people and their struggles with the This compelling new book offers ground- This impassioned story tells of twin sisters that tigers can be white, grasshoppers can arrival of European explorers and settlers. breaking insights into the causes of who had to deal with two aging parents. be pink and lobsters can be blue. Showcasing Author and Gitxsan leader Neil Sterritt, also indigenous suicide, homicide and treatment They learn to recognize both excellence and eleven incredible animals through vibrant mixed shares his own journey from 1940s Hazelton by examining current systems, bureaucratic LPSHUIHFWLRQV LQ GRFWRU¶V RI¿FHV HPHUJHQF\ media illustrations and playful rhymes, the into the international mining world and back treatments and government policies that do wards, dementia lockups, assisted living and book teaches children not only about animals, to the ancestral village site of Temlaham more harm than good. The authors offer in- ORQJWHUPFDUHLQVWLWXWLRQVDQG¿QDOO\KRVSLFHV but also about self acceptance, diversity and ZKHUH KH KHOSHG KLV SHRSOH ¿JKW IRU ODQG depth arguments and alternative solutions to It raises the question, ”What will happen when how our differences make us spectacular. in the ground-breaking Delgamuukw court these grave and increasing problems. the boomer generation begins to dwindle?” 9780995826106 $19.95 hc case. 9781926886466 $32.95 pb Theytus Books 9780995864412 $20 pb Journeys Press Miss Bird Books 9781928195023 $29.95 paperback 9781928195016 $39.95 hardcover Creekstone Press

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14 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review Celebrating 35 years in 2017 FICTION NSHINE COAS SU T

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Tickets on sale NOW! Kamal Al-Solaylee Gurjinder Basran Pat Carney Janie Chang Eva Crocker Geoff Dembicki Joseph Denham Charlotte Gray Kathryn Gretsinger Ian Hamilton Steven Heighton Anosh Irani Joy Kogawa Ahmad Danny Ramadan at Vancouver Gay Pride Mark Leiren-Young Amber McMillan EXODUS FROM Sandra Martin Robert Moor Donna Morrissey Iain Reid BRUTALITY David A. Robertson The Clothesline Swing Rachel Rose describes a series of escapes to Bev Sellars reach freedom in Vancouver. Shari Ulrich with Kirby Barber and Julia Graff Zoe Whittall The Clothesline Swing $80,000 to assist Syrian refugees to by Ahmad Danny Ramadan come to Canada. Clea (Nightwood Editions $19.95) Young His first novel in English, The Clothesline Swing, is reviewed here HMAD DANNY RAMADAN HAD by Cherie Thiessen. two collections of Arabic ✫ short stories under his “ONE OF THE DEAREST MEMORIES I HAVE OF belt, Death and Other my childhood,” says Ahmad Danny Fools (2004), and Ary Ramadan, “is when I snunk onto a tel: A(2008), when he was among the first neighbouring rooftop and cut down the 604.885.9631604.885.9631 wave of 1,300 Syrian refu- clotheslines and used them to toll free: gees who arrived in Canada build myself a swing on my 1.800.565.96311.800.565.9631 in 2014. family’s balcony. buybuy ticketstickets onlineonline atat His first book in English “It didn’t last for long, and www.share-there.com/writersfestivalwww.share-there.com/writersfestival was a translation of texts by it fell down within days, but Saudi Arabian blogger, Raif I really felt proud of it. It was www.writersfestival.cawww.writersfestival.ca Badawi, who was lashed for always a joyful memory of his criticisms of Saudi Ara- mine that I built something bian society, 1000 Lashes: CHERIE out of something entirely dif- Because I Say What I Think ferent.” (2015). THEISSEN ✫ An activist for refugees and LGBTQ THE CLOTHESLINE IN RAMADAN’S NOVEL IS A communities, Ramadan served as symbol that reflects one of the few grand marshal for last year’s Vancou- times the sun got through; it’s a slice ver Gay Pride parade and his fund- of his past life that sustains him. The raiser, Evening in Damascus, raised continued on page 17

15 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 A Queer Love Story The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout Edited by Marilyn R. Schuster Book Launches

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[email protected] | www.anvilpress.com SUMMER ’17 RECENT RELEASES: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIES by Christopher Gudgeon THREE PLEASURES by Terry Watada At once bitterly funny, provocative and poignant, this remarkable collection—follow up to Greeting from the Vodka The Three Pleasures is an intimate and passionate novel Sea, Gudgeon’s short story debut—The Encyclopedia of Lies concerning an unsightly and painful period in Canada’s history. builds on his growing literary reputation, offering up the work of a great storyteller at his very best. “Terry Watada’s literary tour de force, The Three Pleasures, lifts the Japanese Canadian internment experience beyond passive “Gudgeon’s penchant for conjuring vulnerable, dynamic characters is clear in The Encyclopedia of Lies, perhaps most victimization by giving life to a host of historical figures— vividly in ‘Jericho’—a bewildering tragedy about a burgeoning heroes, villains and tragic characters—in a fascinating yet friendship that recalls Gus Van Sant’s queer cult classic My little-known resistance movement within the camps. An Own Private Idaho.”—Xtra absolute page-turner and worthy read.” $20 | 224 pgs. | 978-1-77214-075-0 | Stories —Jim Wong-Chu, Director, literASIAN Festival BAD ENDINGS $24 | 384 pgs. | 978-1-77214-095-8 | Novel | July by Carleigh Baker “Things are on the edge, askew, as they are in every story in LONG RIDE YELLOW Carleigh Baker’s debut collection, which features rushing by Martin West rivers and waves splashing on the shore ... Because bad endings The debut novel from the author of Cretacea & Other Stories make for good endings, story-wise, leaving possibilities open, the characters on the cusp of something, always something from the Badlands, Long Ride Yellow explores the limits of sexual around the next corner, a blessing and a curse.” desire. Nonni is a dominatrix who likes to push the boundaries; —Kerry Clare, Pickle Me This she is also easily bored. Her disdain for all that is conventional $18 | 168 pgs. | 978-1-77214-076-7 | Stories and “vanilla” launches her on a journey of personal discovery. $20 | 256 pgs. | 978-1-77214-094-1 | Novel | June A TEMPORARY STRANGER by Jamie Reid A Temporary Stranger is the final manuscript that Jamie Reid YOU ARE NOT NEEDED NOW by Annette Lapointe was working on when he died unexpectedly in June of 2015. The book is comprised of three sections: “Homages,” “Fake You Are Not Needed Now is a brilliant new collection of stories Poems,” and “Recollections.” from Giller-nominated author Annette Lapointe. Often set “Jamie Reid is a writer of significant powers. … Like the man within the small towns of the Canadian prairies, the stories in himself, vibrating still, this superb posthumous collection is a You Are Not Needed Now dissect and examine the illusion of rare and wondrous pleasure.”—Stephen Roxborough appearances, the myth of normalcy, and the allure of artifice. “Reading these poems, as they oscillate between conveying and $20 | 224 pgs. | 978-1-77214-093-4 | Stories | June receiving, we are placed in fields of significance, of precision, Jamie’s thinking translating the ineffable as waves that slap the sides of our ever-departing boat.”—Lary Bremner $18 | 160 pgs. | 978-1-77214-098-9 | Poetry/Essays

16 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review FICTION continued from page 15 he finds employment and friends—he clothesline swing is a refuge for his thinks—until he is attacked and beat- deeply troubled mother, and a re- en almost senseless after they learn of minder that life can be idyllic. his homosexuality. “On the balcony,” recalls the nar- The character of Death visits him rator Hakawati, “my father built her in the hospital, wearing a black hood, a swing using old clotheslines and an smoking dope, drinking coffee and abandoned pillow… every morning my chatting with Hakawati. Later in the mother sat on the pillow...enjoying the novel this character of Death will move warmth of the sun as it filled Damas- in with the storyteller. cus with life…She used to pick me Meanwhile Hakawati begins a shel- up in her arms in the early afternoon tered life with a lover who is in a secure hours, sit me on the clothesline swing financial position. After two years, this and push me higher.” begins to feel more like a prison than Life becomes a nightmare for a loving relationship. Hakawati (Arabic for storyteller) when Then the storyteller returns to Syria his mother becomes bi-polar. Scars where he finds employment at a news- from these abusive paper. Surrounded years will never Then the story- by friends, he cre- fade. The love be- ates a life largely tween his father teller returns to fueled by parties, and his mother promiscuity, alco- fades. His mother’s Syria where he hol and drugs. illness grows and In this violent his father’s inter- finds employment and dissipated est in the family at a newspaper. world, he meets dwindles until he the love of his life is rarely there, leav- Surrounded by through a dating ing the narrator to website. He con- endure years of fear friends, he cre- vinces this new for his life. ates a life largely love—known only After Hakawa- as The Listener—to ti unsuccessfully fueled by parties, come with him to runs away, his fa- Beirut to get away ther takes him to promiscuity, alco- from the violence, his grandmother’s fear and torture home where he hol and drugs. of the Syrian Civil comes to love her as War. a surrogate parent. His grandmother A chance on-line meeting with a manages to squeeze enough affection Canadian who wants to help fuels out of her already busy family life to his plan for a final exodus to North sustain her grandson. America. WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA

From an early age the beleaguered His entire life can be viewed as a ★ ★ youth has been attracted to males. series of escapes from violence. KARIOTAKIS HEAR ME As a 15-year-old, his coming-out is ✫ I POLYDOURI OUT brutal. After he suddenly blurts out to ON THEIR GRUELING JOURNEY The Tragic his father that he’s gay, he is locked towards freedom, Hakawati tries to Poems by Love Story Tzoutzi in his room and routinely keep up the spirits of The Listener Mantzourani beaten by his father much as Scheherazade did in One Poems by Kostas Kariotakis Translated by who is deaf to the Thousand and One Nights. and Manolis Maria Polydouri grandmother’s Just as Scheherazade told in- Translated by entreaties. teresting tales so that the sultan Manolis The grand- would spare her life, the story- $20 mother eventu- teller is keeping his partner alive $20 ally helps him with 17 stories of his past, their ISBN: 9781926763453 ISBN: 9781926763408 escape. He com- shared memories and of a dy- mences a peri- ing Syria. patetic life: beg- No personal names are ever ging on the streets, given. The third main character working in a sand- in the story is Death. wich shop. In Egypt, “There are many stories in the novel that reflect and mirror my own experiences,” Ramadan told BC BookWorld, “and others that I sewed together from the stories I know of, or heard through friends and family members. “Hakawati has some of my insecurities and represents the very $48 real abandonment issue that I realize within myself.” EROTOKRITOS CHTHONIAN BODIES [FOR COLLECTORS OF RARE BOOKS] This is a story Poetry by Vitsentzos Kornaros. Transcribed by Manolis Poems by Manolis.Paintings by Ken Kirkby of modern Syrian ISBN: 9781926763361 ISBN: 9781926763408 refugees that takes us far deeper than $20 news reports of tearful, welcoming hugs at airports. 978-0-88971-332-1 $20

Cherie Thiessen $20 $18 reviews fiction Ahmad Danny ISBN: 9781926763439 ISBN: 9781926763385 ISBN: 9781926763415 ISBN: 9781926763378 from Pender Ramadan Island. WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA

17 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF THE 33RD ANNUAL BC BOOK PRIZES!

OK P Douglas Coupland WIN THE WINNERS CONTEST O R recipient of the 2017 I B Z LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR’S AWARD FOR LITERARY Enter to win a collection of all seven EXCELLENCE winning titles. See participating E C

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Iona Campagnolo to recognize British Columbia www.bcbookprizes.ca. Contest runs B writers who have contributed to the development of literary excellence in the province. from May 14 – June 11, 2017.

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18 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 BC BOOK PRIZES

GETTING WAGAMESE

Richard Wagamese’s novel Indian Horse INTO THE has reportedly sold 60,000 INTO THE copies. For his obituary, visit abcbookworld.com CIRCLECIRCLE

At the 33rd annual B.C. Book Prizes, four awards out of seven went to books with Indigenous content

Facebook posts, White suggested Rather than serving as the evening’s finale, as he Wagamese should recalibrate his on- had anticipated—Coupland was introduced at the line meditations, giving rise to Embers, outset of the ceremonies. He good-naturedly recalled a non-fiction collection that topped the his visits to remote B.C. locations with his father who BC Bestsellers List for weeks prior to had his own Beaver airplane. PHOTO winning the Duthie Prize. “We all come from this place, which really is a “I love accepting this award,” White place,” said the author of Generation X: Tales for an MILLER continued, “because I get to remember Accelerated Culture (1991). “It’s a very small province,”

MONICA Bill Duthie who presided over his fa- he said, “but it’s large at the same time. Your B.C. Douglas Coupland with Honourable Judith mous bookstore at Robson and Burrard.” He recalled is not my B.C.” Guichon, Lieutenant Governor of B.C. that although Andy Wright at Eaton’s nearby, in During his opening acceptance speech, Coupland downtown Vancouver, was selling more books, it was also thanked Alma Lee, Alan Twigg and Hal Wake for HERE WAS MUTED APPLAUSE Duthie who was beloved and became legendary. their roles in promoting literary awareness. In 1973, as a first-time book publisher with 3,000 ✫ when Richard Wagamese copies of his first book, White was rebuffed by several DEBORAH CAMPBELL RECEIVED THE HUBERT EVANS NON-FICTION was announced as this bookstores before he entered Duthie’s with trepidation. Prize for her second book, A Disappearance in Da- As Bill Duthie sat on his stool and thumbed mascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the year’s winner of the Bill through the new book, White’s heart sank. Duthie’s Shadow of War (Knopf). T gruff manner could be intimidating. But Duthie Campbell did not speak much about her book Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award for bought one hundred books on the spot, paying White which recalls the 2007 disappearance of her Syrian Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations in cash, up front. guide and friend, under- “He just wanted to give cover journalist Ahlam, (Douglas & McIntyre). a shaggy kid a break,” “It’s easy for us to feel Richard Wagamese died in Kamloops on March White recalled. we are on the edge of the 10, 2017. Douglas & McIntyre world in B.C.,” she said, This is a publisher’s award but unfortunately the and Harbour Publishing “but I think this is our presentation process hadn’t made that clear, so it have won 19 of the 33 strength.” was encumbent upon D&M publisher Howard White Duthie Booksellers’ Choice continued on page 21 to explain why he was on the stage—for his tenth Awards since 1985. acceptance speech in this category since 1994—and ✫ why Wagamese was not. HAVING NEVER RECEIVED A B.C. Ashley Little, a previ- “I so wish he was here to accept this,” said White, Book Prize, the province’s ous Book Prize winner; most successful author who described Wagamese as a natural, brilliant writer Cynara Geissler, who overcame enormous difficulties as a child and worldwide, Douglas Cou- marketing manager youth. pland, ended up accepting at Arsenal Pulp Press; PHOTO “He suffered enormously. It was only in his twenties, his Lieutenant Governor’s and Aaron Chapman, when he began connecting with his Ojibway heritage, Award for Literary Ex- Duthie Booksellers’ MILLER that he began to understand his potential as a writer.” cellence sooner than he Choice Award nominee

Seeing Wagamese put his heart and soul into expected. MONICA

19 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 CANADA150

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George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award

Rolf Knight, B.C.’s foremost historian of the working class, has hitherto been largely unheralded. A steadfast enemy of the notion that there exists such a phenomenon as the common man, Knight grew up in B.C. logging camps, gained his M.A. in anthropology at UBC in 1962, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1968. Disaf- fected by the narrowness of his fellow academics and the ignorance of his students, Knight left his teaching job at SFU and drove a taxi in Vancouver, simultaneously producing a string of books that dignified workers. In particular, his Indians at Work: An Informal History of Native Indian Labour in British Columbia 1858–1930 (New Star, 1978) documented the integral role of Indigenous people in the B.C. economy since Confederation. New Star Books released nearly all of his books with the noteworthy exception of the biography, Rolf Knight Homer Stevens: A Life in Fishing (Harbour, 1992). Rolf Knight The public is welcome to hear Rolf Knight’s remarks when he receives the 24th George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award at the BIBLIOGRAPHY: A Very Ordinary Life with Phyllis Knight (New Star, 1974) • Work Camps & Company Towns in Canada & the United States (New Star, 1975) • A Man of our Times: Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia Street, A Life-History of a Japanese-Canadian Fisherman with Maya Koizumi (New Star, 1976) • 7 pm, Thursday, June 29. SKYLER Stump Ranch Chronicles & Other Narratives (New Star, 1977) • Indians at Work: An In- formal History of Native Indian Labour in B.C. 1858-1930 (New Star, 1978, 1996) • Along the No. 20 Line: Reminiscences of the Vancouver Waterfront (New Star, 1980; 2011) • Traces ANNAKYN of Magma: An Annotated Bibliography of Left Literature (Draegerman, 1983) • Voyage BY Through the Mid-Century (New Star, 1988; 2013) • Homer Stevens: A Life in Fishing with Homer Stevens (Harbour, 1992) • Voyage Through the Past Century (New Star, 2013) PHOTO

20 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 PRIZES continued from page 19 Rivers, the resiliency of the First Nations residents who have maintained the villages of Gitanmaax and HAVING PREVIOUSLY WON BOTH THE 2016 LITPOP AWARD FOR Poetry and the 2016 Walrus Reader’s Choice Award Hazelton, as well as his own personal story of grow- for Poetry, another neophyte author, Adèle Barclay, ing up in Hazelton and helping his people fight the took home the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for her Delgamuukw court case. debut collection, If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out Sterritt’s overview stretches from the creation tales for You (Nightwood). “Poetry exists outside of capital- of Wiigyet to the advent of oil and gas pipeline pro- ism and colonialism,” she said, during another brief posals, including tales of the Madiigam Ts’uwii Aks acceptance speech. (supernatural grizzly of the waters), the founding of ✫ Gitanmaax, Kispiox and Hagwilget and the coming of the fur traders, miners, packers, missionaries and DEBUT NOVELIST JENNIFER MANUEL ACCEPTED THE ETHEL WIL- son Fiction Prize for The Heaviness of Things That telegraphers. Float (D&M), a modern drama set on a remote West ✫ PHOTO Coast First Nations reserve. Manuel, too, also spoke AN AWARD THAT STRESSES THE ROLE OF THE ILLUSTRATOR, THE Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

briefly, thanking Indigenous writer Monique Gray MILLER

Smith for inspiring her and also confiding she wrote was presented to author Monique Gray Smith—who contributed the brief text—and Cree-Métis illustrator to “honour the relationship between Indigenous and MONICA Non-Indigenous people.” Neil J. Sterritt of Williams Lake won the Julie Flett for their collaboration Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize on My Heart Fills With Happi- ness (Orca). ✫ This was Flett’s third win in NEIL J. STERRITT, ANOTHER FIRST-TIME AUTHOR, MADE A the category in seven years. She PHOTO

similar comment when he won the Roderick Haig- won the Harris Prize in 2011 for Brown Regional Prize for Mapping My Way Home: Owls See Clearly at Night and MILLER A Gitxsan History (Creekstone), a multi-faceted look again in 2015 for Dolphin SOS, at the history, culture and politics in his northern co-authored with Roy Miki and MONICA Kispiox territory. Julie Flett Slavia Miki. “When I was asked to write this book in 2008,” he The Sheila A. Egoff Children’s said, “I wanted to respect all of the cultures.” Literature Prize for the best non-illustrated book for Sterritt delivered one of the few speeches that children went to Iain Lawrence for The Skeleton included personal details. Tree (Tundra Books) but the Gabriola Island resident “The first time I came to Vancouver in 1955,” he was not present to accept it. recalled, “I spent all my time in the library trying to ✫ get in touch with my people.” Sterritt moved back to WINNERS OF THE PRIZES RECEIVED $2,000 EACH; the Kispiox in 1973. the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award From 1975 to 2009, he and his family lived at Tem- received $5,000, courtesy of the Government House PHOTO

laham Ranch, the site of a Gitxsan ancestral village on Foundation. the Skeena River (a.k.a. Temlaxam or Dimlahamid), The gala was amicably hosted by JJ Lee, author MILLER during which time he was hired as land claims direc- of The Measure of a Man, and was attended by the tor for the Gitksan-Carrier Tribal Council. Honourable Judith Guichon, Lieutenant Governor of MONICA Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize winner In Mapping My Way Home, he traces the history British Columbia at the Pinnacle Harbourfront Hotel Adèle Barclay (right) and friend. of the area at the junction of the Skeena and Bulkley in Vancouver on April 29. PHOTO

MILLER

JJ Lee, master of MONICA PHOTO

ceremonies charms Poetry prize nominee Juliane Okot Bitek; poets the crowd at the Dina Del Bucchia and Adèle Barclay; Caitlin MILLER BC Book Prizes. Press marketing director Michael Despotovic MONICA

21 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 PRIZES EXPLORER-PHOTOGRAPHER EXTRAORDINAIRE Wade Davis has spoken from the main stage at TED five times and his talks online have been viewed by three million people.

he public is invited to a presentation by Wade Davis when he receives the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness at 7 pm on June 29 at the Vancouver Public TLibrary for his latest book, Wade Davis: Photographs. This B.C.-published book has since been picked up by National Geographic for re-publication worldwide.

For Wade Davis: Photographs Edge of the World, an eight-hour (D&M $39.95), Davis selected 140 documentary series written and of his favourite photographs from produced for the National Geo- the thousands he has taken dur- graphic. ing his forty-year career. These In 2009, he delivered the intimate portraits of family and CBC Massey Lectures and he community life are universal in is the recipient of 11 honorary tone, and yet represent countless degrees, His book, Into the Si- geographical and cultural spaces, lence, received the 2012 Samuel telling the story of the human Johnson prize, the top award for condition across the globe. literary nonfiction in the English Born in West Vancouver, in language. In 2016 he was made a 1953, Wade Davis is a widely- Member of the Order of Canada. travelled Harvard ethnobotanist, 978-1-77162-124-3 anthropologist and biologist who ✫ grew up in Quebec and attended SHORTLISTED FOR THE GEORGE RYGA Brentwood College in Mill Bay on Wade Davis, early years Award for Social Awareness Vancouver Island. were Stephen Collis for Once “I was a product of the Sixties,” he says. “I in Blockadia (TalonBooks), and Eric Jamieson had a strong sense of adventure and wanted to for The Native Voice: The Story of How Maisie experience the world.” Hurley and Canada’s First Aboriginal Newspa- ✫ per Changed a Nation (Caitlin). At the Wade WADE DAVIS IS PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE Davis presentation on June 29, historian Rolf BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosys- Knight will receive the George Woodcock Lifetime tems at Risk at UBC. Achievement Award. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as Ex- plorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Selected bibliography Society. He was named by the NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, “a rare combina- The Serpent and the Rainbow: tion of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey Into defender of all of life’s diversity.” the Secret Societies of Haitain Voodoo, Zombies In 2014 Switzerland’s leading think tank, the and Magic (Simon & Schuster, 1986) PHOTO Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Zurich, ranked Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the

him 16th in their annual survey of the top 100 DAVIS Haitian Zombia (UNC Press, 1988) most influential global Thought Leaders. Nomads of the Dawn: The Penan of the Borneo WADE An ethnographer, writer, photographer and Rainforest, with Ian Mackenzie and Shane Kennedy filmmaker, Davis holds degrees in anthropology (Pomegranate, 1995) All cultures are ethnocentric, fiercely loyal to The Croatian citizens of Dubrovnik would see many wondrous things. But he, she and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobota- One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the THE MYTH OF MODERNITY ny, all from Harvard University. Mostly through Amazon Rain Forest (Touchstone, 1996) their own interpretations of reality. Indeed the believed that their city’s status as or it would also encounter a culture that reveres the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over Shadows in the Sun: Travels to Landscapes of names of many indigenous societies translate as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, marriage, yet allows half of its marriages to end in three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant Spirits and Desire (Pomegranate, 1998) Excerpt from Wade Davis: Photographs explorer, living among fifteen indigenous groups Rainforest: Ancient Realm of the Pacific “the people,” implying that every other human heralded for its architecture and divorce; admires its elderly, yet has grandparents in eight Latin American nations while making Northwest, with photos by Graham Osborne historic beauty, would insulate some 6000 botanical collections. (Greystone, 1998) ust before she died, anthropologist Margaret is a savage. We too are culturally myopic, often living with grandchildren in only 6 per cent of its it from the ravages of war in the His work later took him to Haiti to investigate The Clouded Leopard: Travels to Landscapes Mead spoke of her concern that as we drift to- forgetting that modernity is but an expression of households; loves its children, yet promotes 24/7 folk preparations implicated in the creation of of Spirits and Desire (D&M, 1999) Balkans. The attacking Yugoslav Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey ward a more homogenous world, we are laying our cultural values. It is not some objective force devotion to the workplace at the expense of fam- zombies, an assignment that led to his writing People’s Army, backed by Serbia, through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an inter- the foundations of a blandly amorphous, generic removed from the constraints of culture. And it is ily. By the age of eighteen the average American national best seller later released by Universal (D&M, 2001, 2007). could not have cared less, destroy- as a motion picture. The Lost Amazon: The Photographic Journey of modern culture that will have no rivals. The en- certainly not the true and only pulse of history. It ing much of the ancient city in a youth has spent three years watching television Richard Evans Schultes (D&M, 2004) In recent years his work has taken him to East Grand Canyon: River at Risk (Insight Editions/ tire imagination of humanity might be confined, is merely a constellation of beliefs and paradigms siege that lasted many months. or playing video games. One in five adults is clini- Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Palace Press, 2008) Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Co- she feared, to a single intellectual and spiritual that represent one way of doing things. The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters cally obese. The nation consumes two-thirds of the lombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia and the high Arctic in the Modern World (Anansi, 2009) modality. Her nightmare was that we might wake one day and not even of Nunuvut and Greenland. Our achievements have been stunning. The development within the world’s production of antidepressant drugs, even as it spends more The Sacred Headwaters: The Fight to Save the Davis is the author of 275 scientific and popu- J Stikine, Skeena, and Nass (Greystone/Suzuki remember what had been lost. Our species has been around for some last century of a modern, scientific system of medicine alone represents money on armaments and war than the collective military budgets of lar articles and 20 books. His books have ap- Foundation 2011; Greystone, 2015) 200,000 years. The Neolithic Revolution, which gave us agriculture, one of the greatest episodes in human endeavour. Sever a limb in a its seventeen closest rivals. Technological wizardry is balanced by the peared in 20 languages and sold approximately River Notes: A Natural History of the Colorado one million copies. (Island Press, 2012) occurred only 10,000 years ago. Modern industrial society is scarcely car accident and you won’t want to be taken to a herbalist. But these embrace of an economic model of production and consumption that His photographs have been widely exhibited Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and and have appeared in 30 books and 100 maga- the Conquest of Everest (Vintage, 2012) 300 years old. This shallow history should not suggest that we have accomplishments do not make the Western paradigm exceptional or challenges the very life support systems of the planet. Our way of life, zines, including National Geographic, Time, Geo, Wade Davis: Photographs (D&M, 2016) all the answers for all the challenges that will confront us in the com- suggest that it ought to monopolize the path to the future. inspired in so many aspects, does not represent the supreme achieve- People, Men’s Journal, and Outside. Cowboys of the Americas, with photos His many film credits include Light at the by Luis Fabini (Greystone Books, 2017) ing millennia. An anthropologist from a distant planet landing in the United States ment of human endeavour.

22 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 23 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 Congratulations to our bc book prize finalists

THE LAST GANG IN TOWN NIAGARA MOTEL

Aaron Chapman Ashley Little

Finalist, Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award Finalist, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize < 978-1-55152-671-3; $24.95 list 978-1-55152-660-7;< $17.95 list

ARSENAL PULP PRESS arsenalpulp.com

Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History Winner of the the 2017 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize

In Mapping My Way Home, Gitxsan leader Neil Sterritt shares the stories of his peo- ple, both ancient and recent, to illustrate their resilience when faced with the chal- lenges that newcom- ers brought. Stephen Hume calls this ac- count from one of the Gitxsan architects of the Delgamuukw court decision a “re- markable, unique and articulate history...a powerful, accessible and cultural tour de force. It deserves to be on every British Co- lumbian’s bookshelf.”

Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History (Creekstone 2016) 978-1-928195-01-6 (Hardcover) $39.95; 978-1-928195-02-3 (Paper) $29.95 • Both editions are 7” wide x 10” high, 384 pages with over 100 B & W photos, 13 maps, family trees, a glossary and index

&21*5$78/$7,216727+(%&+) +,6725,&$/:5,7,1*:,11(56 Anthony Kenyon The Recorded History of the Liard Basin 1790-1910 Fort Nelson News Ltd.

HISTORI BIA CA M L U FE L D O E C R Winner of the Lieutenant H A S T I I O T I N

R

B L

I

E G

U WINNER Governor’s Medal for Historical N

I T

E T I N R A N W T L G O A V IC Writing E R R O NO ST R'S HI MEDAL FOR 2nd Prize, $1,500 3rd Prize, $500 Neil John Sterritt Michael Layland Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History A Perfect Eden Creekstone Press Touchwood Editions

See full list of winners and photos at www.bchistory.ca

24 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 PRIZES Claudia Casper wins Philip K. Dick Award

laudia Casper’s post- Co-sponsored by UBC Li- apocalyptic novel, The brary and Pacific BookWorld CMercy Journals (Arse- News Society, the Basil Stuart- nal, 2016), first reviewed by Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Joan Givner in BC BookWorld, Book on B.C. was established has won the 2017 Philip K. in memory of Basil Stuart- Dick Award for the best work Stubbs, a bibliophile, scholar of science fiction published and librarian who died in 2012. in paperback in the USA. A Claudia Casper former soldier nicknamed Labour love not lost Mercy is one of the few survivors af- Drawn To Change: Graphic Histories ter a third world war is waged over of Working Class Struggle (Between a water crisis. His long-lost brother The Lines, 2016) has won both the Ca- Leo arrives with news that Mercy’s nadian Historical Association’s Public children have been spotted, setting History Prize and the $10,000 Wilson him off on a long journey to find them. Prize, an award that goes to the book that succeeds in making Canadian his- Bazzie winner torical scholarship accessible Aboriginal Rights Claims and to a wide and transnational the Making and Remaking audience. Drawn To Change of History (McGill-Queen’s, was edited by Paul Buhle and 2016) by Arthur J. Ray has the Graphic History Collective. been chosen as this year’s B.C. contributors include Kara A journal of serious winner of the Basil Stuart- Sievewright, Sam Bradd, Rob- Stubbs Prize. Presented at UBC in Folvik, David Lester, Mark non-fiction about B.C. Library in early June, the “Ba- Arthur J. Ray Leier, Tania Willard, Dale zzie” goes to the best academic McCartney, and Ron Verzuh. Advisory Panel: Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Cole Harris, Hugh Johnston, Patricia Roy, book pertaining to B.C. David Stouck, Graeme Wynn Ray’s unprecedented, compara- BC Short Story winner tive overview looks at how Indigenous Alix Hawley has won the $6,000 CBC Over 100 people’s rights have been handled Short Story Prize for Witching. She in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, was runner-up in this contest in 2012 reviews and counting. Australia and South Africa. Ray has and 2014. Her first novel, All True Richard Mackie, garnered the 2017 Canada Prize in the Not a Lie In It (Knopf, 2015), won the The Ormsby Review reviews editor, Humanities and Social Sciences for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the www.bcbooklook.com The Ormsby same book. Amazon.ca First Novel Award.

Naturally Great Books greystonebooks.com

Greystone Books congratulates Mark Leiren-Young, author of The Killer Whale Who Saved the World, and nominee for the  Book Prizes’ Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize! The Killer Whale Who Changed the World  - 978-1-77164-193-7 • $29.95 • 

“Outstanding and inspirational. Similar to the award-winning documentary Blackfish, this book could be a game changer.”  , author of Rewilding Our Hearts

Best Places to Bird in Frozen in Time Just Cool It! Big Fit Girl British Columbia The Fate of Franklin Expedition The Climate Crisis and Embrace the Body You Have   & •   • What We Can Do       &   & Foreword by   978-1-77164-166-1 • $22.95 •      978-1-77164-212-5 • $22.95 •  978-1-77164-173-9 • $24.95 •  978-1-77164-259-0 • $24.95 • 

25 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review ART

Light Within the Shadows: Burnaby and at the Art Gal- A Painter’s Memoir by Pnina lery of Greater Victoria, The Granirer (Granville Island ALL ABOUT EVE & Trials of Eve became the basis $24.95) of an award-winning book and was made into a film, shown

IGHT WITHIN THE at two international festivals. Shadows: A Paint- It is now part of the permanent er’s Memoir by collection at the Glenbow Mu- Pnina Granirer seum in Calgary. deftly weaves to- Her next project, The Lgether two narratives: Granir- Carved Stones series (1985- er’s journey as a Romanian 90), mixed-media works on Jew who survives World War paper and canvas, was in- II and immigrates to North spired by the rocks and stones America, as well as her awak- of the Gulf Islands that display ening as an artist who devel- Living through the Holocaust wild nature in its purest form, PNINA and by her contemplation of ops into a celebrated painter. Born in the port city of and escaping Stalinism led to the contrast between them Braila in 1935, Pnina Granirer and the man-made statues grew up under the brutal, Pnina Granirer’s life of making art. of historical figures she saw fascism of the Iron Guard, in Paris. an ultra-nationalist, anti- brought them first to the Myfanwy Pavelic other female artists Her involvement with an in- semitic, orthodox Christian University of Illinois in Cham- and others. She was and by attending a ternational organization, Fear movement under the dictato- paign-Urbana, later to Cornell honoured that archi- workshop in 1980 of Others: Art Against Racism, rial direction of Horia Sima. University in Ithaca, New tect and expression- with Judy Chicago, inspired Out of the Flames, When Ion Antonescu came York, and finally to Vancou- ist painter, Maxwell whose sensational a triptych depicting war, de- to power in September, 1940 ver, where Granirer began Bates bought one of work The Dinner struction and survival. This and soon destroyed the Iron to find her way as an artist. her woodprints. Party was drawing was accepted by Yad Vashem, Guard, the Romanian Jewish As a schoolgirl she had been During a year in crowds. Judy Chi- the Holocaust Museum in community were seemingly assigned the dubious and Montreal, her ca- JOAN cago’s statement that Jerusalem for its permanent less endangered than other frightening task of producing a maraderie with art- GIVNER no woman artist can collection and later included Eastern European Jews. portrait of Stalin; in Israel she ists living bohemian ever make it big if in the exhibition Virtues of But freedoms were steadily eroded. Ownership of tele- phones and radios was forbid- den, cars and finally homes and libraries were plundered. Only much later, when she read I.C. Butnaru’s The Silent Holocaust: Romania and Its Jews, did Granirer understand the full extent of the devasta- tion: half the Jewish popula- tion had been slaughtered. Cattle trucks stood ready to deport the remaining Jews to the death camps, even as the country was “liberated” by the Russian army. This salvation, greeted rapturously at first, turned into another form of persecution. Under Communist rule, Granirer’s father, a committed socialist, was forced into hiding until he could be smuggled out to Israel. The rest of the family eventually followed him, their emigration made possible Pnina Granirer in her studio. by Israel’s willingness to pay ransom for Romanian Jews. had found employment in fac- lives devoted exclusively to she has a family resonated Memory: Six Decades of Ho- Granirer and her mother were tories that produced painted their art made her question and propelled Granirer into her locaust Survivors’ Creativity. each ransomed for $100. clocks and lampshades but, the effect on her work of her most ambitious work. For this memoir, each step She describes her adoles- lacking a green card in the own conventional life as a wife The Trials of Eve (1983) is in Granirer’s career is illus- cent years in Israel as rela- U.S., she was unable to work. and a mother. Her doubts a series of twelve mixed-media trated with her work—from the tively happy ones, in spite of Instead, she discovered a were reinforced by talking to paintings that examine the drawings she made of places the poverty and crowded con- new freedom in drawing subjugation of women, and people in Israel and the ditions. As an immigrant who and painting to please beginning with the cre- American mid-west to the am- didn’t know the language she herself, practising art for ation myth in the first bitious paintings of her most worked hard to gain an educa- art’s sake. two chapters of Genesis. recent period. The paintings, tion, met a fellow Romanian ✫ Her model for the figures many from The Carved Stones who became her husband and, IT WAS IN VANCOUVER IN 1965 of Adam and Eve was a series, are reproduced in full until marriage exempted her, that she made her first wooden marionette—face colour. The visual component did the required military ser- association with a gal- blank, race undefined, sex adds a rich dimension to vice. The young couple hoped lery—the small Danish ambiguous, limbs easily this artist’s account of living to remain in Israel but their Art Gallery run by Peder manipulated. For the voice and creating through eight departure, like that of most Bertelsen. There, at the of Eve she chose the sym- decades of monumental up- “brain drains” world-wide, age of thirty, she had her bol of the Cannibal Bird of heaval and change. resulted from the lack of jobs. debut exhibition. A year First Nations mythology. 978-1-926991-83-2 The Hebrew University had later, a second exhibition The structure of the series, ✫ no position for her husband, was scheduled in Victoria to which she added lines A MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE OF who had earned his Ph.D. in at a small gallery on Pan- of verse, echoed that of a Pnina Granirer’s work was mathematics there. The U.S, dora Street. This brought play in three acts. published in Ted Lindberg’s on the other hand, propelled her into contact with the After exhibitions in Pnina Granirer: Portrait of an into the space race by the Rus- artists who in 1971 formed Artist (Ronsdale, 1998). sian success of Sputnik, was The Limners Group—Pat The Trial from recruiting mathematicians. Martin Bates, Herbert Pnina Granirer’s Biographer and novelist Joan Her husband’s career Siebner, Karl Spreitz, series The Trials of Eve. Givner writes from Victoria.

26 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review ART

Traces of Words: Art and Calligraphy from Asia When the shadow of a (Figure 1 $45) museum visitor touches one of the projected characters on the walls, the world of that HE GIST OF AN EX- character comes to life and hibition (May 11 new events occur in real time. to October 9) at The worlds created, as in UBC’s Museum nature, have no two identical of Anthropology moments. Tthat explores the practice of ✫ calligraphic art, Traces of IT IS NOT COMMONLY KNOWN THAT Words: Art and Calligraphy the UBC Library has one of from Asia has been con- the few major collections of densed into a 176-page book pre-modern Asian books and with the same title. manuscripts outside of Asia. One of the most courageous The Council on East Asian artists in Traces of Words is Libraries ranks UBC’s Asian Shamsia Hassani, who has Library among the best in the been called the first female A rare image of Kabul activist Shamsia Hassani at work on a mural in public view. world. And MOA itself holds a graffiti artist in Afghanistan. large collection of Asian arti- Not yet 30, she spray paints facts—18,000 items. over structures ravaged by war A combination of both col- in her home city of Kabul. lections will be on display at Given the suppression of AFGHAN SPRAYCANS UBC’s Irving K. Barber Learn- women in many parts of Af- ing Centre. ghanistan, Hassani frequently ✫ cannot visit sites that interest How calligraphy and graffiti go hand in hand WORDS, ACCORDING TO CURATOR, her. Instead, she creates what Dr. Fuyubi Nakamura, “are she calls “dreaming graffiti” by sonry wall. The woman ap- manuscripts, Chi- tal installation physical traces of time and painting graffiti on photos of pears to be seated on the ac- nese and Japanese called What a Lov- space” that embody what is places she would like to visit. tual steps. The spray painted calligraphy, calli- ing, and Beautiful ephemeral and eternal in life. Dreaming Graffiti—Words, words beside the female figure graphic tools, as well World, from Ja- “We leave traces of our- depicts a bombed-out crater read: “The water can come as ceramic bowls, pan’s teamLab—a selves throughout life, be they in front of a row of houses back to a dried-up river, but inkpots, and enam- collective that calls visible or invisible. Words, with graffiti painted on the what about the fish that died?” el incense burners their members ul- whether spoken, written, photograph itself. ✫ marked with callig- tra-technologists— imagined or visualized, are What about the Dead Fish? HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS FEATURED raphy. BEVERLY is a 360-degree, traces unique to humans.” is a photo of real graffiti spray in Traces of Words include Modern pieces CRAMP computer-generat- 978-1927958902 painted by Hassani of floating Sumerian cuneiform inscrip- tap into digital and ed projection that fish and a burka-clad woman tions (some of the oldest writ- interactive representations. lights up the walls of the Beverly Cramp is associate on a shot-up, crumbling ma- ings in the world), Qur’anic For instance, a digi- gallery. editor of BC BookWorld.

ThinkAUTHOR Choose from four part-time creative writing options in Vancouver, Whistler, Surrey and online:

The Writer’s Studio Online and Whistler programs begin in September Apply by June 30

The Southbank Writer’s Program Our summer program

Specialized creative writing courses

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sfu.ca/creative-writing

27 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review THEATRE

A Taste of Empire by It takes the sous-chef nine- Jovanni Sy (Talonbooks $16.95) KITCHEN ty minutes to prepare one dish that will ultimately be shared by the audience. Even BY PAUL DURRAS someone who is foodie-phobic OVANNI SY’S A TASTE cannot help but marvel at the of Empire was deft intricacies of the sous- nominated for two chef’s skill. This is not an actor Dora Mavor Moore Think pretending to be a chef; it’s a Awards, including Funny, fishy and far-reaching, chef doubling as an actor. JOutstanding New Play, when First, he massages the fish he first performed his one- A Taste of Empire is fascinating international fare. scales, making sure he doesn’t man show in 2010. puncture it. He loosens the Remounted outdoors by flesh from the skin with a Boca del Lupo Theatre at beneath the surface of things. pines by Ferdinand Magellan people upon whose homelands special knife. Then he care- Granville Island Market in As the sous-chef proceeds in 1521 to honour King Phil- the wars were fought didn’t get fully squeezes out the innards 2014, A Taste of Empire is to dissect the origins of his lip the Second of Spain. You equal billing). through a small slit. The fish an amalgam of cuisine and monkfish recipe, he describes already knew that, right? Then came the Japanese meat is steamed on a banana geo-politics. Although A Taste the Ita tribe that traditionally After the Spanish generous- Occupation… leaf while the carcass is mari- of Empire is limited to one caught the fish. We are enthu- ly brought “the gift of eternal It has all worked out for the nated in a soy sauce marinade. character who cooks a fish for siastically told it is surely a salvation and the gift of Chris- best. Our chef gleefully out- Then the fish meat is added an hour-and-a-half, it’s one of good thing that Ita fishermen tian modesty” to the heathens lines how conquering cultures to the sofrito (garlic, olive oil, the most expansive evenings were supplanted by a corpora- of the Philippines in the 17th have enhanced the diversity of onion, tomato, raisin mixture) of Canadian theatre in terms tion called Imperial Seafood. It century—as they had done for global cuisine. Did you know and cooled. At one point, he of geographical reach and po- is a good thing fish farms have both Americas—there was fifty the tomato became popular literally turns the fish outside litical scope. increased the yield more than years of American domination in Spain only after seeds from in, the way one would unravel It begins as a spoof. The a thousand-fold. “Everybody’s in the wake of Teddy Roos- Central America were first a sock from the dryer. The canned voice of an overly a winner!” evelt’s propaganda-inflated taken to the Philippines? And various fixings are all piped enthusiastic emcee whips up The cooking narratives are victory in the so-called Span- the Americans gave the Filipi- back into the empty fish skin, enthusiasm for the entrance of spiced with history. Thou- ish American war (actually it nos spam and Heinz ketchup? dredged in flour and panko Chef Maximo Cortez—Kitchen sands of islands off the coast was the Cuban-Filipino-Span- Did you know 15% of Filipi- breadcrumbs and fried golden, Gangsta! Ludicrous slides of of Asia were named the Philip- ish-American War but the nos now have diabetes? to be garnished with a tomato this self-satisfied celebrity chef rose. are part of the advance hype. During this process we Chef Maximo has an extensive learn that most of the compo- product line. We learn this nents of the Filipino milkfish Messiah in an apron unabash- recipe that are seemingly edly favours Imperialist Cui- Spanish—such as the sofrito sine—described as food made marinade, or stuffing—are de- cheaper and more plentiful by rived from products that were mass production, combined originally Asian. And did you with political oppression. know 80% of the world’s garlic But the wunderkind Chef comes from China? Maximo can’t make it! Our While cooking, the sous- kitchen guru has been called chef delivers a seamless mono- away to cook for one of his logue that doubles as a history celebrity clients! Not unlike lesson and a parody of the Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Ap- cooking show genre. The more prentice, an underling sous- he espouses the benefits of chef must simulate the pre- “imperial cuisine,” essentially sentation of the master. defending unbridled capital- At first it appears our sub- ism, the more we are being stitute chef is the sort of syco- prepared for an ending that phantic underling who would cannot be revealed. have followed Jim Jones to Along the way there are Guyana. He has drunk the unexpected asides about the kool-aid. The sous-chef is not nature of torture—specifically at liberty to expose the identity the evolution of waterboard- of any of Chef Maximo’s pri- ing by the Americans—and vate customers, but he does yet somehow the protagonist say, “I can tell you that Bono manages to avoid didacticism just loves his empanadas.” by maintaining his façade of He hasn’t had a day off gleeful diligence. work for years, but Chef Max- The show hits home when imo’s primo lackey is ever- the sous-chef starts telling us grateful just to be granted about Carlos, the Mexican to- proximity to greatness. That mato picker, who arrives in B.C. one time when Chef Maximo courtesy of the federal Seasonal locked him overnight in the Agricultural Workers Program. freezer as punishment, well, Similarly vulnerable to ex- he deserved it. And so the ploitation are the thousands of humble sous-chef proceeds to Filipina nannies who come to emulate his master by making B.C. under the federal Live-in a Filipino dish from Northern Caregiver Program. Luzon called “Rellenog Ban- The extent to which Jovanni gus” (stuffed milkfish). Sy’s A Taste of Empire has anti- The first clue that we can Born in the Philippines, racist underpinnings is one of expect something more wide- the fascinating aspects of the Jovanni Sy originated the lead role ranging than comic satire oc- piece—clowning as a socially in A Taste of Empire in 2010. curs when sous-chef confides acceptable alternative to anger. He’s now artistic director of he has been in the service of ✫ the Gateway Theatre Chef Maximo ever since he A TASTE OF EMPIRE WAS REMOUNTED was rescued from a Romanian in Richmond. for a Cantonese version in orphanage at age ten. This Richmond at the Gateway The- PHOTO guy certainly doesn’t look atre, translated and performed Romanian… by Derek Chan, with Jovanni BARKER It turns out A Taste of Em- Sy directing, in 2016. pire is largely about looking KEITH 9781772011609

28 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review THEATRE

Staging Modernist Lives: H.D., Mina Loy, Nancy Cunard, Three Plays and Criticism by Sasha Colby (McGill-Queens $37.95)

ECOGNIZING THAT teaching and presenting pa- pers are per- formances in Rthemselves, Sasha Colby has fused her studies of three remarkable women into a fascinating triad of theatri- cal presentations for Staging Modernist Lives. Although this volume lacks photos for its extraordinary subjects—H.D. (Hilda Doo- little), Mina Loy and Nancy Cunard—possibly that’s co- herent with a mandate to in- spire curiosity. After an obliga- tory and sometimes perplexing foreword, Colby ventures into fresh pedagogical territory, taking an unconventional ap- proach to unconventional sub- jects—and that’s intriguing. PHOTO Rapunzel-like, Colby first let down her hair and es- SAWCHUK caped from the ivory tower of academe—where she is SFU’s LAURA director of the Graduate Lib- FROM Ph.D. TO H.D.: Sasha Colby recently performed her one-woman show about H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) in Paris. eral Studies program—when she wrote and performed a twenty-five-character one woman show about H.D. for the Vancouver Fringe Festival. She has since proceeded to fashion plays about the ship- BOLD LIVES REVERED ping heiress-turned-radical- publisher Nancy Cunard and the avant-garde poet and Teaching is a performance, so Sasha Colby is staging scripted visual artist Mina Loy. Readers of this volume lessons about three literary women who defied convention. will have a hard time picking a favourite from among the Hemingway, Augustus John birth of my baby in 1919, Ezra If there’s a central link it’s writer Conrad Aiken. fascinating trio of trailblazers. and Aldous Huxley; being hurtled himself into the deco- Ezra Pound who also critiqued With her book, Colby pres- H.D. and Loy were both con- photographed by Man Ray; rous St. Faith Nursing Home. Loy’s poetry and was engaged ents flesh ‘n’ blood lectures nected to Freud, but Cunard’s having romantic involvements Beard, black soft hat, ebony to H.D (who maintained a fe- delivered by the subjects be- life would likely make the best with Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot stick—something unbelievably male life partner, poet/novel- ing studied—making for very movie. and Pablo Neruda; and pub- operatic—directoire overcoat, ist Byher while being married unusual theatrical fare. In As the great-granddaughter lishing Samuel Beckett and a Verdi.” But then most plays to poet Richard Aldington). the process, she illuminates of Samuel Cunard, founder of landmark compilation Negro: don’t come with footnotes. There have been many the bravado of artistic and a transatlantic shipping line, An Anthology (1934). In 1965, The intent is to teach H.D., plays and movies about writ- feminist pathfinding in the she grew up in a 700-year-old this great beauty was found Loy and Cunard as much ers. Back in the 1970s, for 20th century. castle but eschewed a life of unconscious on a Paris street as it is to recreate them as instance, local playwright No doubt H.D., Mina Loy privilege in favour of fighting at age 69, destitute, dying characters, so Colby favours Michael Mercer gave us Good- and Nancy Cunard would ap- for racial equality; founding soon after. researched-based texts with night Disgrace (Talon, 1986), plaud Colby’s resolve to not the Hours Press in the 1920s; Most playwrights would direct quotes from her sub- an excellent drama about merely break a mold, but to try reporting on the Spanish not ask an actor to portray jects’ literary works and let- the real-life meeting between and fashion a new one. Civil War; befriending Ernest H.D. by saying: “Near the ters. Malcolm Lowry and American 978-0-7735-4894-7

29 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review POETRY SOMETHING IS HAPPENING And you don’t know what it is

Helpless Angels was compulsory in school. (Thistledown $20) by Tom Wayman “Every public meeting began with the crowd singing O Canada,” he re- calls, “and ended with the crowd sing- HEN WE DRIVE IN A CAR ing God Save the King, and after 1953, listening to any piece God Save the Queen. We sang in Boy of music we want to Scouts as we marched and when we hear, from anywhere sat around the campfire. Labour hymns in the world, we are sung by all were part of many union Wricher than kings. meetings.” This is new. So Tom Wayman has Then came the LP, the 45 and car been thinking a lot about the power radios. Then came the radio disc jockey and ubiquitous presence of music in and the transistor radio and the juke- our everyday lives, giving rise to Help- box. Then came 8-tracks and cassettes less Angels, a series of poetic and Walkmans. “All meant meditations. that music made by others “The story behind the could be heard in more places,” book,” Wayman writes in his he says. “By then anyplace you introduction, “is my realization went you could hear the music that my generation is the first you wanted to hear when you generation in human history wanted to hear it. So this book that became able to hear any explores how this development place our choice of music per- has influenced our lives.” formed by someone else.” Tom Wayman Some poems honour cer- One of the points Wayman tain musicians who have been makes is to stress the long-standing important to his life; others capture connection between music and poetry— something of the music found in na- how English-language poetry begins as ture. The online and print magazine for song lyric, and only migrates onto the innovative music, Musicworks, based in page as literacy increases. Toronto, has an annual national literary The book’s longest poem, written long competition focused on the sound of a before Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel place. Wayman’s winning poem for its Prize for Literature, is about Bob Dylan’s Sonic Geography literary contest deals lyrics. “It wasn’t intentional,” Wayman with the differences in the music of told BC BookWorld, “but my poem and wind in the subalpine and on the valley by implication my entire new book is floor, and the different “musics” that an answer to those who were horrified are audible while a creek descends the by the awarding of the Nobel to Dylan. mountainside toward the Slocan River. “I know there were news items and Some poems are song-like; others essays pro and con right after it was are road-poems, others mourn the announced. But my response is a poetic death of a dear friend. The book’s title endorsement of the Nobel Prize com- poem was originally published in The mittee’s decision that worthy lyrics are Hudson Review. unquestionably literature.” “We’re the first people in the long Wayman points to excerpts from cavalcade of human history ever to Dylan lyrics—for example, “the times have access to so much music that we they are a-changin’”— that are referred don’t have to make ourselves, or go to to repeatedly in our culture the way a special place at an announced time phrases or sayings by time-honored to listen to,” Wayman says. authors are quoted in speeches and “The obviousness of this fact makes writing, it invisible to, or taken for granted “Two of my Dylan favorites are ‘when by, most people. To me, having grown there’s too much of nothing, / No one up during the era has control’ from the song Too Much when access to of Nothing, and ‘Time is an ocean but music was so it ends at the shore’ from the song Oh fundamen- Sister.” tally chang- Wayman adds that he’s impressed ing, this by how Dylan’s lyrics can tell a complete fact is both a Ivan E. Coyote, whose 11th book, Tomboy Survival Guide, was and complex short story in a song like continuing in- released in September 2016, by Arsenal Pulp Press, will receive Tangled Up in Blue from 1975 and also spiration and a an honorary doctorate later this year from SFU. Coyote’s literary relate a series of separate mini-stories wonder.” 978-1-77187-131-0 landmark plaque (as shown) is one of ten more erected this that resemble contemporary year by Vancouver Public Library and BC BookWorld. flash fiction in his more recent work like Floater from the 2001 album Bob Dylan, Love and Theft. Newport Folk Wayman grew up Festival, 1964, the back when hearing year The Times music meant you had They Are a Chan- to make music your- gin’ was released. self, or go to a par- ticular place at a certain time to hear it. A sing-along was part of most adult parties. Music, including choir,

30 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review POETRY

Bobby Baun in The Grant Writing and Funding Coach: 1964, the year he Target and Acquire the Funds You Need scored in over- by Deborah Griffiths - experience as a museum administrator, time against the Detroit Red Wings business owner and writer. in the Stanley Cup finals while suffering from a • Learn how individuals, non- broken ankle. profits, local governments, and community organizations build bridges with funders. • Present your project in a clear and confident style. • Examine various forms of crowd-funding. • Establish a rapport with funders. • Succeed with your proposal. • Learn to believe in your project and funders will too! $17.95 | Paperback | 120 pages

Greening Your Cottage or Vacation Property: Reduce Your Recreational Footprint by Joan & Tracy Bartley - long time cottage owners, environmentalists, mother and daughter.

• Fully enjoy the great outdoors, but also preserve it by HOCKEY DNA staying green and environmentally friendly. From Howe to Gretzky to McDavid • Enhance your time together with exercises and practices The DNA of the NHL often also smile.” that will reduce your by Stephen Roxborough But a more persuasive reason to (Ekstasis $23.95) environmental impact. check out the NHL in our collective • Vacation in an environmentally DNA is the extent to which Roxbor- ough’s family has been deeply en- friendly way, but turn your time OCKEY AIN’T LIKE IT USED trenched in the game. He writes: away into a teaching to be back in the good “My grandfather’s electrical compa- experience. ol’ days when there ny wired Maple Leaf Gardens. My father were only six teams in was captain of his high school hockey $14.95 | Paperback + the NHL, rivalries were team. My great uncle wrote the first Download Kit | 104 pages Hfierce, Murray Westgate did the Esso book on the history of the Stanley Cup. commercials between periods, Foster My father always had a subscription Hewitt couldn’t pronounce the French to The Hockey News. My older brother Dementia In the Family: players’ names properly and Bobby received his monthly fix through The Practical Advice From A Caregiver Baun played on a broken ankle. Hockey News pictorials. Pre-cable by Lee Cardwell - spent several years caring for her mother as Canada’s international superior- pre-expansion pre-widespread hockey ity is gone. But the lure of the game acceptance in North America. We lis- she slipped into Alzheimer’s. is perpetuated by an onslaught of tened to games on the radio. In 1968 TV highlights and commercialism as my family moved to Vancouver and my • Six million people in North America have some form of McDavid replaces Gretzky, statistics brother got a job as a statistician with dementia, each averaging five abound, and the business of hockey is the Western Hockey League (WHL) Ca- increasingly deemed newsworthy. Now, nucks. Over the years my parents held care partners. in synch with Canada’s 150th birth- season’s tickets for the Maple Leafs and • This book provides clinical day, we’re apprised that the misnamed Canucks and [Florida] Panthers. When information in lay-terms within National Hockey League is marking its I went to University in Madison in the a true story of how dementia 100th anniversary. early 70s, Bob Johnson was hockey That’s as good a reason as any coach and Wisconsin became the best affects not just the person for Stephen Roxborough’s series of collegiate team in the USA.” with the disease, but everyone poems that collectively serve as an ✫ around them. homage to the game, The DNA of the STEPHEN ROXBOROUGH FIRST ATTENDED AN • The author’s gentle humor NHL. This volume “deconstructs and NHL game in 1964 when he was for- illuminates the Canadian national tunate to witness the seventh game of offers the reader moments of sport of hockey in an extraordinary the 1964 Stanley Cup final. That was lightness in what would merger of sports and art.” But perhaps the game after Baun broke his ankle normally be a very dark read. you’d rather hear from literary critic and refused medical attention in order • Anyone can read and learn Bobby Baun, a 17-year NHL veteran, to help his team hoist the Cup when from this warm, practical, and three-time all-star, four-time Stanley the Leafs bested the Red Wings, 4-0. Cup winner, whose autobiography is Eventually Roxborough met his all-encompassing book on called Lowering The Boom (Stoddart, hockey hero, Mr. Hockey, in Las Ve- dementia. 2000). He body checks; he reads. While gas, a couple of years before Gordie $19.95 | Paperback + Download Kit | 160 pages his more famous defence partner Tim Howe died. “Gordie was playful and Horton died in a car crash long ago, gracious,” he recalls, “and especially Bobby Baun is still around and he has nice to my son, Zachary.” Although praised The DNA of the NHL as “a quick Roxborough never played the game www.self-counsel.com and entertaining read. Stephen has growing up in Vancouver, he’s been the ability to use words to illustrate an ardent student of it since he was 1-800-663-3007 totally divergent meanings, in a way young. “It’s in my DNA,” he says. Hence that makes one not only think, but the title. 978-1-77171-205-7

31 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 A day they will never forget; the past simply won't let them.

KAT ROSE kat-rose-c1r1.squarespace.com

Artists Share their Stories

art/biography art/memoir Hardcover / full color Softcover with flaps 978-1-926991-73-3 (hc) 978-1-926991-84-9 (pb) 978-1-926991-74-0 (ebook) 978-1-926991-88-7 (ebook) 10.5 x 10.5 in. – 180 pages 6 x 9 in. – 336 + 16 col pages

“As evidenced in her coffee table “. . . a lively and touching book compendium, Life and Bronze: act of memory and A Sculptor’s Journal . . . Abernethy affirmation, as vivid, has created alluring sculptures and theatrical and perceptive Salt Chuck Stories from Vancouver Island’s West Coast recalls the 1920s to installations that people really, really, as Granirer’s paintings 1940s when the area opened up through fi shing, trapping, logging and mining as seen really like.” themselves.” through the experiences of fi ve pioneers. Characters include Rebecca McPhee Alan Twigg Max Wyman and the fi rst Red Cross Hospital at Kyuquot and the highballing Gibson Broth- BC BookWorld Critic and cultural commentator ers who logged airplane spruce at Zeballos back in the days when a house of prostitution openly operated between the town and the mines. Also included New Authors Published and distributed by are the Perry Brothers, prospector Andy Morod and many more. are always welcome! 128 pages • 62 photos • Three maps • Bibliography granvilleislandpublishing.com $17.95 • ISBN: 0-9739980-3-2 Distributed by Sandhill Book Marketing Ltd., Kelowna ŝŶĨŽΛŐƌĂŶǀŝůůĞŝƐůĂŶĚƉƵďůŝƐŚŝŶŐ͘ĐŽŵϴϳϳͲϲϴϴͲϬϯϮϬdǁŝƩĞƌ͗Λ'/W>ŬƐ [email protected] • (250) 491-1446

32 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review JASPER WILD YA FICTION BY GEORGE MERCER Book Three in the DOWN IN Dyed In The Green fiction series about DOWN UNDER our national parks.

Munro vs. The Coyote truck, only to become separated from ISBN: 9780987975447 • $19.99 by Darren Groth (Orca Books $19.95) his family. www.georgemercer.com AGES 12+ Shah is distant and guarded, but to his delight, Munro slowly earns the Available at independent and Indigo bookstores across Canada. BY CAROL ANNE SHAW boy’s trust through brief conversations Also available as an ebook from Amazon and Kobo. they share over a chessboard. Only INCE THE SUDDEN DEATH OF when two members of Munro’s group his sister, sixteen-year suddenly leave Fair Go does Munro’s old Munro Maddux has old nemesis, The Coyote, makes a re- Elevent-year-old Marianne is fortunate. been angry, depressed, turn. Munro suffers a setback. What It is 1938, and she is one of the first and confused. Even worse, was he thinking? He should have Jewish children to arrive in London, She can’t get rid of a horrible voice in his known this was all a mistake. England in the heroic rescue operation head—the one he calls “The Coyote.” Munro lets down two members of known as the Kindertransport. Every time Munro takes a step to- his group, just the way he let down ward healing his broken heart, Coyote Evie. He couldn’t save her, and he can’t “An excellent tool for introducing is there to tell him not to bother. He’s fix things for Blake and Shah, either. xenophobia and the refugee crisis to upper- really just a loser. And let’s face it: he’s He’s useless, according to The Coyote, elementary and middle-grade readers.” partly to blame for Evie’s death. and the sooner he realizes it, the better. — Booklist Grief-stricken, and at a loss as to The way out is to begin to trust the “A book that invites close reading, this will how to help their son, Munro’s parents people around him—the people who spark interest in the plight of all refugees.” decide to send him on a six-month want to help him find the old Munro — Kirkus Reviews student exchange to Brisbane, Aus- again. With loving support and a Seeking Refuge is an excellent book that tralia, hoping a change might do him strength he didn’t know he had, Munro brings to life the story of refugee children good. Munro isn’t exactly thrilled. The learns that often the best thing you can during World War II. — C M Review name of the program is YOLO and its do when you’re down is to get out of pamphlet is chock-full of ALL-CAPS your own head and help someone else. “Shoemaker’s quiet, silvery-penciled panels text and too many exclama- ✫ Tradewind Books soften this Holocaust narrative (and) offer (young readers) some hope.” tion marks! OBVIOUSLY AUSTRALIAN EX-PAT www. tradewindbooks.com — Publishers Weekly But soon after the plane Darren Groth of Vancouver lands in Australia, Munro has spent considerable time begins to settle in. His host in the company of young family is pretty cool, and people. The dialogue between he quickly makes friends the teens is both engaging and with a group of kids at his completely authentic, a feat new school, including Caro, Darren Groth sometimes difficult for grown- whose eyes are big ups to pull off. and wide. Her mouth The story moves always looks ready to Every time quickly and we meet break out in a smile, Munro takes a step a host of charac- even when its filled ters along the way. with ramen noodles. toward healing I fell in love with the But as soon as his broken heart, members of Munro’s things begin to show Fair Go group, all signs of improve- Coyote is there of them delightfully ment, The Coyote to tell him not to unique, while the shows up, doing bother. He’s really adults who pepper 20 plus his best to alienate the pages of the story Munro from his new just a loser. And are also wonderfully varieties friends. To make let’s face it: he’s human. matters worse, Mun- In addition to Yoka, ro learns there is partly to blame some laugh-out-loud the beekeeper, a volunteer compo- for Evie’s death. humour, this page- is engrossed in nent of his exchange turner has some Mark experience — one heart-wrenching Winston’s that will see him working as a “Living moments, but the sentiment is never Bee Time: Partner” to a group of special needs sloppy or gratuitous. While Munro Lessons From residents at the Fair Go Community vs. the Coyote is a book about loss, the Hive Village in Brisbane. grief, despair, and the messiness of a (Harvard U Press). “No way!” he thinks. “I’ve got to get sixteen-year-old’s broken heart, ulti- reassigned!” mately it is an account of healing. It is Evie had Down Syndrome, and this a richly layered book about love, the is just a little bit too close to home. tenacity of the human spirit, and our Then Munro discovers that Fair Go capacity to mend. is the one place where The Coyote actu- Darren Groth is a brilliant story- ally keeps his mouth shut. Maybe this teller and readers will recognize the isn’t going to be so bad after all. In fact, nagging voice of The Coyote—that it’s kind of great. Munro soon makes alter-ego naysayer so many of us come solid connections with his group of up against during challenging times, residents, including Blake, a Down and younger readers will certainly en- Syndrome girl with a spirit almost as joy the growing romance that develops #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 bright as Evie’s had been. between Munro and the lovely Caro. • Tel: 1-250-384-0905 As his volunteer hours grow, Munro 9781459814097 (just off Cook Street) finds himself spending more and more Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas time with his Fair Go group. He is Carol Anne Shaw is the author of Han- • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome especially determined to connect with nah & the Spindle Whorl, Hannah & Shah, a group member who managed the Salish Sea, and Hannah & the Wild www.yokascoffee.com to escape the atrocities of civil war Woods (Ronsdale Press). She lives at in the Middle East in the back of a Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island.

33 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 Caitlin Press — Where Urban Meets Rural

…there is no end to wonder and joy when you care about a place. Andrew Nikiforuk

CELEBRATING BC'S DIVERSITY, HISTORY AND NATURAL BEAUTY

Illustration by Sheryl McDougald caitlin-press.com

THE HEAT IS ON

HOME AND AWAY BLOOD, SWEAT AND ROUGH PATCH EVERYTHING IS AWFUL SCARBOROUGH Darcy and Randy Shore FEAR Nicole Markotić AND YOU’RE A TERRIBLE Catherine Hernandez 978-1-55152-673-7; $24.95 Eve Lazarus 978-1-55152-681-2; $15.95 PERSON 978-1-55152-677-5; $17.95 A cookbook by Vancouver Sun 978-1-55152-685-0; $21.95 A young-adult novel about Keira, a Daniel Zomparelli “Scarborough is raw yet beauti- columnist Randy Shore and his wife The fascinating story of Inspector teenaged figure skater who’s intrigued 978-1-55152-675-1; $15.95 ful, disturbing yet hopeful ... An Darcy, inspired by how food from John Vance, Vancouver’s first foren- by the idea of kissing both “This is a bomb of a book wrapped important book that deserves a wide around the world connects us all. sics investigator, by the author of boys and girls. up in 32 short stories ... It feels like audience.” —Booklist Cold Case Vancouver. an explosion of fresh air.” —Vancouver Sun

A PLACE CALLED NO FEMALE TROUBLE CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE TOMBOY SURVIVAL

HOMELAND Chris Holmlund Sarah Schulman GUIDE Kai Cheng Thom 978-1-55152-683-6; $17.95 978-1-55152-643-0; $19.95 Ivan Coyote

978-1-55152-679-9; $14.95 A Queer Film Classic on John The acclaimed book on the culture 978-1-55152-656-0; $17.95 “This book of poetry that will wreck Waters’ 1974 campy dark comedy of scapegoating, victimhood, and the A poignant and illuminating hymn you in only the most glorious ways.” starring the extraordinary Divine. supremacist bully, now in its to the tomboy. An American Library fourth printing. < —Teen Vogue Association Stonewall< Honor Book Award winner.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS arsenalpulp.com

34 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 review TEEN LIT

Eyes & Spies: ian if she left the country How You’re Tracked & without his permission (a Why You Should Know by Tanya Lloyd Kyi Saudi woman is considered a (Annick $14.95) minor throughout her life; she must have a father, brother, husband or son act as her OU DIDN’T PLAN YOUR guardian). Saudi Arabia sus- route to tonight’s pended the program in 2014, party; you know after vehement international YGoogle Maps will protest. get you there. “We, as a society, haven’t You found your dress at Le made a decision yet about Chateau’s Cyber Monday sale, these situations,” says Kyi, “so and browsed tall boots on the for now it’s up to us where our Hudson Bay’s website before creepy line lies and where we scoring a great used pair on want to give up our privacy … Craigslist. At the market, you or protect it.” swiped your Air Miles card for Vancouver-based Belle the crackers you’re bringing. Wuthrich’s astute, graphic- You’re ready to rock. novelesque illustrations in- Congratulations. You just ject further insight into Kyi’s gave away a fistful of personal messages, making it easy for information. For the next readers to grasp common- month, your browser will be alities between their lives and inundated with ads for dresses Illustration by the situations depicted on and boots, and the custom- Belle Wuthrich, the page. ized Air Miles coupons are in from Eyes At the book’s end, there’s a the mail. & Spies. list of sources and suggestions Big data, digital tattoos and for further reading to give the ever-growing encroach- teachers and parents ideas to ment of the wired world on keep the conversation going. our personal privacy are the SMILE YOU’RE ON After finishing Eyes & subjects for Tanya Lloyd Spies, her 20th book for young Kyi’s Eyes & Spies: How readers, Kyi put tape over all You’re Tracked and Why You the webcams in her house. Should Know. “It’s made me more deter- Although it’s written for mined to talk constantly to kids in the 12–14 age range, my kids about what they’re every adult should get this CAMERA doing online and how much book, read it five times, and they understand about it,” she then read it aloud to every says. “Of course, we want to child in their life throughout “You think you’re being paranoid and then be online, and being online is the duration of each meal, a good thing, but we need to shower and toothbrushing you read the research and you realize you’re understand that everything we session until the message put out there is permanent.” sinks in. not paranoid enough.” —Tanya Lloyd Kyi A mother of two school- Every time you hit like or aged children, Kyi carves out agree, swipe a loyalty card Kyi spells out how targeted terms of the extent time as you browse, her writing time in the morn- or hell, even click on a link, marketing works, how in- to which children to suggest other ing, reserving afternoons for you’re sending out tiny bits creased security measures af- have free range from items you might like editing, appointments, or of information about yourself fect us all, which governments home (concentrically in the store. catching up on email. that companies and govern- are in possession of what kind smaller circles with Kyi examines Her non-fiction titles DNA ments can then use to map of tracking software and how each passing gener- borderline privacy Detective (Annick, 2015), 50 your preferences, habits and we have brought much of this ation) and the extent situations in short Body Questions (Annick, 2014) beliefs. on ourselves with our naïve to which we monitor sidebars called The and When the Worst Happens Sound a little paranoid? trust in the companies and their movements. ALEX Creepy Line. Ex- (Annick, 2014) have been It did to Kyi, too, until she platforms that make our lives Eyes & Spies is VAN TOL amples include the nominated for Red Cedar, learned more about how data easier. written in straight- American insurance Silver Birch and Golden Oak mining works. Her Eyes & “It’s so easy to just keep forward language with heaps company that offers tiny in-car awards. 9781554519101 Spies reveals how we’ve so clicking “agree” and to not of real-world examples of cameras that flick on when blithely wandered into the even think about what you’re privacy invasions—such as teen drivers are speeding or Author Alex Van Tol travels to yawning maw of the Zero Pri- giving away,” says Kyi. tracking mechanisms on kids’ taking corners too quickly. schools around B.C., speaking vacy Lifestyle, drawn by the Kyi also examines how our backpacks and shoes to en- A Saudi tracking program with students about biodiver- siren songs of technological world has greatly changed sure school attendance; and was instituted in 2012 that sity, as well as about anxiety innovation. in recent years, especially in retailers texting you in real alerted a woman’s male guard- and social media. Book-cycle MYSTERY of the LEANING TOWER revor Newland’s Race to Pisa! (Mosaic $14.95) reveals the real reason et in Vancouver, On My why the Tower of Pisa leans a little to one side. It concerns the smallest king in history, Nasty King Nedward, who is jealous of his large royal Bike (Tradewind $15.95) tailor, Jolly Roger. The king’s nasty plan to get rid of this tailor includes a with text by Kari-Lynn balloon race involving clueless Scallywags, blistering blunderbuss balls, S Tflimsy parachutes and Belarius, the notorious balloon master. It’s about nasty revenge Winters and illustratations by Chris- plans gone awry as the Scallywags once again revise history and remind us that you don’t need to be very beautiful or extremely intelligent to make your mark in the tina Leist features a young child world. You just need courage and the ability to make a parachute out of your trousers. learning to ride a bike in the city. Race to Pisa is the second book in Newland’s Scallywag series; and simultaneously Mighty Melvin the Magnificent Mouse (Mosaic $14.95) is the first book in his new Suitable for ages 3-5, On My Bike is a series about an obtuse mouse who thinks he’s pretty tough. Everyone knows the world followup collaboration to On My Walk is divided into Biggies (who get whatever they want) and Smallies (who get whatever is left). Not content with his lot in life as a Smally, Melvin leaves Mouseville and sets (Tradewind, 2010). Christina Leist out for the circus to find and conquer the Biggest of all Biggies. Armed with an outsized was born and raised in Germany, and sense of confidence, he pushes past gorillas, lions and rhinos in his quest to prove he’s a Biggie. Both titles are distributed by Fitzhenry and Whiteside. now lives in Vancouver. 9781926890135 Christina Leist Mighty Melvin: 978-1771611800 Race to Pisa: 978-1771612043

35 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 A is for Assu

RAISED IN NORTH DELTA, KWAKWAKA’WAKW contemporary artist Sonny Assu was eight years old when he first discovered his heritage. After graduating from Em- ily Carr University of Art and Design in 2002 he began creating work that merged the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibil- ity. Sonny Assu: A Selective His- tory (Heritage $34.95) highlights the playfulness and power in his art with essays by Candice Hopkins, Marianne Nicolson, Richard Van Camp and El- lyn Walker. Assu and his family moved “home” last year to unceded territory in Campbell River. 978-1-77203-170-6 PHOTO

HANNUS

LIISA Elee Kraljii Gardiner (with book) marked the reprint of Serpentine Loop with an event at the Hillcrest Community Centre rink in Vancouver featuring her sister Elin Schran (far right) and skating choreographer Douglas Webster (front with beard). Serpentine loop is an ice-skating term refering to a series of footwork or field moves.

Sonny Assu: Breakfast Series, 2006 Cereal boxes, 12” x 7” x 3”

WHO’S Alan Fossen B is for Bartley and Writing of Alan Fossen (Elec- HAVING LONG MAINTAINED A FAMILY GET- BRITISH•COLUMBIA tromagnetic Print $65), documenting away on Galiano Island, mother and “people, posters, protests and places” daughter Joan and Tracy Bartley during the 1980s and 1990s in 110 have written Greening Your Cottage colour pages. In that era citizens dealt or Vacation Property: Reduce Your with counteracting 20th century rac- Recreational Footprint (Self Coun- WHO ism, colonialism, fascism and “the mod- sel $14.95). Joan Bartley is a potter; ern capitalist state which fuels war and Tracy is an avid gardener and backyard criminalizes the poor.” 978-0-9959354-0-2 chicken keeper who visits with her fam- The Ujjal Dosanjh Story, covered the pianist, peppers her ily from Los Angeles whenever she can same territory, edited by Naomi Pauls lines with affirma- and distributed by Sandhill Book tions of love, music 978-1-77040-290-4 Marketing. The biography obviously and language. Her G is for Gardiner assisted Dosanjh in the re-release of second book, Or- ELEE KRALJII GARDINER OF VANCOUver GREW his own story. dinary Hours, was is for Carney up as the daughter of U.S. Olympic C shortlisted for the figure skating gold medalist Tenley Victoria Butler Book PAT CARNEY OF SATURNA Albright. Her first collection of po- Karen Enns Prize. 978-0-88977-4612 Island will be at E is for Enns etry, Serpentine Loop (Anvil $18), both the Sunshine references ice skating and glides into IN HER THIRD COLLECTION OF POETRY, CLOUD Coast Festival of the gender issues as she explores ideas Physics (University of Regina $19.95), Written Arts (Au- F is for Fossen of femininity, control and language. Karen Enns focuses on endings— gust 17-20) and the Kraljii Gardiner is herself a former cultural, ecological, and personal. PHOTOGRAPHER AL FOSSEN REFLECTS THE RE- Sidney Literary Fes- skater whose sister, Elin Schran, Endings may be viewed as tragic but SILiency of the human spirit in Freedom tival (Sept. 22-24) has skated professionally, co-founded throughout the book Enns, a former in East Vancouver: The Photography Pat Carney for her bestselling Boston-based Frozen Frog Productions fiction collection, On and created IceFlow, a yoga-inspired Island: Life Among the Coast Dwell- skating class. 978-1-77214-054-5 ers (Touchwood $21.95), in which the former Progressive Conservative Party cabinet member and longtime journal- H is for Hayter-Menzies ist describes life on an unnamed Gulf Island. Born in Shanghai, the highly GRANT HAYTER-MENZIES’S FORTHCOMING assertive author served in the Senate Dorothy Brooke and the Fight to Save from 1990 until 2008. 978-1771512107 the Lost War Horses of Cairo (Potomac Books: U. of Nebraska) is a biography of the Florence Nightingale for horses, D is for Dosanjh Dorothy Brooke, a wealthy Scottish socialite who rescued elderly, abused

IT TURNS OUT THERE ARE TWO VERSIONS OF and abandoned war horses and mules Ujjal Dosanjh’s life story. In BCBW in Egypt following World War I, setting (Spring) we ran coverage of a smartly- up a veterinary hospital in the slums of packaged reprise called Journey Cairo in 1934, staying there until she After Midnight: India, Canada and died in 1955. Still in operation, the Old the Road Beyond by Dosanjh, from War Horse Memorial Hospital in Cairo is the publishing enterprise Figure 1, an now called the Brooke Hospital for Ani- offshoot of Scott McIntyre’s former mals and is the largest equine charity in D&M domain. But two years ago, and the world, sponsoring care for equines ten years in the making, Douglas P. Co-author of Greening Your Cottage or Vacation Property: Reduce Your in eleven developing nations. 9781612347691 Wellbanks’ biography, Unbreakable: Recreational Footprint, Tracy Bartley with kids on Galiano Island. continued on page 38

36 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 Help us adopt a remote, impoverished village in Tanzania.

Early Contributors:

Rowland Lorimer Carole Gerson Jillian Ridington Diane Lane-Feige Thomas Tsiaras Keith Harrison E. Ann Saddlemyer Mary Burns Linde Zingaro Carol Friedmann Roger Mattiussi David Lester Touchwood Rings Bruce McDougall Donna Macdonald Lori Shwydky Daniel Francis Chickenbustales Mother Tongue Glinda Sutherland Aspenne.com Gwen Bird Tricouni Press Eleanor Chumko Raymond Bendall Jane Covernton Lee Edward Fodi Cherie Thiessen Anthony Roper Glynis Whiting Frances Backhouse Martin Twigg Kenneth Smedley John Pass Cathie Crooks Patricia Meyer Eric Ball Inge Bolin Michael Audain Heather Ramsay George Johnson Leslie Hill Christine Hart Cecily May Leaf Press Bill Engleson Lynne Marks Jerry Wasserman Roy Innes Lillian Broca Anton Scamvougeras Elaine Harvey Mary Virtue Ulla Hakanson Lyn Hancock Marilyn Mattenley Jeremy Twigg J. David Cox Lenore Rowntree Larraine Byers Sadhu Binning Allan Etmanski Thora Illing Caroline Woodward Anne Degrace Patty Osborne Karla Kerr Maureen Brownlee Susan McCaslin Andrew Scott Ruth Porter Dinise Ellard Luhombero photo by Placid Kindata Marjorie Simmins Annie Bourret Garry Dermott ORCA/Wooldridge FTER PROVIDING BC BOOKWORLD Morogoro region is ten times higher Larry Hannant Mary White Susan Mayse Bernice Lever for 30 years, we are asking than the global norm. Canadian Doormaster Stella Harvey Barbara Jo May Peter Hay readers to give something Our goal is to purchase a tractor Heather Spears Steve Hunter A Pleuke Boyce Shelley Corbin back. We are asking you to help or a pick-up truck. A Swiss charity GNG & Assoc. Charlotte Cameron Robert Reece Kate Braid some people in a place you’ve never named MIVA will cover half of the Barbara Chouinard Laurel Gould Terence James Margaret Brown heard of. costs. Fred Braches John Madden John Oliphant Ernest Hekkanen Type HELP LUHOMBERO All donors who give $40 (or Sasha Colby Joy Kogawa Shari Nitti Fernanda Viveiros on the internet to find out more) will receive a two-year Aaron Chapman John Wainman Vernice Shostal Ron Verzuh more. subscription to BC Book- Anne Giardini Carole Itter Emmanuel Aligizakis Tony Nardi At www.helpluhombero. World. Yvonne Maximchuk Jane Duber Lynn Copeland George Brandak org you can learn about a Donors who give $100 (or Nancy Wise Lily Chow Brian & Mary Phillips Beverly Cramp Placid Kindata remarkable priest named more) will receive a five-year Linda Rogers Barry Peterson Renee Hetherington Bruce Fleming Placid Kindata who has the subscription to BC BookWorld. Frances Peck Jeff George agricultural know-how to greatly Africa is by far the poorest con- improve life in the Pluto of parishes tinent. Luhombero is hard to spell Donate... in western Tanzania. and easy to forget. You can instantly send donations via At the end of a perilous road, But by working together, we can Paypal to [email protected] in a village called Luhombero, make a difference beyond our bub- Or you can receive a charitable tax Father Placid is also planning to ble of prosperity on the West Coast receipt for contributions of $100 or more by visiting www.helpluhombero.org re-introduce an unprecedented re- of Canada. and using the Canada Helps link. habilitation program for epileptics Or go old school. Mail your cheque who would otherwise be shunned. to BC BookWorld, 3516 West 13th Avenue, Vancouver BC V6R 2S3 The incidence of epilepsy in the Publisher, BC BookWorld Include the word Luhombero.

37 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER2017 Punjabi is now the third most- spoken language in Canada. Dr. Rajwant Singh Chilana has taken five years to create an invaluable and comprehensive reference guide WHO’S for and about all of Canada’s South Asian writers in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil and other Indic languages, including South Asian literary associations, conferences and awards.

Hardcover • $29.99 ISBN: 978-0-9879590-1-0 372 pages • Available: indiabookworld.ca 117-B, 12888-80th Ave, Surrey, BC, V3W 3A8

Nellie Cashman, circa 1875. She was known as the “Angel of the Cassiar” for saving the lives of miners
 stranded in a snowstorm on the Cassiar Mountains.  living at the end of Burrard Inlet, past   Deep Cove “as their stories are drawn I is for Illing inexorably toward an unspeakable

  tragedy.” THORA KERR ILLING’S GOLD RUSH QUEEN: Indian Arm  
   The Extraordinary Life of Nellie In , Alfred struggles with 
    
 Cashman (TouchWood $18.95) recalls writing his latest novel, as his wife, the unorthodox, altruistic, beautiful, Rita, is tasked with caring for their Irish-born miner, entrepreneur and adopted son, Wolfie, a sensitive, Indig-


      
  philanthropist from Cork who lived enous youth who has been designated and prospered in some of the tough- “special needs” for much of his life. est boomtowns from California and Rita’s younger half-sister, Asta, is a Arizona to Cassiar and Alaska, setting constant reminder of the innocence, up restaurants, boarding houses and idealism, and sexual allure Rita once HELP WANTED? general stores. A lifelong Catholic who had and yearns for again. 9781770915725 never married, she gave away much of her earnings to support the building of hospitals and churches, nursed the EVENT’s sick and fed the hungry before she died Reading Service in 1925. Her grave is at Victoria’s Ross for Writers Bay Cemetery. 978-1-77151-159-9 J is for Julie

AFTER OTTAWA VALLEY- raised Julie Paul moved to Victoria and published her first collection of fic- tion, The Jealousy Bone, in 2008, she Louise Green: In 2016, she was Visit eventmagazine.ca today has now released named the recipient of a Wom- her first poetry col- en’s Health and Wellness award Julie Paul lection, The Rules by Body Confidence Canada. of the Kingdom Stonedrift Press (McGill-Queens $16.95), as part of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series. L is for Louise Julie Paul’s second collection of THIRST twelve unsettling stories, The Pull of the PLUS-SIZE GIRLS AND WOMEN SHOULD FEEL Moon (Brindle & Glass, 2014), received welcome at the gym or aerobics class- Katherine Prairie the twelfth, $5,000 City of Victoria But- es and at the Sun Run. So Big Fit ler Prize. The title was also selected as Girl: Embrace the Body You Have Deep in a Columbia River valley rocked one of the Top 100 Books of 2014 by (Greystone $22.95) by Louise Green by violence and tightly controlled by a the Globe & Mail. 9780773548992 makes inroads beyond the fashion in- U.S.-Canada military force, geologist Alex dustry to grapple with inherent sexism Graham is on the hunt for silver. Her plans within the fitness industry. are derailed when she joins the search for K is for Kanagawa A plus-size athlete, Green relates a suspected toxic spill as the victim count her own experiences, along with those rises. A CONTEMPORARY of other large women who got off the adaptation of Hen- couch and into the gym, offering advice But the lethal contamination is no accident. rik Ibsen’s Little on how to choose an activity, set goals, Eyolf, Hiro Kanaga- choose the right clothes and address wa’s play Indian food issues to pursue better fitness and Fiction / Suspense Thriller Arm (Playwrights enhanced self-esteem. Green has also Trade Paperback • $17.95 • 978-0-9949377-0-4 Canada $17.95) founded Body Exchange, “a plus-size Ebook $9.99 • presents the secrets fitness boot camp” with seven locations Available in bookstores and from online booksellers| www.stonedriftpress.com and contradictions in Canada. If Ron Zalko and Steve Hiro Kanagawa of an isolated family Nash can do it…. 978-1-77164-212-5

38 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 STUNNING NEW BOOKS!

The Summer Book WHO creative non fiction 978-1-896949-61-1 | 224 pages | 6.5” x 8.5” | $24.95 izing the ancient Chinese face reading Includes drawings, linocuts, watercolours, etchings. system called siang mien. By being In this satisfying collection of new personal essays, hu- more observant and interested in peo- mour and meditations on nature, 24 BC writers capture ple’s faces, Emisch was able to reduce the joys, memories and spirit of summer. The Summer the effects of agnosia, giving rise to his Book is perfect for backpack, bus, boat, beach or bed. A book, In Your Face (Agio $19.95), de- small positive treasure in this complex crazy century. signed to show how anyone can quickly Luanne Armstrong, Kate Braid, Brian Brett, Anne “read” their own face, their friends, Cameron, Trevor Carolan, Claudia Cornwall, Sarah de family or co-workers. 978-1-927755-54-9 Leeuw, Daniela Elza, Carla Funk, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Eve Joseph, Des Kennedy, Theresa Kishkan, Chelene A treareaeasuryurry of warmwarm talesttalees, timem lessessss memorieemomories anda meditamemedi tionstionionsons Knight, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Grant Lawrence, JJ Lee, on nata ureur by 24 BC B writewritriters Rafe Mair remembers the “horse Peter Levitt, Christine Lowther, Pearl Luke, Susan buns” dropped by Percheron horses P is for Poelzer McCaslin, Briony Penn, DC Reid and Harold Rhenisch. as they pulled wagons of milk, eggs and bread in Vancouver. UBC PRESS HAS M MOTHER TONGUE Creating a Legacy sold out the PT PUBLISHING LIMITED of Art and Literature hardcover is for Mair print run for M Euclid’s Orchard Greg Poelzer SEPT and Other Essays FORMER CKNW RADIO TALK SHOW HOST AND and Ken S. From Theresa Kishkan Socred MLA Rafe Mair stopped con- Coates’ 978-1-896949-63-5 | $22.95 tributing to the online publication Treaty Peoples The Tyee after a ten-year stint and to Treaty Nation: Kishkan’s new collection of has switched to the on-line Vancouver A Road Map for luminous essays opens with Observer instead. Along the way he’s All Canadians “Herakleitos on the Yalakom,” a turbulent homage to her released I Remember Horse Buns (UBC Press, Greg Poelzer father, and ends with “Euclid’s (Promontory $14.95) about growing 2015) but the Orchard”, amidst bees and coyotes, up in and around Vancouver, “the paperback version is still available at touchstones of natural history and best place in the world.” It describes $32.95. It’s Coates’ 32nd book since family mythology re-aligned and Congratulations his youthful adventures around Howe 1982 when he co-wrote Pacific National mortared with metaphysics and Joan Haggerty! Sound and Indian Arm, as well as Stan- Exhibition: An Illustrated History and mathematics. Finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize! ley Park and other coastal environs. Vancouver’s Fair: A Political and Admin- 978-1-987857-25-2 istrative History of the Pacific National Exhibition, both with UBC Press. 4th GREAT BC NOVEL CONTEST Judges: AUDREY THOMAS & JOHN LENT N is for Nilsen is for Qureshy Deadline: Guidelines: mothertonguepublishing.com Q Info:[email protected] WE GET OUR BALANCE FROM OUR EARS. August 1, 2017 An otolith is a series of bones in the ear NOW THAT POSTMEDIA HAS ABOLISHED mothertonguepublishing.com that enable us to be oriented within the local B.C. book coverage by Tracy Open to all writers living in B.C context of physical space, our environs. Sherlock at the Vancouver Sun, as Heritage Group Distribution 1- 800-665-3302 In her debut book of poems, Otolith Canada hits the 150 mark, so does (Goose Lane $19.95), Emily Nilsen of The Ormsby Review. Editor Richard Nelson examines the ache of nostalgia Mackie reports that the 150th con- in the world’s passage of time. tributor to his fledgling undertaking Born and raised in Vancouver, that promulgates in-depth reviews of Nilsen was a finalist for the CBC Po- B.C. books in the age of Twitter is Pak- etry Prize in 2015, after having been istani-raised Muslim Jawad Qureshy. longlisted for the prize on three other Currently at UBC, with degrees from U. occasions, and her work has been of T. and Queens, Qureshy will review longlisted for the UK National Poetry The Clean Money Revolution (New Competition. 978-0-864929-62-4 Society $29.99) by Joel Solomon and Tyee Bridge. Those of you looking closely will see that Mark Forsythe has O is for Oghma reviewed The Clean Money Revolution on page 13 of this issue. The Ormsby AFTER A SEVERE ACCIDENT CAUSED AGNOSIA— Review, with different content from the inability to recognize and identify BC BookWorld, is now producing an objects or persons—Emisch Oghma of in-depth review every second day at Victoria began studying and modern- bcbooklook.com

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39 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 BOOKSTORES CONTEST

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40 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 WHO’SWHO BRITISHCOLUMBIA

printed book that it couldn’t possibly replace real books. According to Pub- R is for Rafi que lishers Weekly, ebook unit sales from reporting publishers were down 16% FAUZIA RAFIQUE— ORIGINALLY FROM Pakistan—writes fiction and poetry in in 2016 from 2015. The sky has not English, Punjabi and Urdu. Endorsed fallen. by literary friends Susan Crean and Heidi Greco, her second novel, The Adventures of SahebaN: Biography of Y is for Yardley a Relentless Warrior (Libros Libertad $20), interprets and responds to vari- MEDICAL HERBALIST KATOLEN YARDLEY HAS ous kinds of oppression that she has published her first book, The Good witnessed in Pakistan and Canada, in Living Guide to Natural and Herbal accordance with Simone de Beauvoir’s Remedies: Simple Salves, Teas, Tinc- statement in The Second Sex: “All op- tures, and More (Good Books $22.99) pression creates a state of war.” with color photographs plus tips, tools The heroine of the story, SahebaN, and techniques for using plants for first rebels against her family in Pakistan aid, common health ailments (such as by refusing an arranged marriage. arthritis, dermatitis, inflammation, Embarking on a new life in Canada, Mark Warrior as a landing bucker in Port Douglas, Harrison Lake in 1980 indigestion, insomnia), cosmetic and SahebaN encounters oppression in the body care use, and home cleaning. form of racism and economic disparity. Royal Roads University in Victoria, has The 310 pages contain recipes, an Rafique is a co-founder and the co- published Tar Wars: Oil, Environment is for Veness extensive guide for preparing common ordinator of Surrey Muse, an interdisci- and Alberta’s Image (University of V herbal medicines at home (including plinary art and literature presentation Alberta Press $34.95), an assessment teas, tinctures, poultices, salves and KIMBERLEY VENESS OF ADAMS LAKE group in Surrey. Her first novel was and documentation of how “image- herbal honeys) plus in-depth descrip- learned to love land, animals, growing Skeena (Libros Libertad, 2011). makers” manage the tensions and tions of over 40 medicinal plants in- food and the smell of manure on a nine- 978-1-926763-44-6 conflict between the continuous growth cluding their numerous applications ty-acre family farm in Saskatchewan. mandated by a globalized economic for internal and external use. In her first book, Let’s Eat: Sustain- system and its unsustainable environ- Yardley is perhaps best known for able Food for a Hungry Planet (Orca mental costs. 978-1-77212-140-7 her appearances on Global TV News S is for Sommer Footprints $19.95), she uncovers the “Ask an Expert Segment.” secret lives of our groceries, explores IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR, BRITISH COLUMBIANS 978-1680991574 alternative farm technologies and tours enlisted with gusto. In fact, B.C. had is for Ulrike Narwani U gardens on corporate rooftops and the highest per capita enlistment rate military-style bunkers below streets. in Canada. Almost 400 soldiers and OF BALTIC-GER- Z is for Zimmerman With facts about agriculture around the nurses enlisted from Langley in the man heritage, world, Veness covers everything from STATISTICS CANADA MADE HEADLINES THIS YEAR Fraser Valley. In his sixth book on North Saanich’s the biggest farm in the world to how when it was reported that for the first Langley, Warren Sommer provides Ulrike Nar- many pesticides are in a single grape. time since Confederation people over an in-depth social and military history wani believes 978-1-459809390 the age of 65 in Canada outnumber of Langley’s “Great War” participation that when we the 15-and-younger demographic. “I with Canucks in Khaki: Langley, the are silent, our deplore the ‘population aging as a cri- Lower Mainland, and the Great War deepest experi- is for Warrior sis’ story that is so often found in the of 1914 to 1918 (Legacy Heritage ences talk to us W media,” writes Lillian Zimmerman, Consultants $39.95). The foreword is in a language “WHEN ONE READS OTHER ACCOUNTS OF THE “portraying those of us who are old as a by Fort Langley resident and BC Book- that we know history of British Columbia since the threat and future burdens. This is both World reviewer Mark Forsythe. Ulrike Narwani without speak- Second World War,” says Mark War- untrue and harmful. 978-0-9958037-0-1 ing. The arc of rior, “the role of unions generally Such thinking robs her life from youth to maturation is receives short shrift.” So he’s done people of self-respect reflected in her first collection of poems, something about it. Warrior’s history and constitutes a is for Takach Collecting Silence (Ronsdale $15.95), T of the Labourers’ International Union failure to recognize including her response to the Mona of North America (LiUNA!) in B.C. since what most older peo- COINCIDENTAL WITH THE RESURGENCE OF THE Lisa: “who does not know you/ iconed/ its first local was chartered in 1937 is ple have achieved.” Keystone XL pipeline project, Geo xrayed on history’s gurney, flesh cold/ Building the Power: The Labourers’ In Did You Just Takach, Ph.D, a writer, filmmaker, measured/ the droop or lift/ of left or Union in British Columbia (LiUNA! Call Me Old Lady? workshop leader and Associate Profes- right upper lip/ or lower/ cameras on Lillian Zimmerman Local 1611). Building the Power can be (Fernwood $18), the sor of Communication and Culture at selfie sticks bristle-strut/ send por- downloaded without charge at: www. 92-year-old asserts long-livers can have traits home.” Narwani’s family was scwu1611.org/book fulfilling lives and make valuable con- forced to emigrate from their homeland, tributions. She exposes how negative Latvia, at the onset of WWII. She grew attitudes can arise from jokes about up in Edmonton before completing a memory loss and sexual infirmity. Age- Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Litera- X is for ebooks ism, like sexism and racism, needs to tures at the University of Toronto. Her HARDLY ANYBODY WOULD LISTEN. BUT WE DID be more widely addressed. Zimmerman poems explore the power of silence to tell you that ebooks were a trumped- has established a scholarship to annu- size-up, reshape and transform. up fad, mostly promulgated by self- ally support a graduate student in SFU’s 978-1-55380-487-1 interested parties, and the format is Department of Gerontology. so obviously inferior to the feel of a 9781552668979

Fauzia Rafique, former journalist and screenwriter in Pakistan. At Harrison Lake.

41 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2017 LETTERS

QUICKIES the view from the east. So many, A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS In passing many thanks, as usual, for including my novel, The Cadaver, in your recent YOUR RECENT TRIBUTE TO THE LATE QUICKIES is an affordable advertising vehicle for writers, artists & events. issue. Your reader numbers are con- W.P. Kinsella helped me appreciate the For info on how to be included: [email protected] siderable in B.C., as you know, and I hard work, dedication and drive he put immediately had some of the Gabriola into his seemingly effortless stories. literati comment. In 2016, I saw him give a reading at Roy Innes Fall in Love Shelf Life Books, a great Calgary inde- Captain Joe & Gabriola Island Grateful Jake With Your Life, pendent bookstore. Only about eight by Emily Madill One Week people showed up. I was shocked at the at a Time low turnout but he was in good spirits Critical eye Confidence boosting by certified professional coach and gave a great performance anyway. books for kids. ON PAGE 33 OF YOUR SPRING ISSUE IN A WRITE- Emily Madill I’m glad I had the chance to see him. 978-0981257907 • $11.95 each 978-0988127333 • Hardcover & Kindle up regarding The Clothesline Swing, Graham Chandler AVAILABLE: AVAILABLE: the Persian classic One Thousand and Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble Amazon, Red Tuque, Chapters, Calgary www.emilymadill.com www.emilymadill.com One Nights was misguidedly referred to KIDLIT SELF-HELP as Arabian Tales. As a woman of three THANK YOU FOR THE EXTENSIVE AND CLEAR different literatures, including English, memorial piece on Richard Wagamese I’m aware that literary works travel and The Perestroika in BCBookLook. I was lucky and em- Cordite & influence new writings, but the differ- Effect powered by his wisdom and humour Testosterone ence between inspiration and literary Why Men Should Not by Tom Mavrovich —open acceptance and support of all Be Running the World piracy is in the act of NOT acknowledg- & Cecilia Tanner the writers—at a “Words on Water” by Cecilia Tanner Glasnost took a country ing the original source of work (1001 Festival in Campbell River in 2015. His See the bloodshed, the greed, where everyone was sup- Nights), where it had been created, and & the brutality, and then look posed to own everything to going does hurt. to see who is making & let- one where no one owned printed, existed in its cultural context, ting this madness happen. anything, but not for long. Bernice Lever eBook • 978-0-9879283-0-6 eBook • 978-0-9879283-3-7 and survived historical situations. Of (all eReader platforms) (all eReader platforms) Bowen Island Published by Ruksak Books Published by Ruksak Books course, this book of tales from the NON-FICTION NOVEL Iran region has been translated into From writers other languages, such as French, but it doesn’t make it a French tale. One IT WAS A TREAT TO SEE THE FULL-PAGE REVIEW The Moral Work Thousand and One Nights was origi- Karyotakis/ of The Performance in the spring 2017 of Nursing nally written in Farsi. Polydouri issue. I’m humbled to be included in by Hazel J. Magnussen Naria Yaraee the company of so many wonderful This second edition A Tragic Love Story Vancouver B.C. writers like Gail Anderson-Dar- includes new chapters in [Thanks for your critical eye. ‘Arabian community health nursing Poetry translated by gatz, Madeleine Thien, Anosh Irani, and end of life care. Tales’ was from the publisher’s promo- Manolis Aligizakis Clea Young and others. Thank you for Promontory Press (2017) tional material. The publisher has been 978-1-987857-82-5 • $19.95 the great service you provide for B.C. 9781926763453 • $20 notified. – Ed.] hazelmagnussen.com www.manolisaligizakis.com writers, publishers and readers. You NARRATIVE Non-Fiction POETRY are truly a ‘home’ for literature in the Send letters/emails to: BC BookWorld, province. 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R Drawn To Ann Eriksson 2S3 or [email protected]. Letters may The Listener Thetis Island be edited for clarity & length. Change by David Lester Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle “A dense and fiercely THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PERFECT OBITS This evocative collection... intelligent work... article on my memoir, Culture Gap. Richard Wagamese, author should inspire us to all in a lyrical and It’s really stirring interest in the book. (1955-2017) • Rhoda Moss, ‘dream of what might be’ stirring style.” and to act to bring it Judith Plant bookseller (1930-2017) • Howard about.”—NOAM CHOMSKY — Publishers Weekly (NY) Gabriola Island Overend, librarian, author (1919- 9781771132572 • $29.95 978-1894037488 • $19.95 www.btlbooks.com www.amazon.ca 2017) • Cullene Bryant, minister, GRAPHIC HISTORY GRAPHIC NOVEL WE B.C. WRITERS APPRECIATE SEEING OUR poet, author (1941-2017). names in print. Those Rocky Moun- For full obituaries: abcbookworld.com tains are so damned high they block

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