2 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 PEOPLE BCTOP SELLERS* GO TELL IT TO THE MOUNTAINS The Garden That You Are (Sono Nis Press $28.95) A Kilimanjaro epiphany connects the wealthy with the poor by Katherine Gordon

All the Dirt: Reflections on NCE UPON A TIME, YOGA TEACHER Prior to turning 40, Sondhi left Lululemon and hiked up Mount Organic Farming (TouchWood Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, next to her native Kenya, and returned to Van- Editions $29.95) by Rachel Fisher, Amrita Sondhi was hiking up couver to launch her own clothing line specializing in sustainable fibres. Robin Tunnicliffe & Heather Stretch Grouse Mountain when she met Having detoured in 2006 to publish The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook, The Opening Act: Canadian Chip Wilson, who shared his into its third printing, she has now produced her second Ayurvedic Theatre History 1945-1953 cookbook. (Ronsdale Press $24.95) vision for a new clothing company By Susan McNicoll The Tastes of Ayurveda: More Healthful, Healing Recipes for Oto be called Lululemon Athletica. After Sondhi suggested the Modern Ayurvedic (Arsenal Pulp $26.95) includes modern inter- his company should carry yoga wear, Lululemon went glo- pretations of Indian cuisine (spicy paneer zucchini kabobs and mango and coconut kulfi), and Ayurvedic spins on vegetarian fare (barley rain- bal. It was not her first foray into fashion. Working from bow pilaf and raw zucchini hummus). The book also includes yoga and her parents’ basement, Sondhi had started a clothing com- breathing exercises easily done at home or at work, full-colour recipe photos, and information on sprouting/fermenting techniques and backyard pany called Tayari and opened a successful boutique in gardening. the Point Grey neighborhood of , but thieves The Ayurvedic diet is based on the concept of three “doshas”: vata (air), pitta (fire), and kapha (earth). Each of us has a primary dosha that robbed the store, twice, prompting her to conclude, “the we can strive to maintain at a healthy balance, but which can cause universe must be staying STOP.” problems in excess. The book includes a questionnaire so readers can determine their own primary dosha and then look for recipes that will help them maintain or reduce it for optimal health. Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old healing tradition from India linked to the development of yoga, is based on the concept that one’s physical, PHOTO mental, and spiritual well-being comes from a number of sources, includ- SALMON

ing a healthful diet based on one’s individual constitution. On Kilimanjaro, Sondhi had an epiphany: she would connect

REBECCA westerners with the local people she met in Tanzania who were poor but

Cold Comfort: community-minded, resulting in her creation of The Pamoja Foundation. Growing Up Cold War Now living on Bowen Island, she donates 10% of the proceeds from her (Talonbooks $18.95) Movement clothing line and her cookbooks to her foundation by Gil McElroy (www.pamoja.org) that supports grass roots entrepreneurs in making Using a box of photographs that their way from poverty to self-sustainability through micro-loans. document his father’s military career, author Gil McElroy unlocks Modern 1-55152-204-7; Tastes 978-1-55152-438-2 the secrets of a father better understood by his military compatriots than by his own family. Citizen of the century

Something Fierce: Memoirs remains an enigma of a Revolutionary Daughter (D&M $21) by Carmen Aguirre

Vancouver Noir: 1930-1960 (Anvil Press $25) by John Belshaw and Diane Purvey JOE FORTES

A Canadi- THE TWO BEST-KNOWN VANCOUVERITES FROM THE TWENTIES an’s Best were Pauline Johnson, a half-Mohawk “princess” and Tax Haven: Joe Fortes, a black man from Trinidad. Their funeral pro- The US by cessions outstripped those for any politician, sports hero or Robert Keats entrepreneur. (Self-Counsel Robert Press $19.95) The large and hugely like- Keats able lifeguard was voted “Citi- City Critters: Wildlife in zen of the Century” because he the Urban Jungle (Orca Books taught literally hundreds of chil- $19.95) by Nicholas Read dren how to swim at English Bay. Allen Carr's Easy Way to Now there’s a swanky restau- Stop Smoking (Sandhill Book rant named after Fortes, as Marketing $19.95) by Allen Carr well as the West End branch of the Vancouver Public A Wilder West: Rodeo in Joe Fortes Western (UBC Press Library. $24.95) by Mary Ellen Kelm Amrita Sondhi: After But who was he? Lisa Anne Smith and suggesting Lululemon ’ Our Friend Joe: The Joe The Book of Kale: Barbara Rogers carry yoga wear, the The Easy-to-Grow Superfood, Fortes Story (Ronsdale Press $21.95) is a slim company went global. 80+ Recipes (Harbour $26.95) biography about a big man that gamely succeeds by Sharon Hanna in collecting all that can be known. But Joe Fortes will remain an endearing and mysterious presence, * The current topselling titles from 12 a symbol for racial tolerance from an era when it major BC publishing companies, in no particular order. was severely lacking. 978-1-55380-146-7

Publisher/ Writer: Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Hannah Main-van der Kamp, Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: John Moore, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, For this issue, we gratefully acknowledge the Alan Twigg BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Cherie Thiessen, unobtrusive assistance of Canada Council, a • Shane McCune, Cameron continuous partner since 1988. Produced with the sponsorship of Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. Editor/Production: Pacific BookWorld News Society. Publications Mail Consultants: Sharon Jackson David Lester Registration No. 7800. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk BC Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg BOOKWORLD Advertising & editorial: Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. AUTUMN 2012 BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Deliveries: Ken Reid, The News Group In-Kind Supporters: Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at Simon Fraser University Library; Vol. 26, No. 3 Email: [email protected]. Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com Vancouver Public Library.

3 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 PEOPLE

Miles Olson: Future KOSOVO, NOT primitive Born to be rewild

ORGET LEFTIST POLITICS OR UBER-SYNTHETIC INTEL- THE MATURITY OF CHRIS GUDGEON’S STYLISTICALLY ligence. The real vanguard is rewilding. After a European novel Song of Kosovo (Goose Lane $29.95) will Fdecade of foraging, hunting, gardening and gathering come as a surprise for anyone who might have viewed him for his survival in a forested area near Courtenay. Miles solely as a literary arts administrator for the B.C. Arts Coun- Olson’s manual for radical self-reliance in harmony with cil. Gudgeon’s first novel is a sly, frequently amusing and nature, Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspi- penetrating distillation of individual estrangement and social ration for the Future Primitive (New Society $15.95) is chaos set during the Balkan wars of the late 1990s. Ostensi- also a philosophical treatise for those wishing to “heal them- bly a manuscript discovered by the narrator named Gudgeon selves and the earth.” Whether dealing responsibly with while he was working as a post-war “social historian” in wastes or learning how to tan and process animal hides, the Pristina, Kosovo, for an international team of translators reader is beckoned to embrace “the future primitive and ex- and rebuilders, the novel takes the perience their wildest dreams.” Just mix a little feral food form of a young man’s memoir, writ- preservation with harvesting unconventional proteins and natu- ten mostly in prison for his defence ral methods of birth control and you’re away to the human lawyer, recalling the shattering of races. It’s possibly the most radical B.C. book of the year. former Yugoslavia. 9780865717213 The narrator, one Zavida Zankovic, must retain his sanity in ARTEFACTS & FICTION Chris Gudgeon the face of absurd charges, resulting in a darkly comic style reminiscent ASKATCHEWAN-RAISED LESLIE HALL PINDER JOINED A prestigious Vancouver law firm as its first female liti- of Kafka, Josef Skovecky or Jerzy Kozinsky. gator in 1977, but this firm held its monthly meetings This is not an attempt to reproduce the tragedy of war with S documentary zeal; rather it is a literary journey emboldened at a club that did not admit women. Asked to use the servants’ entrance, she walked through the front door. Her employment by wit and artifice, a perfectly executed literary conceit. The ended—and her passion for social justice kept growing. intended recipient of the story is the lawyer Nexhmije Pinder became the in-house counsel for the Union of B.C. Gjinushi of the Pristina School of Law and Cosmeticalogical Indian Chiefs, established her own law firm, and supported land Sciences. Throughout the horrors of the war, there is the claims for her First Nations clients from 1982 until 2005. She also protagonist’s urgent and abiding love affair with the beauti- published two novels and a 1991 chapbook, The Carriers of No, in ful Tristina. Our hero meets her at the Pavlov Museum out- Leslie Hall side of Moscow where, as students, they spontaneously decide which she criticized Judge Allan McEachern’s notorious decision Pinder: against the Gitskan-Wet’suwet’en land claim. examining they must steal two stuffed versions of Pavlov’s dogs. Gudg- Now her third novel, Bring Me One of Everything (Grey Swan $16.95), greed eon’s other books include biographies of folk singer Stan blends fiction and fact to examine greed and expropriation of First Rogers and poet Milton Acorn. He recently left his civil Nations artefacts. It begins with a flashback to 1957 when service job to concentrate on writing. 978-0-86492-679-1 an anthropologist cuts down the largest stand of to- tem poles in the world for a museum display, ST. ANDREAS hoping to salvage the artistic remains of the Haida. 978-9834900-1-2 BY HIS OWN ACCOUNT, ANDREAS SCHROEDER HAS SUFFERED bouts of cultural politics. As well as serving as chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, 1976-77, he was the guiding force behind the establishment of Public Lending Rights in Canada, only ending his 34-year commitment working on behalf of PLR in 2008. This year he was named the fourth recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada’s Graeme Gibson Award. Es- tablished in 1991 for “varied and remarkable contributions Little is to improve the circumstances of writers in Canada,” the award Little is was first given to Graeme Gibson; it was given to Pierre Berton in 1992 and to copyright warrior beautifulbeautiful Heather Robertson in 2011. “Every Canadian writer Lloyd Kahn: doing the sixties has Andreas to thank,” said Greg Hollingshead, Writ- thing in his seventies. ers’ Union chair. The rarely-given award is the TWUC equiva- lent to sainthood.

ORN IN 1935, LLOYD KAHN IS a former editor of 1960s maga- Bzine The Whole Earth Catalog. As a free-thinker influenced by GBLT Buckminster Fuller, green archi- tectural movements and counter-cultural IS NOT A idealism, he became the founding editor- in-chief of his own imprint, Shelter Publi- SANDWICH cations, Inc., to encourage and celebrate eco-friendly and non-conformist homes. Along Amber Dawn with books such as Shelter (1973) and HomeWork (2004), he published numerous titles ESTABLISHED IN 2007 FROM AN ENDOWMENT ESTABLISHED pertaining to physical fitness and featured many by artist Robin Pacific, the $4,000 Dayne Ogilvie Prize builders and carpenters from and annually rewards emerging writers who identify themselves the Gulf Islands in Builders of the Pacific Coast as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender [GLBT], and who (Shelter 2008), a photo-essay about ingenious, eco- have published at least one title. The 2012 winner is writer, friendly experimentalism in West Coast building filmmaker and performance artist Amber Dawn, author styles and dwellings with mostly “hippie-style” of the Lambda Award-winning novel Sub Rosa (Arsenal Pulp contemporary architecture. For many years Kahn Press, 2010), editor of Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of was based in Bolinas, a small town on the Pacific Fear and Queer Desire (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009) and co- coast north of San Francisco, but upon moving to editor of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn (Arse- a converted bus on Hornby Island, he has pub- nal Pulp Press, 2005). Currently, director of programming lished Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter: Scaling for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Amber Dawn has an Back in the 21st Century (Shelter $26.95). He con- MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British tinues to surf, paddleboard, and skateboard (longboard) Columbia. in his late seventies. 978 0-936070-52-0

4 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 New from the award-winning author of THE GOLDEN MEAN

“Lucid even in nightmare, The Sweet Girl slips sideways around the philosopher to examine the lives of girls and women when we were not yet human.” Marina Endicott, author of The Little Shadows and Good to a Fault

“Annabel Lyon is a wonderful writer, adept at breathing life into the ancient past. She reanimates near-mythical characters until we feel we know them intimately—their dreams and desires, their brilliance and their failings—which is an achievement only the fi nest historical novelists can aspire to.” Jane Johnson, author of The Tenth Gift, The Salt Road and The Sultan’s Wife

Random House Canada | www.randomhouse.ca Available wherever books and e-books are sold.

Writing is a Social Act!

ASSOCIATE OF ARTS DEGREE APPLY IN CREATIVE WRITING TODAY Creative Writing at University puts writers of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, children's literature and other genres into contact with each other. Public readings, magazine and book production, hands on editing, and workshops bring writers together. We offer introductory workshops and advanced workshops in Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction and Writing for the Stage. FOR MORE INFORMATION Call: 604.986.1911 ext 2425 • www.capilanou.ca/creative-writing Upcoming information sessions will be announced at capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

FACULTY OF ARTS & SCIENCES 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver, BC. www.capilanou.ca

5 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 BOLD IS BEAUTIFUL

George Littlechild The Spirit Giggles Within George Littlechild, foreword by Ryan Rice A stunning retrospective of a career that has spanned nearly four decades features more than 150 of George Littlechild’s works. Heritage House $59.95

Backspin Embedded on the Home Front The Fisher Queen The Salmon Twins 120 Years of Golf in Where Military and Civilian Lives Converge A Deckhand’s Tales of the BC Coast Caroll Simpson Arv Olson Edited by Joan Dixon and Barb Howard Sylvia Taylor Inspired by First Nations’ stories, A comprehensive overview of everything An insightful collection of essays and “Sylvia Taylor’s engaging story of a young The Salmon Twins tells the tale of the golf-related in BC. This encyclopedic reflections on the contemporary home- woman testing herself in a traditional transformation of young twins and reference explores the growth of the game, front experience redefines the traditional man’s world is a darn good read.” shows how working together keeps a legendary figures and the golf courses of BC. meaning of “home front.” —Anthony Dalton community healthy. Heritage House $28.95 Heritage House $19.95 Heritage House $17.95 Heritage House $24.95

Quests for Fire Edward S. Curtis The Judge and the Lady Passage on the Cardena Tales from Many Lands Above the Medicine Line Marlyn Horsdal Mel Dagg Jon Stott Portraits of Aboriginal Life in the Canadian West When the beautiful and rebellious Eleanor After his mother dies, Matthew Clayton sets An engaging exploration and retelling of Rodger D. Touchie Wentworth arrives in Victoria in 1870, she is out on the SS Cardena in search of his father. stories from around the world about the vital unimpressed. But when she meets the fasci- As he journeys up the , he An introduction and a tribute to one of North importance fire has played in history. Perfect nating judge Matthew Begbie, life in the colony meets many interesting characters, including America’s greatest photographers. Curtis’s for children, parents and educators. suddenly becomes much more attractive. a soon-to-be-famous Emily Carr. personal story is as compelling as his images. Heritage House $12.95 TouchWood Editions $19.95 TouchWood Editions $19.95 Heritage House $19.95

Beyond Beauty The Spencer Mansion Death as a Fine Art The Slickrock Paradox Hunting the Wild Blue Poppy A House, a Home, and an Art Gallery Gwendolyn Southin Stephen Legault Bill Terry Robert Ratcliffe Taylor The fashionable art world of 1960s Vancouver While searching for his missing wife amid Follow Bill Terry and his fellow alpine plant Now home to the Art Gallery of Greater turns deadly when a gallery owner is the soaring mesas of Utah’s red rock hunters as they brave high altitude and Victoria, the Spencer Mansion was once the murdered. Margaret Spencer and Nat wilderness, Silas Pearson uncovers a grisly dramatic climate for a glimpse of the perfect residence of some of Victoria’s influential Southby are on the case in Death as a Fine mystery. The Slickrock Paradox is the first natural gardens found atop the Tibetan families. Discover the rich and layered his- Art, the fifth Margaret Spencer Mystery. in the Red Rock Canyon Mysteries. plateau. Includes spectacular photographs. tory of one of the city’s architectural gems. TouchWood Editions $14.95 TouchWood Editions $18.95 TouchWood Editions $24.95 TouchWood Editions $19.95

AVAILABLE WHERE FINE BOOKS ARE SOLD OR FROM HERITAGEHOUSE.CA RMBOOKS.COM HERITAGE GROUP DISTRIBUTION TOUCHWOODEDITIONS.COM 1.800.665.3302 HGDISTRIBUTION.COM BRINDLEANDGLASS.COM

6 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 NEW FROM HERITAGE GROUP DISTRIBUTION

Canada’s Raincoast at Risk Art for an Oil-Free Coast Experience the wild beauty of the northern and central through the eyes of 50 of Canada’s most celebrated artists, all working in an effort to preserve BC’s fragile raincoast. Includes work from Robert Bateman, Carol Evans and Roy Henry Vickers. Raincoast Conservation Foundation $45.00

Caribbean by Cruise Ship Moose on the Loose Stephen Hutchings The History of the The Complete Guide to Cruising the Caribbean True Tales to Make you Laugh, Chortle, Landscapes for the End of Time RCMP Marine Services Anne Vipond Snicker and Feel Inspired Petra Halkes, Mary Reid and Vincent Varga Kenneth John Haycock Caribbean By Cruise Ship Edited by Matt Jackson offers essential Based on a major exhibition at the Glenbow Ranging from the early days of the North information on the best beaches within walking The 26 tales of misadventure in this collection Museum of Stephen Hutchings’s monumental West Mounted Police to present-day RCMP distance of cruise piers, details of local attrac- prove that while outlandish things can happen landscape paintings and the ideas of temporality, operations, this compendium features vessels tions and maps for every island and port. on the road less travelled, there’s no such thing permanence and eternity. throughout Canada traded between services, Visit our website for more titles from Ocean Cruise Guides as a bad story! Visit our website for more titles from the Glenbow Museum including the Coast Guard and navy, during Ocean Cruise Guides $22.95 Visit our website for more titles from Summit Studios Glenbow Museum $39.95 includes DVD times of war and peace. Summit Studios $19.95 Visit our website for more titles from Pacific Marine Publishing Pacific Marine Publishing $59.95

Nature Guide to the Victoria Region The Wild Ride British Columbia Probate Kit British Columbia Edited by Ann Nightingale and Claudia Copley A History of the North West Mounted Police 1873–1904 Everything You Need to Probate Do Your Own Divorce Kit Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned Charles Wilkins or Administer an Estate Alison Sawyer Mary-Jane Wilson naturalist, a visitor or a resident, this book will Now available in paperback! Use this kit to obtain your own divorce and save give you the knowledge you need to get the A brilliantly illustrated history of the Canadian Written in simple, non-technical language, hundreds of dollars in legal fees. Book and most out of your explorations of southeastern west and the North West Mounted Police—from this kit gives consumers everything they need CD-ROM include step-by-step instructions and all Vancouver Island. It is designed to help you the throes of Confederation, through the founding to probate or administer an estate without the necessary forms specific to the laws of BC. understand the variety of habitats and natural of the Mounties in 1873, to the arrival of the consulting a lawyer. Visit our website for more titles from Self Counsel Press wonders awaiting your discovery. Visit our website for more titles from Self Counsel Press railway and the heroics of the Klondike Gold Rush. Self Counsel Press $39.95 Visit our website for more titles from the Royal BC Museum Visit our website for more titles from Stanton, Atkins & Dosil Self Counsel Press $39.95 Royal BC Museum $14.95 Stanton, Atkins & Dosil $24.95

Secret Lakes of Southern Buffalo Airways Backroad Mapbook Cooking Fish & Brewing Tales Vancouver Island Home of Ice Pilots Cariboo Coast BC, 3rd edition Recipes and Stories From Professional Exploring the Recreation, Nature and History of Daniel Cattoni and Lori Kerr Outdoor Recreation Guide Fish Harvesters and Eaters 25 lakes from Saanich to Sooke Ride along on some of Buffalo’s most exciting Russell Mussio and Trent Ernst Bob and Peggy Burkosky Adam Ungstad missions in this visually stunning book. Over This new edition offers detailed GPS-compatible An endearing collection of hearty recipes and The casual visitor, avid naturalist and armchair 200 images make this a must-have for fans of topographical relief maps with backroads, logging true tales that celebrates the adventure, beauty Ice Pilots historian will find this an indispensable guide or anyone interested in the beauty of roads, trails, parks, and locations of campsites and traditions of the people that live and work to discovering the hidden lakes of southern vintage aircraft. and outdoor recreational opportunities, making along BC’s rugged coast. Vancouver Island. Icarus Photography $59.95 this a complete road and recreation atlas. Peggy Burkosky Fine Art Design $19.95 Ungstad Information Architects $19.95 Visit our website for more titles from Mussio Ventures Mussio Ventures $25.95

PROUDLY SERVING OVER 1000 ACCOUNTS IN WESTERN CANADA HERITAGE GROUP DISTRIBUTION 1.800.665.3302 HGDISTRIBUTION.COM

7 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 COVER

OW THAT HAS Fidel Castro with Celia Sánchez, 1950s N turned into an ailing ex-dictator in sweat pants, courting the blessings of the quivering autocrat, Pope Benedict, perhaps the world is ready to be curious about Castro’s lover and advisor Celia Sánchez, a.k.a. “The Mother of the Revolution,” a thoroughly admirable so- cial reformer who served as Castro’s con- science until her death in 1980. Sánchez helped liberate Fidel Castro from prison, salvaged his failed invasion and handled logistics for the Castro brothers’ uprising. Without her, a few rag-tag intellectuals and peasant soldiers could never have ousted the U.S.-backed and Mafia-serving dic- tator, . Equally important, it was Celia Sánchez who kept Castro’s monstrous ego in check and encouraged him to pursue progres- sive educational and health policies. ✍ IN HER NEW NOVEL THE WOMAN SHE WAS (BRINDLE & Glass $21.95), Rosa Jordan introduces Celia Sánchez through the life and times of a contempo- rary paediatrician, named Celia Cantú, as she juggles the complexities of her work in Havana with her fractured love life—two competitive broth- WHO IS CELIA? ers and a secret lover in the mountains. The Woman She Was provides a vivid and com- To this day, Fidel Castro often retreats to the unpre- plex representation of what it’s like to live inside , outside the realm of tourism. tentious apartment he shared with Celia Sánchez for The story gains drama when Dr. Cantú goes on a quest across Cuba in search of a missing niece— 21 years, sometimes to prepare a meal for special friends thereby blending a travelogue into the narrative—as Jordan skillfully blends historical information and the nuances of Cuban manners. like Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez and Dr. Cantú is scouring the island to find her 16- year-old niece Liliana, hoping she can prevent her his wife, but more often, it is said, simply to be alone. from turning into one more jinetera out to hustle tourists. Simultaneously, Dr. Cantú is being pres- BY ROSA JORDAN army—fighters she and her people would have to recruit since sured to choose between two would-be lovers who most of his had been killed. However, she personally took charge of finances, strategy, organization, community relations, and are brothers—Luis, a high-level bureaucrat in Ha- ORN IN 1920, CELIA SÁNCHEZ vana, or her former fiancé, Joe, who has returned about everything else essential to a successful guerrilla war. from Miami. Manduley grew up in eastern Dictator Batista confirmed her threat to his regime by putting Joe’s arrival from Miami, with lots of money at Cuba. By 1950 she was already a $75,000 bounty on her head. Ché Guevara, commenting in his diary on a false report that Sánchez had been captured, wrote, his disposal, and Liliana’s teenage turbulence, force organizing for the overthrow of the contemporary Celia to examine the discrepancy “Celia was our [the guerrillas] only known safe contact… her between her country’s ideals and its often frustrat- Cuba’s undemocratic regime— detention would have meant isolation for us.” The CIA reported, “Celia Sánchez is one of the most powerful figures in the 26th of ing reality, thereby encouraging her to summon the this while Fidel Castro, six years younger and 1000 B July Movement. All functions not strictly military are under her example of Celia Sánchez to give her strength. The use of Celia Sánchez’s photo on the cover of kilometres away at the University of Havana, was jurisdiction. All intelligence agents report to her.” Tete Puebla, the novel leads the reader to want more information still embroiled in student politics. an officer in the rebel army and now a general in the Cuban about Sánchez than has been provided in the book’s military, mentioned in her memoir an astonishing array of activi- dense, dialogue-laden 376 pages. And for anyone In 1953, when Castro and his followers were apprehended ties that were supervised or personally handled by Sánchez knowing precious little about Cuba, Jordan’s use of after a botched raid on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago during the war, concluding simply, “Celia organized everything.” flashbacks and hallucinations to evoke the heroism de Cuba, it was Celia Sánchez who organized island-wide pro- Sánchez’s efforts to bring a true social revolution to Cuba of Sánchez’s namesake could be a bit of a stretch. tests that resulted in the rebels’ release. Fidel promptly went to continued after the war. While the men in government were dealing But The Woman She Was is nonetheless an ambi- Mexico to prepare for another challenge to the Batista dictator- with terrorist attacks, economic woes, a US-backed invasion, and tious accomplishment: a smart and convincing novel ship. Sánchez, who was by then communicating with Castro but other foreign policy issues, she focussed on projects that would about the politics of sexuality as much as a pano- had not yet met him, remained in Cuba to lay the groundwork improve the lives of ordinary : housing, hospitals, schools, rama of Cuba’s countryside and politics. for a guerrilla war. By the time of the invasion (December, 1956), and much more. Her ideas were highly original and she imple- Having already written two travel guides to Cuba, she had convinced him to launch the uprising mented them with astounding alacrity. Cycling Cuba (Lonely Planet 2002) and Cuba’s Best at the end of the island she knew so well: the As a doctor’s daughter, she knew the effect Beaches (CreateSpace 2011), Jordan has again high- rugged Sierra Madre. of parasites on children who ran barefoot in the lighted Celia Sánchez in her new non-fiction offer- At the time and place designated for the same mud as pigs. She educated herself on shoe- ing, Cuba Unspun (Oolichan $22.95), a travel memoir rebels’ arrival, Sánchez was waiting on the making and had factories built because, she said, due in October. beach with trucks to transport Castro and his no child, however poor, should have to go bare- Jordan has explored the island many times since 81 men to safe houses in the mountains. How- foot. Free shoes were soon available to all Cu- 1996, camping in a military compound, cycling ever, they got lost, not making landfall till two ban children, and still are. through hurricane-hit towns, spending a rainy night days later and in the wrong place—a mistake She had hospitals designed specially for in the jungle without a tent, picking up hundreds of that resulted in a bloodbath at the hands of the children. One, on beautiful Tarará beach, would hitchhikers, once coming face-to-face with Fidel Batista army. The 16 survivors, scattered, diso- later treat more child victims of the Chernobyl Castro, and visiting various sites that commemorate riented, and without supplies in rugged, unfa- disaster than all G-8 countries together. Today Celia Sánchez. miliar terrain, were rescued by Celia’s friends. Cuban doctors involved in Operación Milagro So who was Celia? We asked Rosa Jordan for this Despite Fidel’s record of two disastrous use the facility to provide blind children from summary. military engagements, Celia convinced her co- poor countries with free eye operations and conspirators that he should command the rebel Celia Sánchez in the 1970s post-operative care.

8 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 Celia Sánchez had the huge Copelia ice cream parlour built as a gathering place for Habaneros and she created Parque Lenin, Havana’s equivalent of NYC’s Central Park, to give urban families easy access to recreational activities among flowers, meadows, lakes, and trees—especially trees, which she regarded as sacred. She established municipal museums all over the island, and scores of campismos—simple huts in the mountains and on beautiful beaches where families and young people could stay practically free. She designed cottages built of native materials to sit on tiny islands in Laguna del Tesores, a unique Rosa Jordan (left on retreat still enjoyed by Cuban honeymooners. bicycle) in front of mural These were among hundreds of projects she created, con- in Pinar del Rio, Cuba structed, and completed in the 21 years she lived after the war. In A Butterfly Against Stalin, Celia Hart wrote of Literacy Sánchez, “She had the magical power to join heaven teacher holding and earth without showing off. She was a perfect mediator Alfabeticemos between the work of the revolution, its people and (Let’s Learn leader.” to Read and Write). From The inflexible Cuban bureaucracy that grew after the war Anita’s was Sánchez’s great enemy. Had she lived longer she might Revolution. have prevailed over demands for conformity and political correctness that often took precedence over humanitarian and scores of charming handcrafted memorials. Cubans prob- SHIRLEY LANGER’S DEEP AND ABIDING KNOWLEDGE OF considerations. But her death in 1980 left Castro and the ably find it ironic that most foreigners, if they have heard of Cuba since the mid-1960s has resulted in a marvelous young to be influenced by others. Sánchez at all, suppose she was just Fidel’s secretary or adult novel, Anita’s Revolution (Shirleez Books $15.95), Close friends of Fidel have said that from the time he met possibly his lover, and have no idea how powerful and piv- recalling Castro’s literacy campaign of the early 1960s when Celia in 1957 until lung cancer claimed her 23 years later, he otal she was. Woman 978-1-926972-46-6; Unspun 978-0-88982-289-4 school children were sent into the countryside to teach one never made an important decision without her concurrence. million illiterate Cubans how to read and write. Some were Shortly before her death, she advised him to marry a friend ALSO PUBLISHED killed by counter-revolutionaries. Cuba’s literacy rate today of theirs, Dalia Soto del Valle, which he later did. is almost 100%. www.anitasrevolution.com 978-09812538-1-7 Although he and Dalia have now been married more than INVITED TO THIS YEAR’S INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR IN ✍ three decades and have six sons, Fidel often retreats to the Havana as a member of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance, ALTHOUGH IT’S A GUIDEBOOK DERIVED FROM EXPERIENCES unpretentious apartment he shared with Celia for 21 years, David Doyle of Summerland presented a dramatic re- focused on Havana, dancer Chen Lizra’s attractively pack- sometimes to prepare a meal for special friends like Nobel creation of the trial of Louis Riel for the Cuban Writers aged My Seductive Cuba (Latidos / Red Tuque $26.95) is Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez and his wife, Union based on his newly revised From the Gallows, An an excellent introduction to Cuban manners in general. “Cuba but more often, it is said, simply to be alone. Enquiry into the Career of Louis Riel (NorthWest Edu- is the kind of place that inspires you to re-think your life,” In Cuba you can find books and articles about Celia cational Productions $20). Doyle was a First Nations school says the Israel-raised Vancouverite. She has been visiting Sánchez, three small museums, some impressive monuments, principal in Mount Currie and in Chemainus. 978- 09867767-1-7 and dancing in Cuba since 2005. www.chenlizra.com. 978-0-9868910-0-7

9 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 Celebrating 44 Years of Publishing in Canada

BACK IN PRINT

The Canadian Pacific’s & The Esquimalt & Nanaimo Under the Wire Riding Through Fire Julie White Railway Railway Julie White The Dunsmuir Years: 1884–1905 The CPR Steam Years, 1905–1949 Reid Widmark is at the gate… Faye’s out horse jumping, and Kirsty’s doing chores. A cattle Donald F. MacLachlan At 16, Reid Widmark is on his Robert D. Turner & drive seems like fun—until the way to becoming a professional Donald F. MacLachlan This 168-page book, first wind changes. Suddenly, Kirsty jockey. Then his mother takes a published in 1986, is now back and Lancelot smell smoke… ISBN 978-1-55039-204-3 in print in a limited edition, fall—and suddenly, so does his softcover • $39.95 produced by the British Columbia future. How can he prove that An exciting new story from the ISBN 978-1-55039-206-7 Railway Historical Association. he’s got what it takes to win? stables of Hillcroft Farm! hardcover • $49.95 Distributed for the British Columbia 978-1-55039-198-5 • 5.25 x 7.75 978-1-55039-199-2 • 5.25 x 7.75 11 x 9 • 304 pages • 475+ photos Railway Historical Association. 184 pages • paper • $9.95 160 pages • paper • $9.95 978-0-9692511-0-1; 0-9692511-0-6 Also available as an ebook 8.5 x 11 • 168 pages • softcover Also available as an ebook $29.95

The Third Crop Ribbon’s Way Painting My Life Sebastian Sasquatch Sarah E. Turner A personal and historical journey A Memoir of Love, Art, and into the photo albums and Sylvia Olsen How will baby Ribbon manage Transformation Illustrated by Kasia Charko shoeboxes of the Slocan Valley with no hands and with small, Phyllis Serota 1800s to early 1940s Puddle Valley has everything a twisted feet? Everyone is in An outstanding art book and a Rita Moir young sasquatch needs—except for a surprise. This monkey is page-turning insight into the another sasquatch to play with. determined to do things her own A visual feast, with more woman behind the paintings. What happens when Sebastian way…Ribbon’s way. than 160 historic photographs goes looking for a human friend? 978-1-55039-188-6 • 8.5 X 9 beautifully juxtaposed with 978-1-55039-200-5 • 9 x 7.5 240 pages • 168 photos contemporary images. 978-1-55039-197-8 • 7 x 8.5 40 pages • full colour • paper full colour • paper 32 pages • full colour • paper 978-1-55039-184-8 • 9.25 x 8.5 $9.95 $28.95 $9.95 175 pages • 180 photos • paper $28.95

Working with Wool More English than the English The Riddle of the Raven All That Glitters A Coast Salish Legacy & the A Very Social History of Victoria A Sailing Ship A Climber’s Journey Through Sweater Terry Reksten, foreword and Possessed by a Ghost Addiction and Recovery Sylvia Olsen revisions by Rosemary Neering Jan de Groot Margo Talbot The remarkable history of the A delightful collection of stories A perfect read for all those who A stirring testament to the power Cowichan textile workers and and sagas of the people who love tales about ships and the sea, of the human spirit and the their 21st-century successors, the fashioned a city on the rocks and and for those who are intrigued healing force of nature. women behind the Cowichan meadows of southern Vancouver by the paranormal. sweater today. Island. 978-1-55039-182-4 • 6 x 9 978-1-55039-183-1 • 6 x 9 192 pages • photos • paper 978-1-55039-177-0 • 8.5 x 9.25 978-1-55039-186-2 • 6 x 9 200 pages • photos • paper $19.95 328 pages • 165 photos 232 pages • 100+ photos • paper $15.95 Also available as an ebook hardcover $19.95 $38.95 Also available as an ebook

Sono Nis Press • 1-800-370-5228 • www.sononis.com • [email protected]

10 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 featureview HISTORY THE MAKING OF A HUMBLE LUMBER BARON

Kapoor Singh Siddoo, his daughter Jackie and his wife Besant Kaur, Switzerland, 1951

Kapoor Singh Siddoo dined with lumberjacks and Indira Gandhi.

Jewels of the Qila: The Remarkable Story of Besant Kaur, aged four. Educated With the Komagata Maru ma- narrowly escaped hanging, while Eventually Kapoor became an an Indo-Canadian Family by Hugh and pious, she would marry him at rooned in the harbour, England- Kartar was hobnobbing at the To- equal partner in the Mayo Lumber Johnston (UBC Press $85) age 15 but would remain unable to educated Dr. Sundar Singh rushed ronto Literature Club with the likes Company Ltd., as well as join him until 1923. At age 33, she to Ottawa, hoping to resolve the of poet Bliss Carman and influ- partnering with Doman Singh, T IS TEMPTING TO LIKEN would become the first South Asian crisis, but his charm offensive with ential McClelland & Stewart edi- father of future forestry magnate IHugh Johnston’s re- woman in Kapoor’s multi-racial federal politicians failed. Kartar tor Donald French. Herb Doman. Despite several in- logging villages on Vancouver Is- Singh Hundal, Piara Singh Langeri Kapoor took the middle path cidents of suspected arson, racial markable Jewels of the land. and Kapoor Singh Siddoo all fol- between Piara and Kartar. resentment and economic depres- Persuaded to leave India by his lowed him to Ontario nonetheless In 1917, former bunkhouse cook sions, the partnership with Mayo Qila: The Remarkable friend Piara Singh Langeri, where, before he mysteriously van- Mayo Singh, while he was wind- Singh endured for 26 years until Story of an Indo-Cana- Kapoor sailed third-class steerage ished, Dr. Sundar Singh started a ing down his logging venture in Kapoor started his own lumber mill to San Francisco. After six years of new publication, Canada and In- Chilliwack, sent Kapoor money in Vancouver. dian Family to an Horatio labouring jobs, he was refused en- dia: A Journal of Information and for his passage back to B.C. to The Mayo Sawmill was on the Alger story. try to Canada at the Blaine border, Conciliation. work as his bookkeeper and Eng- E&N Cowichan Subdivision. The but landed in Victoria in 1912, While Kartar assimilated into lish spokesman. They undertook Kapoor Lumber Company mill was Having reached San Francisco where he bought a small dairy op- Toronto society as a Theosophist, logging and milling operations in the located at Mile-35 on the CNR line in 1906, the modest hero, Kapoor eration. Piara would not forsake his turban Cowichan Valley, at the village of at Sooke Lake, now part of the Singh Siddoo, arrives in British Kapoor’s role in the origins of and beard, and so he urged Kapoor Paldi (originally called Mayo) and Greater Victoria Watershed. The Columbia in 1912, dispenses with Sikh journalism on the West Coast, to return to India with him to fight the village of Kapoor, both north- Kapoor Mill operated from 1928 his Sikh turban and cuts his hair— as outlined below, is but one sliver for independence with the Ghadar west of Duncan, and near the Sooke to 1940. Kapoor Lumber Company while the Komagata Maru is still of Jewels of the Qila. movement. Piara would soon be River. Neither man wore turbans; still owns lands in the area and the stranded in the Vancouver har- ✫ imprisoned in India for sedition, and both shaved. Kapoor Regional Park Reserve, at bour—and overcomes racial preju- IN VICTORIA, KAPOOR MET UP WITH the end of the Galloping Goose dice and legal discrimination to his friend Piara Singh Langeri who Regional Trail, includes almost two transform himself into a forestry introduced him to two literate ac- kilometres of riverfront land. millionaire. tivists, Dr. Sundar Singh and Kapoor remained active in mod- It gets better. Inspired by their Kartar Singh Hundal, nicknamed erate politics. By 1920, he was thoroughly admirable mother, “Scissors.” This highly educated elected as the first president of the Besant Kaur, Kapoor’s two pair was producing Sansar [The B.C. branch of the United India daughters attend Kitsilano High World], handwritten in Punjabi and Home Rule League (affiliated with School, enter medical school, cre- dubbed ‘The Only Hindustani Pa- Mahatma Gandhi’s Congress ate a short-lived Krishnamurti per in Canada,’ as well as an Eng- movement), then as president of the School on Vancouver Island and lish-language monthly, the Aryan. Hindustani Sabraj Society and the eventually establish a hospital Kapoor soon joined their efforts Canadian Hindustani Congress. named after their father in the Pun- to gain equality for British subjects ✫ jab—following their meeting with who were Sikhs, as promised by WHEN NOBEL PRIZE- WINNING Prime Minister Nehru. Queen Victoria. Whereas the four- author Sir Rabindranath Tagore But Johnston’s Jewels of the some wanted their printing press (1861-1941) made his only visit to Qila is not just a success story on Speed Avenue to produce a secu- Canada in 1929, the Bengali poet about one unusual family. This is a lar paper, other devout Sikhs spoke four times in Vancouver and splendidly serious, smart and multi- wanted a faith-based publication, once in Victoria, to overflow crowds. faceted investigation of events and leading to the short-lived rival pa- A quiet man Revered as a writer and as a characters in both India and Canada. per, Hindustance. “who said only what he spokesperson for Indian independ- Using Kapoor’s wide-ranging life During the Komagata Maru in- meant,” Kapoor Singh ence, Tagore was joined by his Eng- as a prism, Johnston has provided cident—when 376 Punjabis arrived Siddoo succeeded lish translator and editor Charles partly because he was an authoritative and engaging over- in the Vancouver harbour, only to Freer Andrews, a missionary who willing to recognize view of Sikhs in B.C. be refused entry—militants threat- Canada as “a United was a close associate of Gandhi. ✫ ened to destroy the moderates’ head- Nations in practice.” Kartar returned to B.C. from BORN IN PUNJAB IN 1885, KAPOOR, quarters, setting fire to the Sansar Toronto to serve as a translator and at age nine, was engaged to marry office. continued on page 12

11 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 featureview HISTORY

Jackie and Sarjit, Shawnigan Lake, 1943 THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK The landing of the Komagata Maru revisited

Undesirables: White Canada & the out hindrance but the man who had York University, has fashioned a Komagata Maru by Ali Kazim (D&M $39.95) chartered the ship, Gurdit Singh, hardcover equivalent with Unde- was intent upon directly challeng- sirables: White Canada and the N 1914, VANCOUVER IMMIGRA- ing the British Empire and expos- Komagata Maru. It contains an tion officials infamously ing its racist policies. The ship was unprecedented array of contextual Ienforced an exclusionary law sent back to India with most of its photos and images, including a that forbade arrival of 376 British passengers. The stand-off is now photo of Dr. D.P. Pandia, the law- subjects (340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, marked by a plaque in Vancouver yer associate of Mahatma Gandhi and 12 Hindus) from India unless harbour. who was influential in the efforts they had sailed directly from India. Having made Continuous Voy- of Canadian Sikhs to obtain the right The Komagata Maru had embarked age, a 2004 feature documentary to vote. Ali Kazim was born and from Hong Kong. The ship could about the Komagata Maru incident, raised in India as a Muslim. have landed in with- Ali Kazim, a film professor at 978-1-55365-973-0 continued from page 11 family slept in their Chevrolet for guide for Tagore and Andrews. “Do two nights beneath a steel bridge your best to prove yourselves over the Capilano River. ‘Good Canadians’,” Tagore advised. The last issues of India and With Kapoor’s support, Kartar Canada were produced from stayed in Vancouver and published Kapoor’s basement in Kitsilano in seven more bilingual monthly issues 1936 by Kartar. One of those Van- of India and Canada: A Journal of couver-produced editions contains Interpretation and Information, in a brief biography of Kapoor, call- 1929 and 1930. Both men be- ing for Canada to grant the vote to friended Theosophist and Group of Punjabis such as Kapoor who had Passengers on the Komagata Maru, who were subjected to deliberate Seven painter Lawren Harris, who proven their worth. delays in processing and witholding also introduced Theosophy to The story of how Kapoor of food and water by authorities. Emily Carr and novelist Ethel Singh Siddoo’s moderation eventu- Wilson. ally won the day—South Asians ✫ of Canada gained the right to vote IN 1935, KAPOOR BROUGHT HIS FAM- in 1948—is ably told in Jewels of ily to live in the Kitsilano house he the Qila, which also outlines the had built at 2416 York Avenue in considerable accomplishments of 1921, but they found their renters Kapoor’s daughters Jackie and were still occupying the house upon Sarjit Siddoo who currently main- arrival. Rather than risk the indig- tain a Krishnamurti Centre on Ali Kazim nity of possibly being rejected by a Swanick Road in Victoria. Vancouver hotel, the well-to-do 978-0-7748-2217-6

B BDI=:GIDC

Book Launches & Events (Admission Free) Oct 11th 8 pm, MTP 5th YEAR CELEBRATION & BOOK LAUNCH, Heritage Hall, 3102 Main St., Vancouver Oct 20th 8 pm, BOOK LAUNCH & EXHIBITION OPENING, Salt Spring Island Nov 7th 7-9 pm, Barry Peterson TALK McGill Library Nov 17th 3-5 pm, BOOK LAUNCH, Valley Art Gallery Nov 24th 1-3 pm, RECEPTION, Nanaimo Museum Dec 8th 1-3 pm, Blaise Enright BOOK SIGNING, Books, Nelson

Deadline: November 1st, 2012 SearchSecond for the Great BC Novel Contest THE UNHERALDED ARTISTS OF BC SERIES #5 the weight of dew Short List Judges: Final Judge: The Life and Art of Ina D.D. Uhthoff daniela elza Christina Johnson-Dean debut book of poetry GURJINDER BASRAN CAROLINE ADDERSON DAVID CHARIANDY Introduction by Pat Martin Bates Introduction by Aislinn Hunter 978-1-896949-13-0 • $32.95 978-1-896949-21-5 • $19.95 “This richly illustrated book is long overdue” “a rare combination of analytical precision, presentation, and lyricism” SARAH MUNROE Entry fee: $35 ROBERT AMOS Open to all writers living in BC COMPLETE GUIDELINES: MOTHER TONGUE PUBLISHING | SALT SPRING ISLAND mothertonguepublishing.com [email protected] 250.537.4155 mothertonguepublishing.com

12 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 HISTORY

ans in Japan. As part of a joint delegation of the government’s Redress Secretariat and The struggle the NAJC that visited Japan in 1989, he made 700 contacts with either exiled peo- ple or their family members. against not Kage’s research and interviews with the deportees in Japan and in Canada led to a bilingual discussion on their experiences at forgetting the l992 Homecoming Conference, result- ing in his publication of Nikkei Kanadajin In our summer issue, we featured seven no Tsuiho [Exiled Japanese Canadians] books by Chinese Canadians. Here are four (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1998). Translated by , new books from or about Japanese Canadi- Kathleen Merken and reconfigured for a Canadian readership ans. These volumes recognize there are by Merken and Kage, that book lessons that need to be re-taught and re- has been republished as Uprooted Again: Japanese Canadians Move to Japan Af- learned for new generations. ter World War II (Ti-Jean Press $19.95). 978-1-896627-20-5 HIPWRECKED JAPANESE SAILORS ARRIVED ON ✍ Vancouver Island as early as the 1850s. There MAINLY A PICTORIAL HISTORY, PAMELA was a Japanese curio shop in Victoria operated Hickman and Masao Fukawa’s S by Charles Gabriel in the mid-1880s. Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Japanese Ann-Lee and Gordon Switzer’s 380-page study Canadian Internment in the Second of the Japanese presence in Victoria, Gateway to Promise: World War (Lorimer $34.95) is an effec- Canada’s First Japanese Community (Ti-Jean Press The above family in Slocan, B.C., had agreed to be tive educational volume in a series that will cover residential $29.95), fills a major gap in B.C. history, recalling particulars sent back to Japan by the Canadian government in schools, Italian internment, the Chinese Head Tax and the 1946. From Righting Canada’s Wrongs (Lorimer) such as the Japanese Tea Garden in Gorge Park, Japanese Komagata Maru incident. baseball (first played in Victoria in 1910) and dozens of We learn that the head of the military in Ottawa refused family stories. IN 1945, BEFORE THE END OF WORLD WAR II, THE CANADIAN to allow military personnel to help in the round-up of Japa- Long before Ann-Lee and Gordon Switzer joined the Vic- government offered to “repatriate” any ethnic Japanese to nese Canadians in B.C. and a prominent clergyman at the toria Nikkei Cultural Society and began their research, Gordon Japan after the war ended, even Canadian-born British sub- time publicly likened the confiscation of property and be- had lived in Japan from age three to 20. jects. Signing up for the move was voluntary, but many felt longings to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in Europe. After exploring the Ross Bay Cemetery, the couple pro- pressured to agree. Raised in Steveston, Fukawa served as the main writer duced a booklet called Japanese Pioneers of Victoria in 2007. In 1946, a year after the end of the war, some 4,000 and managing editor for Nikkei Fishermen on the BC Coast: This led to extensive research in the provincial archives and Japanese Canadians travelled by ship to a Japan devastated Their Biographies and Photographs (Harbour 2007) and countless interviews. by war—an action that violated international law at the time. Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet: BC’s Japanese Canadian Fisher- “A lost world had emerged,” they write. “Pieces of a The story of those who moved to Japan after the war has men (Harbour 2009). 978-1-55277-853-1 puzzle had to be assembled.” 978-1-896627-21-2 been told for the first time in English by Tatsuo Kage, ✍ ✍ who has interviewed men and women who were teenagers in ANDREA GEIGER’S FIRST BOOK, SUBVERTING EXCLUSION: HAVING WORKED AT BOOKS IN CANADA FOR MANY YEARS, internment camps during the war. Transpacific Encounters with Race, Caste, and Borders, Susan Aihoshi has written Torn Apart ($16.99) as part Born in Utsunomiya, Japan, in 1935, Tatsuo Kage was 1885-1928 (Yale $45) expands on the SFU history profes- of Scholastic’s Dear Canada series. It explores the experi- the son of a military officer whose family settled in Tokyo in sor’s previous research on race and class. The book examines ences of a young girl living in Vancouver in 1941 and what the early 1940s. In 1969, he became assistant professor at how traditional Japanese notions of caste-based social sta- happens to her and her family after Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. Meiji Gakuin University, teaching political science and Eu- tus converged with North American race-based laws, and A protagonist named Mary is terrified when her family is ropean history. policies to produce a system of dualistic exclusion for Japa- torn apart and sent to various work camps. Separated from After relocating to Vancouver, Kage worked as a Redress nese immigrants in Canada and the U.S. Winner of the 2011 her parents, she and her two sisters are sent to a primitive Implementation coordinator for the National Association of Theodore Saloutos Book Award, it is the first English-lan- internment camp in B.C.’s interior. 978-0439946605 Japanese Canadians, corresponding with Japanese Canadi- guage book published on this subject. 9780300169638

Cross border dropping

ow can we top Real Housewives of Vancouver? Well, how about an even scarier reality TV show, H Real Nukes of B.C.? “Just before midnight on February 13, 1950, three en- gines on Bomber 075 caught fire over Vancouver Island. The crew was ordered to jump, and the plane ditched some- where in the Pacific Ocean. Nearly four years later, the wreck of the bomber was found by accident in a remote location in the coastal mountains of British Columbia, three hours’ flying time in the opposite direction of where it was The nuclear weapons carrier U.S. Air Force B-36 (right) next to the B-29, which killed millions in WW2. supposed to have crashed. How did it get there?” The United States has finally admitted Bomber 075 So was the bomb on board blown up at the aircraft’s rection and misinformation.” was carrying a Mark IV nuclear bomb. resting place in the mountains? Or was it dropped and Unfortunately, it’s all too real. Dirk Septer was the lead It turns out that massive U.S. Air Force B-36 interconti- exploded over the Inside Passage? investigator for a television documentary called Lost Nuke. nental bombers—referred to as “Peacemakers”—regularly In Lost Nuke: The Last Flight of Bomber 075 (Her- He has published over 100 articles in aviation magazines in flew mock bombing exercises over major US cities, includ- itage $19.95), Dirk Septer of Cortes Island investigates Canada and the UK and for years he wrote a regular col- ing San Francisco. During one of these training runs Bomber the final hours of Bomber 075 and attempts to “unravel umn called “North of Sixty” in Canadian Aviator. 075 caught fire over Vancouver Island. the real story behind more than 60 years of secrecy, misdi- 978-1-926936-86-4

13 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 HISTORY TIMELINE: Sikh literature in B.C.

CANADA’S • The Sikhs of Vancouver: A Case Study of the Role of the Media in Ethnic Relations (Carleton University Press, 1975) by Joseph T. Scanlon • Amar Shahid Mewa Singh Lopoke (Khalsa Bros, 1978) by Giani Kesar Singh. In Punjabi. • A History Book of the Sikhs in Canada and California (Shromani Akali Dal Association, 1981) by Mahinder Singh Dhillon • Canadian Sikhs and Komagata Maru Massacre (Self-Published, 1989) by Giani Kesar Singh • An Oral History of the Sikhs in B.C. 1920-1947 911 (UBC, 1991) by Sarjeet Singh Jagpal Air India bombing revisited • Becoming Canadians: Pioneer Sikhs In Their Own Words Gurpreet (Harbour, 1994) by Sarjeet Singh Jagpal Singh • The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995) PHOTO INCE HIS IMMIGRATION TO CANADA IN by Tara Singh Bains and Hugh Johnston. Self Beyond Doubt: Ethel Wilson and Indian Philosophical SMITH • 2001, Georgia Straight journalist Thought (SNDT Women’s University, 1996) by Anjali Bhelande Paldi Remembered: 50 Years in the Life of a Vancouver and Radio India broadcaster CHARLIE • ✫ Island Logging Town (Paldi History Committee, 1997) Gurpreet Singh has been in- by Joan C. Mayo S THE DEATH OF AIR INDIA FLIGHT 182 (W.H. ALLEN 1986) BY • The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations terviewing relatives of the 329 people killed on Province reporter Salim Jiwa examined India’s political Amid Tradition, Modernity and Multiculturalism (UTP, 2004) Air India Flight 182 on June 23, 1985. tensions within the context of the disaster only one year after by Kamala Elizabeth Nayar the debris had settled in the Irish Sea. • The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity The first-ever bombing of a 747 jet remains the largest ✫ and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition (Oxford University LOSS OF FAITH: HOW THE AIR-INDIA BOMBERS GOT AWAY WITH mass murder in Canada’s history and the worst fatal disaster Press, 1994) by Harjot to occur over a body of water. Murder (M&S 2005) by award-winning Vancouver Sun re- Oberoi Intending to write a book with the working title Canada’s porter Kim Bolan appeared in the wake of the acquittal of • Chanting Denied Shores 9/11, Singh has published a preliminary study, Fighting Sikh leaders Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib (Bayeaux Arts, 2010) Hatred With Love: Voices of the Air India Victims’ Fami- Singh Bagri. It also examines the same-day, terrorist ex- by Tariq Malik lies ($9.95), after talking to twelve families who lost loved plosion at Tokyo’s Narita Airport that killed two baggage • Zhindagee: Voices of Canadian Indian First handlers for Air India Flight 301. ones. Launched at a memorial ceremony at Kwantlen Poly- Daughters (Self-published, technic University in July, it’s distributed locally by Asian ✫ 2010) edited by Mahinder Publications of Surrey and published by Punjab-based Chetna SALIM JIWA ALSO CO-WROTE MARGIN OF TERROR: A REPORTER’S Kaur Doman Manhas Parkashan. Twenty-Year Odyssey Covering the Tragedies of the Air India • Punjabi Names & Their Singh has voiced criticism of the South Asian community Bombing (Key Porter 2006), with Donald J. Hauka, Sarjeet Singh Jagpal: Meanings (Asian Publica- author of Becoming in B.C. for failing to fully ‘adopt’ the terrorist attack as a adding information about the 20-year Air India investigation tions, 2012) by Rajwant Canadians: Pioneer Sikhs In Singh Chilana distinctly Canadian story, instead preferring to view the event and the 19-month trial that resulted in a verdict of not guilty Their Own Words within a broader South Asian perspective. 978-81-7883-962-2 for the accused in 2005.

14 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 H ISTORY continued from page 15 Canal. In his previous His- Rules of torical Atlas of Vancouver, 3 the roads Hayes included maps from ran a com- real estate ads just before petition in 1911 to reward the World War I when real es- first car to reach their new tate speculation was ram- town. The winner arrived by pant. The war abruptly driving along river beds and, it squelched speculators and was later revealed, dismantling by 1916 land that had sold his car and packing the parts for hundreds of dollars was over trails, reassembling the being sold for taxes, with vehicle when nearing Hazelton. few takers. Hayes’s atlas depicts a 1919 Hayes has uncovered tourist road map complete more real estate maps from with the banner admonition “The Rule of the Road in British First car to reach Hazelton used riverbeds in 1911; 1907-1914. Although some parts of Vancouver owe their Columbia — Keep to the Left.” He also reproduces a map motorists like this one on the Pacific Highway beginnings to this period, many more proposed schemes drove on the left hand side of the road until 1920. that documents the changeover from left to right which be- didn’t get off the ground until very much later. When the end gan the following year. was in sight for land-grabbing opportunists, one magazine The majority of the province outside of Vancouver Is- Kootenay River, so that he could reclaim flat land that flooded even offered free lots in White Rock with a subscription, and land and the southwestern mainland changed from left hand every year at the southern end of the lake. It was a grandiose no, that’s not a misprint: a lot free with a magazine subscrip- driving to right hand driving as of January 1, 1920. It was project that would make today’s environmentalists throw tion! easy for them; there were few roads with more than a single up their hands in despair, but in the freewheeling 1880s no lane. The rest of the province changed two years later. A one seemed to disapprove. By 1889, employing mainly Chi- Defending the coast two-stage change was possible because the two parts of the nese labour, Baillie-Grohman constructed a canal linking the 6 Long before Pearl Harbor, the Canadian military province were not connected by road. Construction of the Columbia and the Kootenay at Canal Flats, enabling Baillie- had been preparing for a possible attack by the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway (now Canadian National) Grohman to claim a large land grant. He even began the first Japanese from the sea, an anticipation that came to a head in in the Fraser Canyon had obliterated roads in many places. steamboat service on the Upper Columbia (brilliantly cir- the months following the December, 1941 attack on Pearl The Hope-Princeton highway was not completed until 1949. cumventing customs duties payable on a boat imported from Harbor when an oil refinery near Los Angeles was shelled by Maps indicated the necessity of shipping cars between Hope the United States by declaring it was an agricultural imple- a submarine, and air attacks were thought to have occurred; and Princeton by rail. ment, meant to pull a steam plow on the lands he was to in June, 1942 came the attack on Estevan Lighthouse, on the reclaim). It takes a map to fully appreciate the visionary west coast of Vancouver Island. Shortly after the United Baillie-Grohman’s dream scope of Baillie-Grohman’s land reclamation and develop- States ordered all persons of Japanese descent removed from 4 In 1882 William Adolph Baillie- ment dream; Hayes’s book contains one such published map the coast, Canada did the same. Hayes’s book shows maps Grohman, a British sportsman and author, to convince investors to chance their money in the scheme. of some of the detention camps set up in the interior to embarked on a fantastic project. He proposed to link the house them, maps drawn by internees themselves. As with Upper Columbia River at its source — Columbia Lake — Boom and bust in real estate many of the maps in the book, they are combined with old with the Kootenay River, in order to lower the level of 5 British Columbia was thought to have a bound- and modern photos to better convey what they were like. Kootenay Lake, a considerable distance downstream on the less future following the opening of the Panama 978-1-92681-257-1

16 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 NATURE and TRADITION

Nature Guide to the Victoria Region Edited by Ann Nightingale and Claudia Copley Copublished with the Victoria Natural History Society $14.95 October Let ten local nature experts guide you to all things natural in and around Victoria, from mushrooms and dragonflies to owls and whales. They describe the species most likely to be seen here, and direct you to the best places to see them. This easy-to-read book includes beautiful full-colour photographs, checklists and a map of all the great places to visit. 978-0-7726-6575-1

Saanich Ethnobotany Journey with No Maps Culturally Important Plants A Life of P.K. Page of the W̱ SÁNEĆ People Nancy J. Turner and Richard J. Hebda SANDRA DJWA $24.95

“Sandra Djwa’s brilliant, compellingly detailed biography Botanists Nancy Turner and Richard of P.K. Page is a fitting tribute to one of our greatest poets. Hebda worked for many years with elders Djwa captures Page as a complex, original, and dazzling from the Saanich Nation on southern artist of international stature, and in the process, offers an Vancouver Island to identify plants that were traditionally harvested for food, for illuminating portrait of Canadian cultural life in the latter medicines, and to make tools and other half of the twentieth century.” Rosemary Sullivan useful items. In Saanich Ethnobotany the authors describe each plant, and then tell you where to find it and how it was used McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS by the Saanich people. 978-0-7726-6577-5

mqup.ca Royal BC Museum books are distributed by Heritage Group.

Scan QR Code to read excerpt. www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/publications

17 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 this fall, catch the ... HISTORY ’s chronic FEVER research syndrome How forced retirement rendered ten books about Vancouver Island in twenty years ᨪ BY MARY ANN MOORE paid for it, Peterson became a reporter for the Alberni Valley Times. In 1982, Peterson was one of three finalists to receive the Jack AN PETERSON OF NANAIMO Wasserman Award for her first year of inves- finds and remembers stories tigative journalism on social and environmen- wherever she goes. tal affairs. At the awards presentation at the J Vancouver Press Club, Peterson was intro- When she looks out her window and sees duced as “the middle-aged housewife from Gallows Point on Protection Island, she Port Alberni.” She says, “We always get a knows Siamasit, the son of a Snuneymuxw good laugh about that.” chief, and Squeis, son of a powerful chief In early 1987, Peterson collapsed in the of a Cowichan tribe, were hung there in 1853 offices of the Alberni Valley Times and was for shooting Peter Brown, a Scottish diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. She shepherd. hasn’t stopped writing books since. Scots are the basis for Kilts on the Coast: First, she plunked herself down at the Port The Scots Who Built BC (Heritage House, Alberni archives and produced The Albernis, $22.95), her tenth book on Vancouver Island 1860-1922 (Oolichan, 1992), donating all roy- history, in which she describes settlement and alties to the Alberni District Historical Soci- growth during six critical years from 1848 to ety. During her tenure as president of the 1854. Entire families arrived Alberni Valley Community in Fort Victoria from Scot- Arts Council, Peterson land, indentured to the Hud- oversaw renovation of a son’s Bay Company for heritage building that be- three to five years, to engage came the Rollin Art Centre in the fur trade and establish Jan and donated her royalties coal mining ventures. Peterson from Twin Cities: Alberni- In 1849, Snuneymuxw Port Alberni (Oolichan, chief Ki-et-sa-kun, 1994) to the project. known as Coal Tyee, in- Peterson and her hus- formed the Hudson’s Bay band “retired” to Nanaimo Company of the presence of in 1996 where she contin- coal in the Nanaimo area. ued to write. When she Kilts on the Coast traces the wanted to learn more about lives of “founding father” Barkley Sound, Peterson and other “company men” went to the docks in Port Alberni with her as well as the miners who arrived from Orkney friend, the late Dorrit MacLeod, and and Ayrshire to work in Nanaimo’s mines. talked to people in the coffee shop. The re- Coal baron , whose sult of her listening to the stories that emerged Wellington Colliery became the largest pro- was Journeys down the Alberni Canal to ducer of coal on Vancouver Island, built Barkley Sound (Oolichan, 1999). in Victoria (between 1887 Her trilogy of books on Nanaimo are Our fall line-up will give you fever and and 1890) for his wife Joan. Hatley Castle, Black Diamond City: Nanaimo – The Victo- dizzy spells, but the good kind. the present-day Royal Roads University, was rian Era (Heritage, 2002); Hub City: Nanaimo completed in 1908 for his son James. 1886 – 1920 (Heritage, 2003) and Harbour Whitetail Shooting Gallery is a feverishly good novel In Kilts on the Coast, Peterson calls City: Nanaimo in Transition 1920-1967 (Her- about sexual awakening on the stark Canadian prairie from Dunsmuir an “educated coal miner and an itage, 2006). astute businessman.” ✍ award-winnng author, and Giller Prize nominee, Annette ✍ Lapointe :: Budge, the latest novel from Tom Osborne is a WRITING IN BC STUDIES (WINTER, 2004), CHINESE WORKERS GOT PAID HALF THE RATE reviewer Patrick A. Dunae noted story of addiction, rehabilitation, and the meaning of life :: of the white workers. Native men didn’t get Peterson “has a keen eye and a good nose for Jim Christy’s Sweet Assorted is a trip down memory paid and instead received tickets they could local history” but he did criticize her books lane — forty years of it! A fabulous exploration of found exchange for goods at the HBC store. Over for being “long on action but short on analy- things and the stories behind them :: Sensational 600 men were killed over the years at 50 min- sis.” Victoria is just that, Eve Lazarus’s sensational stories ing sites in the Nanaimo area. “That’s not my purpose,” Peterson re- As with all of her books, Peterson spoke sponds. “Let the academics do that. I don’t from the legendary “garden city” — tales of bright lights, to descendants of pioneers and consulted dia- feel like analyzing. I feel like getting the facts red lights, murders, ghosts, and gardens :: Ed Macdonald’s ries, journals, letters, logs and reports at the out and letting people draw their own con- Mutant Sex Party is a collection of brash, brave, and British Columbia Archives and the Nanaimo clusions. confrontational plays dealing with the abuses of personal & Community Archives. The Hudson’s Bay “I learned from my mother that you give political power :: Trobairitz, Catherine Owen’s new Company “daybooks” in the community ar- as much as you take. Community has given chives were an essential resource as they note to me so I give back to them,” Peterson says. volume of poetry mashes Provençal rhythms & modern- the names of the workers and their assign- Jan Peterson has been awarded many hon- day thrash metal to stunning effect. ments. ours for historical research including Certifi- Jan Peterson was twenty years old when cates of Honour from the B.C. Historical she and her family arrived in Canada from Federation. Scotland on June 7, 1957. In 1963, Peterson With two more books in the works, she met and married her husband, Ray. They writes every day—never tiring of Vancouver anvil moved to Vancouver, then Ladner, before head- Island stories. 9781927051276 www.anvilpress.com ing to Port Alberni in 1972 with their three children. Mary Ann Moore is a freelance writer Freelancing on the arts long before she got based in Nanaimo.

18 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 A quarterly forum for and about writers; as well as a series about the origins # of B.C. publishing houses 47 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 • [email protected] David Kos (green sweater) with director Dang Vu Dung and disabled adults LOOKOUTLOOKOUT at Friendship Village, a training centre for victims of the American War in Vietnam, especially those hurt by Agent Orange. The Friendship Village was founded in 1988 by an American war veteran and Vietnamese veterans. More info: www.vietnamfriendship.org

merican-born David Kos, Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the United States insisted that there was no evidence linking Agent Orange of Salt Spring Island, immi- to serious health problems, including birth deformities. grated to Canada in 1971 American corporations, specifically Dow Chemical and Monsanto, also denied any liability, claiming that they and became a Canadian ORANGE were ordered by the Pentagon to manufacture Agent Or- citizen in 1980. He has ange in patriotic support of the war. Ataught English literature in the United States, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have both visited Vietnam, promising funding for scien- Canada, Nigeria, China, Thailand and Japan. tific research, but nothing by way of monetary compensa- tion is so far being provided to the Vietnamese victims. In During two teaching stints in Vietnam at Can Tho fact, in 2005 the U.S. Federal Court ruled that the use of University in the Mekong Delta, Kos became incensed at Agent Orange, although toxic, did not fit into the defini- the Agent Orange-related suffering he saw in the Can Tho Consequently peasant villagers, including women, chil- tion of ‘chemical warfare,’ and therefore did not violate Children’s Hospital, a 180-bed facility that treats children FURYdren, and the elderly, became innocent victims and three international law. On September 12, 2007, the Canadian with malaria, dengue fever, dysentery and the effects of million Vietnamese have suffered serious health problems. Government finally offered compensation to its soldiers the chemical weapon Agent Orange. One particular child The unborn were, and are, especially vulnerable. Accord- and civilians who were exposed to Agent Orange at a Ca- had been born without an anus. ing to the International Red Cross, more than 100,000 ba- nadian military base, which the Americans secretly used Haunted by his memories, Kos has written The Des- bies have been born deformed, physically and emotionally, in the 1960s with Canada’s official approval to test the serts of War (Tagman Press), a novel that was originally because their mothers drank the water and ate the meat, fish effectiveness of Agent Orange as a herbicide. self-published, and now has been republished in Britain. and rice that had been contaminated by Agent Orange. The U.S. Government has recently agreed to cooper- Here Kos outlines the facts about Agent Orange in Viet- ate with Vietnam in an effort to contain the dioxin con- nam and its three million civilian Vietnamese victims, more tamination in several Agent Orange ‘hot spots.’ But this than 100,000 deformed children and a recent miserly he central characters in The Desserts of War are was not accompanied by any apology which would have American offer to provide $3 million dollars aid without TAmerican: Having worked at the hospital for 30 years, Dr. Seb Kloster is estranged from the United implied moral guilt and possibly triggered legal actions any admission of guilt or responsibility. Some 10,000 States, bitter about the devastation wrought by an involving hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. American war veterans are receiving disability benefits unnecessary war, and sickened by the napalm-in- To date, the U.S. Congress has allocated a paltry $3 mil- for their exposure to the chemical. Here is an excerpt from duced deformities and poverty of the people he lion to this cooperative project. In my view this is a pit- The Desserts of War by David Kos. treats. He has taken refuge from his pain with opium and with a lover named Ky who manages a high class tance in relation to the funding required to clean up the ✍ brothel on the boats of the Mekong River. His two contaminated sites in Vietnam and provide proper health FOR TEN LONG, WAR-TORN YEARS BETWEEN 1962 AND 1971 closest friends are a one-legged cyclo driver named care for the innocent victims—past, present and future. the United States sprayed up to 90 million litres or 23 Hao whose life he saved as a child after Hao stepped Nevertheless more than 10,000 U.S. war veterans are pres- on a landmine at age ten and needed his leg ampu- million gallons of Agent Orange defoliant over Vietnam’s ently receiving disability benefits for serious health prob- tated, and an heroic colleague at the hospital named jungles and countryside in ‘Operation Ranch Hand.’ The Dr. Trang Anh Nguyen. Kloster’s shaky equilibrium is lems caused by their exposure to Agent Orange. This to key Agent Orange dioxin is one of the most toxic chemi- upset by the arrival of an obnoxious, multi-million- me seems to beg the question: Is the life of an American cals ever produced and the campaign’s purpose was to aire American entrepreneur, Richard Samuelson, who soldier more valuable, more deserving and more precious destroy the natural ground cover of trees and undergrowth, wants to build a shoe factory that will pay Vietnam- than the life of a Vietnamese child? I felt angry and sad on ese workers 1/400th of what his factory workers thereby exposing enemy Viet Cong fighters to American discovering all this at first hand in Can Tho. That anger would be paid in the U.S. Kloster discovers he cannot bombs. allow Samuelson to proceed unimpeded. has not subsided with the passage of time—and it became But tragically it did much more than defoliate the jun- Fifty percent of proceeds from the sale of the book the mainspring for the writing of this novel. gles because the dioxin also poisoned the soil and water. go to Doctors Without Borders. 978-1-903571-72-9

19 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2012 PHOTOGRAPHY

Linda Rogers, Victoria, 2000 George Fetherling, Vancouver, 2011 Caroline Adderson, Vancouver, 2011

VAGUELY REMEMBER WHEN BARRY Peterson and Blaise Enright first arrived in my of- Ifice. I was working out of a con- verted garage. They wanted some help BLACK & WHITE & READ ALL OVER meeting authors. I knew a few. I provided “Digital images are printed on the surface of the When it comes to West Coast literature, we have come from famine to feast in less paper while film images are printed on layers of emul- some contacts; I named their first photo than a lifetime. An array of portraits now celebrates this bounty. By Alan Twigg sion in the paper. Film and fibre-based prints have exhibit Lit Happens and I facilitated their been around for over 150 years, and many of the first prints are still around—and that was before they first public showing at the BC Book Prizes. A former Trotskyite at UBC named the Volcano was completed on Christmas Eve, 1944, of the Encyclopedia of British Columbia, edited by Earle knew how to archivally process prints.” Since the mid-1990s, they made their own way, was trying to make a name for himself as a when the tormented alcoholic was living in a squat- , in 2000—from Harbour Pub- Birney Daniel Francis Regardless of technology, Barry and Blaise have following their own instincts. After almost two dec- poet; much less conspicuous was a genteel novelist ter’s shack at Dollarton in North Vancouver. Soon lishing, now the leading producer of regional titles. mostly wanted to be of service to the literary com- ades of stamina and soft-spoken stubbornness, now named who was married to a promi- after Lowry died ‘by misadventure,’ in Sussex, Eng- So 111 West Coast Literary Portraits is, in itself, a Ethel Wilson munity. Readers will now be able to judge whether or Barry has found a receptive publisher whose self- nent physician in Vancouver’s West End, but that land, his shack was unceremoniously bulldozed into literary landmark of sorts. As English novelist John not they have succeeded. elected mandate is to champion under-recognized art- was about as far as literary reputations went. oblivion in 1957. wrote in his novel Daniel Martin, “to draw Fowles Barry Peterson and Blaise Enright’s mission to ists. Perfect. Whereas ’s Chilcotin memoir Three Probably the most esteemed B.C. author was Prov- attention to anything is to glorify it.” Just as BC Eric Collier represent the array of authors in the province—not The result is 111 West Coast Literary Portraits Against the Wilderness (1959) was republished by ince columnist , the first living Cana- BookWorld has been an undertaking to glorify B.C. Eric Nicol simply the stars, but rather a representative pano- (Mother Tongue $48). Complete with a short text Reader’s Digest and translated worldwide, almost dian writer to be included in The Oxford Book of books, 111 West Coast Literary Portraits is an effort rama—reflects and celebrates a golden era of literary from each of the subjects, it’s an unprecedented nobody had read Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Humorous Prose and the first local playwright to to glorify the people who create those books. expansion in the province. 978-1-896949-23-9 collection of b&w portraits that makes me think Volcano (1947). have his work produced by the Vancouver Playhouse. ✍ of how far we have collectively come, and how Now ranked eleventh by the editors of Modern He was widely respected. He had a real job. BARRY PETERSON’S APPROACH AS A PHOTOGRAPHER Alan Twigg is the publisher of B.C. BookWorld Evelyn Lau, Vancouver, 2005 Edith Iglauer, Pender Harbour, 1998 quickly we have risen to public prominence as a Library in their list of the best 100 novels written in ✍ is consistently non-pretentious, attempting to serve literary community. English in the 20th century, the manuscript of Under FAST FORWARD SIX DECADES. THE LIKES OF both the public and subject, in an honest fashion. The ✍ Alice Munro, Douglas Coupland, W.P. fact that his preferred technical approach is ‘non- Photographer Barry Peterson writes: “Robert Gray thought IN THE 1950S, IF BRITISH COLUMBIANS WERE ASKED TO Kinsella and William Gibson are world fa- digital’ seems fitting when one considers the epoch to name one B.C. author, most couldn’t. Authors were mous and their success does not strike anyone as which our attention is being drawn. a surreal photograph in the style of the painter Rene Magritte would people who lived somewhere else. Or were dead. freakish. British Columbia is a literary hotspot on As we move into this increasingly digital-based work for him. So there Blaise and I were at English Bay on a Sunday Vancouver’s only literary landmark was dedicated the planet. There are now more than 10,000 B.C.- 21st century, it is hard to imagine someone producing afternoon with Robert in the water with his umbrella. I hadn’t realized to the Mohawk ‘princess’ Pauline Johnson, related authors on the public service website a “real book” such as 111 West Coast Literary Por- how many people sunbathe at English Bay on a Sunday. There were who lived on the West Coast for only the last four abcbookworld, hosted by Simon Fraser University traits twenty years from now, at least not in this years of her life. Emily Carr had received the Gov- Library. pleasingly old-school “coffee table book” format. Or hundreds of people. As we walked into the water, people started yelling ernor General’s Award for her first non-fiction book, This incredible growth in authordom—from ten maybe some people will prefer to access this infor- and screaming. They thought this was performance art. Or we were Klee Wyck (1941), but she was not a household name. known authors to ten thousand—was not accidental. mation on their coffee table e-reader? Well, to each doing it for their entertainment. I could hear the shouting getting louder, Robert Swanson, who self-published po- The rise of an indigenous publishing industry has his own. etry about loggers, was the province’s equivalent of been fundamental to the growth of authors. The golden Just as many people are now fond of noting that and people splashing closer to us. I envisioned my costly equipment Robert Service, but his poems were far too age of growth in B.C. publishing can be marked from durable vinyl records have a ‘warmer’ sound than being destroyed in the ocean. A wave of fear went through me. Suddenly popular among the working class to be accepted as the formation of the Association of Book Publishers flimsy CDs, I hope others will agree there is much to this huge man came up behind us and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care literature. Outdoorsmen revered Roderick Haig- in B.C. in the early 1970s—led by J.J. Douglas Ltd. be said for Barry’s method. Or, as Barry puts it, of this.” It turns out he was a life guard. He saved me that day. I was Brown, a lay magistrate in Campbell River who that evolved into Douglas & McIntyre, western Cana- “Film photographs have a sense of depth to them wrote about fishing. Katherine Gordon, Gabriola, 2011 da’s largest publishing company—to the publication that digital images can't duplicate at this point. never able to thank him so hopefully this will have to do: THANK YOU!” Robert Gray, Vancouver, 1998

20 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2012 21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • AUTUMN • 2012 for BCBC ReadersBooks

Got Digital?

Orca Book Publishers is at the forefront of digital change, with books you want to read in formats you can use. Books for We Do! home, school, library, bus, beach, bath and beyond…

Ebooks in Schools Orca Digital Subscriptions provide schools with unlimited, multi-user access—including down- load lending—for the entire school!

Audio Enhanced Ebooks Orca has four ebooks for emerging readers with A monthly language arts program for grades a read-along option. The text lights up as the 6 to 8 with content from bestselling BC books. story is read by a professional narrator. Now available through BC’s online educational Questions? portal, LearnNowBC. Email [email protected] www.text2reader.com [email protected]

All Orca books and ebooks are available at your local public library. Check them out online!

Our BC books are available for your preferred device. www.orcadigital.ca Reaching More Readers

22 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 reviews FICTION A NEW MISS MARPLE?

Suspicion by Rachel Wyatt (Coteau $19.95)

When the wife of an architect for a hugely unpopular real estate de- velopment disappears from a small-town in Rachel Wyatt’s mystery novel Suspicion (Coteau $19.95), there is no shortage of suspects who might be the mur- derer. Her younger sister led the protests against the housing scheme and her father isn’t keen to search for her. An anonymous chat room regular pseudonym-ed Marguerite seems to know more than anyone. If Agatha Christie was around today with an Apple computer, she might have in- vented ‘Marguerite’ instead of Miss Marple. 9781550505177

ROCK BOTTOMS: A far cry from Little Women Ivan E. Coyote QUEER TALES FOR YOUTH

One In Every Crowd by Ivan E. Coyote (Arsenal Pulp Press $17.95) BORN TO RUIN

Ivan E. Coyote’s One In Every Teresa McWhirter’s feminist novel on girls gone punk Crowd is her first collection of new and selected stories to be geared Five Little Bitches by Teresa McWhirter gigs in Canada, the U.S. and Eu- tening the image of a movement towards queer youth, but these (Anvil Press $20) rope—leading to exhaustion, excess associated with unmitigated reck- Teresa humourous monologues about and exclusion in the male-domi- lessness: McWhirter queer issues and relationships will ERESA MCWHIRTER’S nated world of rock. “From Fanta’s vantage point on appeal to readers of any age. fourth novel, Five Little Though the storyline is at times stage left, she watches men pound eous women in the 1980s who don’t Coyote’s outlook is cumulatively Bitches is a Hard Core frenetic, it captures the essence of each other in the crowd. A woman wear bras or shave their armpits. uplifting. Things are changing in Logo-like travelogue. a sub-culture. joins in and they pound her, too. Rather, McWhirter presents terms of society’s willingness to T ✫ women who, at times, abuse them- We hit the road and the bottle They seem to find such joy in this accept people outside the tradi- selves and each other, and who oc- tional boy/girl divide. and rock bottom with four female FIVE LITTLE BITCHES INTRODUCES violence. Though, when someone 978-1-55152-459-7 members of a punk band, Wet Maxine Micheline, lead singer of falls, everyone rushes to help them casionally compromise their Leather, as well as one band mem- Wet Leather; then we meet drum- back up.” well-being and their friendships at ber’s estranged friend. mer Squeaky Ladeucer, bassist The design of the text is as bold the promise of sex and drugs. Having kicked drug addictions Kitty Domingo and guitarist Fanta as its uncensored language. Every These are flawed, real women and other self-destructive behav- Geiger. page is coloured with the chaos of who are unapologetic. But as much iour, the estranged friend becomes The foursome are authentically punk rock shows, volatile relation- as the characters of Five Little their mother, big sister and land- complex individuals that the reader ships, pain, joy and humour — and Bitches appear hellbent on being lord. can’t help but admire on one page, illustrated with gritty black lines, abrasive, this thoroughly modern It’s clear that McWhirter has and revile on the next. graffiti art, band posters, set lists feminist novel ultimately succeeds toured with bands herself. She con- Although she is non-judgmen- and photos. because it portrays human vulner- vincingly writes about Wet Leather tal, McWhirter is not averse to sof- It’s not an inspiring tale of right- ability. 978-1-897535-90-5 Linda Svendsen ESCAPE ROUTES: Trevor Clark details awkward lives INTRIGUES BY MONICA ROLINSKI AT SUSSEX Escape and Other Stories by Trevor Clark (Now or Never Publishing $19.95)

Sussex Drive by Linda Svendsen (Random House $22) REVOR CLARK CREATES SUCH COMPLEX AND DIVERSE CHARACTERS IN Escape and Other Stories that it’s like reading ten different stories from After a twenty-year hiatus from her ten different authors. In the title story, Escape, a father picks up his ten- first fiction collection, Marine Life, T year-old daughter for their weekend visit. He has no intention of bringing her back screenwriter and writing teacher to her mother. From the outset of the story, the narrator makes himself look exactly Linda Svendsen has released her first novel, Sussex Drive, a like the bad dad his estranged wife makes him out to be. His hope for becoming his political satire set in Ottawa in daughter’s primary parent rests solely on a forged document that will get them 2008, in which two powerful across the border. He has not considered the most important element in his dreamed women compete for behind-the- future wherein he will raise his daughter solo: Is this something his daughter wants? scenes influence when they’re not When he shares his plan with her, we are stuck somewhere between sympathy and driving their kids to school. It’s a revulsion. “Later, there was a scene in the room when I wouldn’t let her call her battle of wits between the “cagey mother. During the night I tossed and turned, wondering how other fathers who but kind” Quebecois Governor- took their children away managed it. Did they just lie? Say the mother was dead, that General Lise Lavoie and the “po- she didn’t love them—what? It had to be traumatic any way you cut it.” He feels the litically savvy, uber-reliable wife of the autocratic Conservative need to redeem himself in his daughter’s eyes, but at what cost? PM,” Becky Leggatt as to who can Escape is all too believable. Life is painfully awkward much of the time. And we best influence Canada’s foreign disappoint ourselves as much as we disappoint others. 978-1-926942-04-9 policies. 978-0-307-36221-6 Trevor Clark Monica Rolinski is completing the Print Futures program at Douglas College.

23 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 reviews FICTION

“After years of singing folk, blues, roots then jazz, I’m always singing a bit behind the beat. I love that slight delay. It allows me to improvise more freely, to PHOTO sing like a saxophone.” DEWINETZ JOHN LENT, NOVELIST JASON

The Path to Ardroe by John Lent ther and sister at an early age. His (Thistledown $19.95) creativity is reflected in his dreams. The book’s other three narrators ON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB. are also on personal quests, but That’s what artists often their explorations are interior. Rick hear. One alternative is to FOUR CHARACTERS is also a heavy drinker and smoker, Dretire from it, as John and a writer. Twenty-two-year-old Lent has done. Melissa has spread her wings and No longer regional dean of IN SEARCH OF A COLTRANE flown to France, to write. She has Okanagan College’s Kalmalka cam- left behind a nagging mother, a boy- pus in Vernon, the former English “I write to surprise myself, to scare myself even.” – John Lent friend called Brian, a divorced alco- professor now concentrates on be- holic father who has fathered an ing a vocalist for the Lent/Fraser/ extramarital child, and several crea- Wall trio, a long-established jazz doesn’t. That’s when you lose the or Coltrane’s Blue Train. tagonists that include Rick’s long- tive writing instructors who possi- group that features guitarists Neil ‘feel,’ and everything begins to ac- “But there are crucial differences time friends Peter Chisholm and bly did her more harm than good. Fraser and Shelby Wall. quire a calculated contrivance. It in the kinds of thrills and rushes Tania Semenchuk, as well as Tania is older, a teacher and a Having started singing profes- might be technically good, but it and satisfactions both forms offer. Melissa Picard, twenty-two-year- successful public figure who has an sionally, in Edmonton, at 18, and has no heart or soul because it’s The painful thing about writing old daughter of another couple who interesting story to tell us about her writing seriously at 25, Lent now lost the feel. compared to music is that writing are close friends to the older trio. trip west with Rick when she was has ten books and a CD called “Exactly the same thing applies is slow and eventually completed The four characters share the Melissa’s age. She’s a woman who Shadow Moon behind him. in my writing. Now, forty years in one form whereas music is im- pages almost equally from four dif- has tragically lost her lover and who “Music and writing into it, I write to surprise mediate, very physical, and never ferent places—Glendarroch, Stras- has chosen to raise a child on her have always seemed in- myself, to scare myself the same twice. That needs to be bourg, Edmonton and Vernon—all own, a child who was deliberately separable to me,” he says, even, just as I do when I said, too.” ✫ on the same day in 1994. and secretly fathered by Melissa’s “but it’s funny how I sing. I want to write in a In Scotland, Peter takes a little- father. don’t usually think about state of improvisation. JOHN LENT FIRST WROTE ABOUT THE used footpath to Ardroe, from In metafiction, a novel usually it much. Now that you Like the melody in jazz Connelly family 16 years ago in Glendarroch, hoping for excellent imitates a novel, rather than the real asked me, it’s obvious or folk or blues, you have Monet’s Garden, when he intro- coastal views and a glimpse of the world, so readers don’t have the writing and singing are Cherie to have the basic frame duced the siblings Neil, Jane and hamlet of Ardroe. But he leaves too luxury of losing themselves in a fic- connected. THIESSEN to hold you, but you are Rick. A follow-up Connelly novel late, enjoys one smoke too many, tional story. The Path of Ardroe “What joins writing also improvising within nine years later, So It Won’t Go Away, lingers too long, caught up in memo- qualifies as metafiction. [William and music is the phrasing and its that frame. was shortlisted for the Ethel ries of the woman he had come to Gass came up with the term array of rhythms. The whole issue “That’s what happened in the Wilson Fiction Prize in 2006. Scotland to find. metafiction in 1970. Irony and in- of ‘phrasing’ is as crucial in poetry novel. In The Path to Ardroe, I set This time, the only Connelly in Brave and open to mysticism, trospection are two of its trade- and fiction. Even non-fiction, too. up four characters in four very dif- The Path to Ardroe (Thistledown Peter is struggling with a painful marks, and Lent uses both heavily.] Strong lyrical rhythms have always ferent settings. That was the frame. $19.95) is Rick, one of four pro- family history, having lost his fa- Another metafiction trademark dominated my poetry and my fic- Then I began to improvise. When I is the superimposition of the au- tion. But first you must learn the sat down to write, I really did not thor’s life on his characters. Sonia fundamentals. know what was going to happen and Rick love jazz; Rick’s brother “When you have covered tunes except I was going to write and gen- Neil is a musician. Lent and Rick so much, you acquire the confidence erally stay within the frame. The also seem to have the same musical to improvise in music. When that details would come the way the John Lent brother called Neil. All four charac- happens, you really do move into notes do when you’re singing. You with singer, ters grew up in Edmonton, as did an intuitive space of almost unself- have to feel them. Kayda Gagnon, the author. The first draft of The at a music conciousness during which you do “I see my songs as stories and Path to Ardroe was largely written festival in not know what you’re doing, but poems. And I see my fiction and while Lent was on sabbatical in poetry like compositions: sympho- Nelson, 1975. you’re doing it. 1994, in Scotland. 978-1-927068-01-4 PHOTO “The great enemy of improvi- nies, sonatas, suites. I would see www.lentfraserwall.com sation is the rational mind coming The Path to Ardroe in much the KERWIN in to interfere and try to control same way I might see the structure Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction

things. You have to make sure it of Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain RANDY from Pender Island.

24 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 Words, Words, Words Gardens Aflame Essays and Memoirs Garry Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast by GEORGE BOWERING by MALEEA ACKER Find out what Canada’s first Poet-Laureate most cherishes about writers and writing: Victoria writer and environmentalist Maleea who Al Purdy was; what David McFadden’s Acker tells us about the Garry oak, its unique work pays attention to; when the world of and vanishing ecosystem, and the people who poetry changed; where Artie Gold appeared as have made it their life’s work to save this species a light fixture in our darkness; how bpNichol’s along with the environment ––– including the Martyrology legitimized the vernacular; human environment ––– it depends on. why we cannot read history without encountering Shakespeare.

Transmontanus 21 www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

The Shiva IKMQ by MICHAEL TREGEBOV by ROGER FARR

Set in Winnipeg’s Jewish community, The Avant-garde poetry infused with play and Shiva tells the story of a syndicate of buddies humour by Gabriola Island resident Roger Farr. from the local casino and their scheme to short- Follow the characters I, K, M and Q as they sell the 2008 mortgage crisis, and make a convert houses to commercial grow–ops, fortune for themselves. A hilarious, fast-paced, manufacture explosives, go all in on the flop, character-driven novel about greed and destiny, conduct meetings according to Roberts, plot a and two sons desperate for their aging mother’s prison break, score an all–important goal, get love. By the author of The Briss. the door for the pizza delivery boy, and get on with transforming the world through their revolutionary action.

www.NewStarBooks.com www.NewStarBooks.com

 "#$"

        #  !       #        #   #  

%%%& '  (( )

Check R      out Anita’s Revolution* +%( ( ,&$ , $*, Victoria’s Shirley Langer’s new book on Cuba.

25 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 reviews POETRY GETTING THE DIRT FROG-SONG NIGHTS ON P.G. Debut collection from poet reverberates with the balefulness of fog-soaked landscapes. Gillian Wigmore’s passion for love- Between Dusk and Night been written by these mentors: the by Emily McGiffin (Brick Books $19.95) cold black eye of the lake …alpine making, river fishing water an ablution … moonlit scrub and toughing it out UCH OF THE POETRY IN willows. Emily McGiffin’s ✫ Dirt of Ages by Gillian Wigmore collection Between ‘SWADESHI,’ THE NINE-PART LONG Bernice Lever (Nightwood $18.95) Dusk and Night poem that closes the book, de- won the World M Poetry Lifetime takes us far afield. We’re on a scribes the process of making a Achievement ENRY THOREAU, WHO Greek beach or thinking of an Ital- wool blanket from scratch; bird’s- Award in 2008 wrote Walden’s Pond, ian trattoria. There’s a typhoon in eye twill, six hundred ends, dyed when asked if he ever Vietnam; we visit Van Gogh’s asy- H with lichens. “I speak to you in Imagining Lives by Bernice Lever traveled, answered that he traveled lum in Provence. These global yarns,” she writes. (Black Moss Press $10) 978-0887535000 deeply within a few miles of his travel poems are dizzying in their What’s the point when blankets pond. quick succession. can be bought at the store? Echoing The travel writer The reader settles Gandhi, “it’s a way of being careful. Ignore Linear Alain de Botton wrote down when the pace The old loom on which the poet Minds are beyond machines, a piece about a journey slows; the poet comes works is lovingly described patient light years away from their maps. around his own small home. McGiffin excels at as an aging draft horse. …The cast bedroom, including pho- observing her northwest iron cranks and gears … the brake You know what I adore best tographs. B.C. landscape: …at the and the beater / clapped and sang about these MRIs Although “pulp fog Hannah edge of the plateau / where like a gospel choir.” those B&W negatives of my brain: solidifies into ice smog,” MAIN-VAN DER KAMP the southwest is a Throughout the making, a con- no straight lines, not even a few forest fires turn “the sky sawtooth range, the versation goes on between the triangles, rhombus or rhomboid Skeena Watershed Conservation coral crimson and rust,” and there northeast / a sweep of highland weaver and the absent lover for figures shaded 3-D. Coalition member Emily McGiffin are “foetid fall inversions,” Gillian honed smooth as a rib. Deftly she whom the blanket is intended as a Wigmore also finds her hometown chops wood, shears sheep, builds ture some say: you live in a hot gift. There are doubts about the Yes, most of all, I adore in central B.C. beautiful and inspir- the fire, milks the cow, drives the clime and you smile; you live in project and the relationship. “What those unpredictable curves, ing. lonely bush roads. damp, you survive. is the end / but two strands of alone- hairpin switchbacks, Having visited Barcelona, Flor- The tone of these B.C. poems There’s not a lot of humour or ness plied double thick?” crinkly vines, touching digits ence and Switzerland in her youth, is often doleful, as if it’s always hopefulness in this volume, more The conversation grows less in my bumpy, bulging she still loves Prince George where November on the Skeena and the the outlook one would expect from tentative as the blanket approaches creviced mind. “post flood silt height marks the Nass. Fog and loneliness figure in an aged poet, not one born in 1980. completion. The gift is received. walls in sedimentary layers/fish almost every poem. Climate is cul- “You took your gift. It held you all No, they were second. scales and weeds on the stair The title balefully conveys “eve- rything lies ahead: a long shadow night.” First was that random light show, rung.” Although the words sadness and impulses still flashing In her latest collection of fifty / dissolving into a larger dark. The reading of these po- loneliness also occur in Swadeshi, on and off, then on again. poems, Dirt of Ages, all the doleful tone is lessened. Some- Wigmore’s relationships are ems for some will be as easy as trying half- times the repetitive movement of Just believe, there is more celebratory and the reader good simple work, and writing than zero and one knows she’ll make it to heartedly to set alight a handful about it, can have that effect. in your grey matter. spring. She has a pas- “…the whole civilization and its sion for love-making, of damp twigs for tinder. ugly deceits” ceases to be such a river fishing and burden when work is absorbing. Privates toughing it out McGiffin acknowl- From shearing to taking the fin- Your own billy club bullies through the too- ished piece off the loom, McGiffin me into submission harsh cold, the edges the influence convinces the reader of her re- not just your wrestling holds too-harsh win- sourceful pleasure in the craft, “the or muscular legs ter and the re- of her men- labour of my own attentive hands. clamping me still lentless rains. She works clear through the frog- with your raging eyes Wigmore’s tors, the song night and when dawn came / I promising pain debut collec- cut it free.” 078 1 926829 73 9 tion soft geog- mourn- ful phi- your boneless fifth limb raphy (2007) Hannah Main-van der Kamp trav- rigid with need or anger won the ReLit losopher Jan Zwicky, (nothing els deeply within a few miles of her has no personal message Prize for Po- home on the rainy Upper Sunshine nor private intended gift etry and was is as buoyant as an elegy) and the ecstati- Coast, making seaweed blankets for just total thrusting invasion shortlisted for the her garden. demanding my surrender Dorothy Livesay BC Book cally contemplative Prize.” Giving thanks Tim Lilburn, (the sine- through our teeth,” she re- curved land, the river mains more than content that gleams). The poem to live in P.G., a commu- ‘Songs for the SEVENTH TIME LUCKY nity that serves her as “a Spatzisi’ could have blue print for a good life.” Tenderman by Tim Bowling (Nightwood Editions ($18.95) 978-0-88971-264-6 Having just released his historical novel about the B.C. fishing industry, The Tinsmith (Brindle & Glass $21.95), Ladner-raised Tim Bowling has won his third Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry for his most recent collection, Tenderman. The tenderman is a term for a crew member on a salmon packing boat. The poems are often delivered through dialogues between poet and fisherman, reminiscences of their shared childhoods, or narratives deliv- Tim Bowling ered by the tenderman. Bowling previously won the Stephansson Award for Dying Scarlet (Nightwood 1998) and Fathom (Gaspereau 2006) and he has been nominated for the prize an additional four times. Tinsmith 978-1-926972-43-5 $21.95; Tenderman 978-0-88971-259-1 Gillian Wigmore

26 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ GEORGE SEFERIS – JAZZ WITH ELLA POEMS novel by poems by Jan DeGrass George Seferis During the summers of 1973

translated by and 1974 Jan visited Russia. She ✦ Manolis was young and daring; soon after she arrived in Leningrad WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA With what heart (now St. Petersburg) she met a with what spirit man who became the subject ✦ Paperback 9 x 6 in Paperback 9 x 6 in what desire and what passion of this novel...

280 pages we led our life what a mistake 224 pages 9781926763231 so we changed our life... 9781926763248 $25.00 $23.00

THE UNQUIET LAND MIDNIGHT EMBERS novel by poetry by

Ron Duffy Candice James ✦

✦ The newly ordained Father Words, when strung together Padraig returns to his home like a beautiful rare necklace, village of Corrymore as its new are priceless, indestructible priest. The mission he has set and eternal. Poetry is the grand himself in addition to his paro- ballroom these words live, chial duties is to save the souls” breathe and dance in. Paperback 9 x 6 in of the proud, pagan fisherman Paperback 9 x 6 in 250 pages 118 pages

Finn MacLir and his daughter 9781926763200 Caitlin by converting them to 9781926763224 $23.00 Christianity... $18.00 ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WATER IN THE SECRETS KEPT / ✦ WILDERNESS SECRETS TOLD

novel by novel by Doris Riedweg Ben Nuttall-Smith Happily married to her beloved Secrets Kept / Secrets Told, Pad- Morley, Tyne Cresswell is con- dy’s story of Personal Growth, tent in her dual role of farmer’s relates a journey of healing,

wife and hospital nurse. Then a showing that anyone can heal ✦ Paperback 9 x 6 in late night conversation with one from abuse and PTSD, giving Paperback 9 x 6 in ✦ 220 pages of her patients sets in motion a readers insight and hope. 252 pages 9781926763194 series of heartbreaking events 9781926763187 $23.00 that neither she nor Morley $23.00 could ever have imagined.

VORTEX SMALL CHANGE

poetry by short stories by

Manolis George Amabile ✦ An ancient music runs through This is a book about growing up WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA

WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA the poetry of Manolis, so it and coming of age in the inner is appropriate that his work city, an unpredictable adven-

✦ should be presented with ture filled with risk, spontane- Greek en face. Vibrant, radiant, ous invention, bizarre hilarities, his poetry is steeped in an an- moments of grace... Paperback 9 x 6 in tique tradition and yet is thor- Paperback 9 x 6 in 149 pages oughly modern in scope and 150 pages 9781926763163 refreshingly new. 9781926763156 $18.00 $20.00

✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Seven prize categories for fiction, poetry, children, illustrated, non-fiction, regional, and booksellers’ choice. Submission deadline is December 1, 2012. Nominations open for lifetime achievement 29th annual April 2013 award, The Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. Submission deadline is February 1, 2013. For submission details visit www.bcbookprizes.ca

ROCK REJECT BY JIM WILLIAMS Set in northern BC in the 1970s — at a time when the dangers of asbestos first began to surface — Rock Reject is a story about Advertise here accepting responsibility for one’s actions, corporate irresponsibil- ity and the blind pursuit of profit at the expense of physical and environmental health. & reach “Jim Williams’s characters enter the masculine world of mining yearning for oblivion, but moral imperatives catch them up. Rock Reject shows us how work does not end in a paycheque 100,000 readers. but rather reaches into the distant corners of society binding us together — for better or worse. Jim Williams leads us through the corridors of union politics as he draws us through the dark tunnels of the soul.” — Linda Little, author of Strong Hollow and Scotch River BC ROSEWAY BOOKWORLD 9781552665169 $19.95 Adult fiction PUBLISHING Just call 604-736-4011 to advertise in BC BookWorld Winner of the 2011 inaugural AN IMPRINT OF FERNWOOD PUBLISHING Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature fernwoodpublishing.ca/roseway or email [email protected]

27 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 poetry EXCERPT

Dirty Snow by Tom Wayman (Harbour $16.95) Wouldn’t you agree, though, that— Social change means face-to-face interactions with TAH PHILLIPS WAS A your workmates, your neighbours, everybody who shares the biosphere with you. With your head in a computer world-renowned EXIT you’ll never figure out how you can put your values into effect Uperformer whose collectively with other live human beings presentations combined union at your job site, or down the block, or in the union. hymns, original songs on so- Would you say nostalgia played a part in your appeal? cial themes, and stories—of- I wish nostalgia entered into it. The boss still organizes the workplace ten humourous. When Phillips STAGE like it’s 1805, never mind 1905, or the twenty-first century. learned the FBI was tapping He insists that the money the owners put into the his phone, his response was: justifies his unelected right to tell you what to do all shift. The boss might try to soften this arrangement by permitting “That’s okay. Those buzzards flextime, or by talking about starting a company daycare. have to learn about unionism LEFT But when push comes to shove, it’s you some way.” who gets shoved. If the same rationale were applied Tom Wayman pays tribute outside the office door or factory gate The focus of Utah’s message to American folksinger only the rich would be allowed to vote. After all, they’ve invested their was the Industrial Workers of the money World, founded in 1905 and dedi- Bruce “Utah” Phillips (1935-2008) in this country or community, while you’ve only invested your cated to organizing industrially (eve- life. Everything I sang ryone in an industry belongs to the and said was meant to celebrate each person who resists the idea same union) rather than by craft (dif- that, on the job or off, dollars trump decency, dollars ferent occupations within an indus- trump democracy. Would that the latter type of thinking try belong to different unions, thus was so far in the past that at least a few people dividing the workforce against itself). could look back on it with nostalgia The IWW played a significant —although the view of most of us would be: “Good riddance!” role in B.C. in the early years of the 20th century. For example, by 1911 How would you describe your contribution, then? the IWW represented civic employ- I carried it on: helped keep alive that age-old goal ees, teamsters and construction la- to fashion a more human arrangement of society bourers in Nelson, B.C., winning the than the present mess. eight-hour day. The union led free- I saw revolutionary industrial unionism speech fights (for the right to have as the best route to a world where we respect each other and street-corner speakers and meetings) care for each other, including the homeless and other outcasts. After all, in Victoria (1911) and Vancouver it’s through your and my daily work (1912). that groceries are delivered to the stores, IWW leadership in the 1912 strike kids are raised, roofs are shingled. The television and the newspapers by crews building the Canadian keep screeching at you not to pay attention to Northern Railway (later the Cana- how your employment keeps society functioning, and how your job dian National Railway) through the affects Fraser Canyon led legendary IWW your life, and that of the people of your community, and the natural songwriter Joe Hill to write the environment. rousing ballad “Where the Fraser You’re supposed to be concerned only about what happens to River Flows,” still sometimes heard a handful of celebrities, sports stars, politicians. at B.C. union gatherings. Yet it’s our sweat and brainpower, not theirs, The IWW was severely harmed that rebuilds the world each day. by attacks from proponents of the The Wobblies—the Industrial Workers of the World— American Federation of Labor / Con- knew back in 1905 that your life doesn’t change for the better gress of Industrial Organizations because the team you root for wins, or because you buy something (AFL-CIO)-style business unionism you don’t really need. Your life is improved due to the IWWs organizing of im- when your working day changes—when there’s a real turnabout in migrants and fighting against racism the power relations at your job, when there’s a real change within the union movement. The in the impact the goods and services you create each shift have IWW was also a target of the US on other people and on our planet. government for the union’s opposi- EXIT INTERVIEW: “UTAH” PHILLIPS tion to US participation in World How effective do you think you actually were? War I (many BC unionists also op- Are you sorry to leave? I thought we’d be further along as a species by now. posed that war, in part because the I feel I barely got started. Fred Thompson, a long-time IWW organizer, used to say Canadian militia had been used to the working class always develops effective forms of resistance try to break the Vancouver Island What do you consider your legacy? about fifty to a hundred years behind the employing class. coal strike 1912-14). Every act of kindness I like to imagine we could be ahead of the curve for once. In the aftermath of the 1960s, and solidarity I did in the world. In one way, we are: the IWW said in 1905 that world labour needs new blood flowed into the IWW as a worldwide union. That was thinking “globalization” young people were attracted by its Any regrets? long before the capitalists conceived of the term. cheerful anti-authoritarian stance, I’m sorry that people would rather listen to a song But the bosses are far in front of us when it comes to and its use of humour, art, music than to sing themselves, let alone putting the concept into practice. I don’t doubt we’ll get there and literature in the fight against cor- make up their own tunes. I’m not talking here about adolescents, eventually. porate rule. who imagine they can use the music industry I just wish we weren’t so damn slow. Tom Wayman got to know to obtain glory and wealth. I mean how people used to sing together Phillips when Wayman was active as a family, and at parties, and at public meetings. In church Any parting advice? in the Vancouver General Member- some still do, but we’re mainly watchers now. If you can get out into the countryside ship Branch of the IWW between The union anthems, folk tunes, even pop songs away from the smog and the noise and the money pollution, 1970 and 1989. Utah Phillips in- once were carried into the air on many voices you’ll observe in the nighttime sky the three shining stars of the IWW: cluded Wayman’s poem “Bosses” in not just sung by one or, at most, a handful, while everybody else Education, Organization, Emancipation. the liner notes to the 1996 CD The listens, pays money to listen. Strict division of labour like this Back in the city, if you look real hard on a clear day, Long Memory, also featuring was the bosses’ idea, not ours: left to ourselves, we arrange a job you can see those same three stars. Sorrels. so those with the most skills show the way, while everybody else “The only way Utah Phillips joins in as best they know how. would leave the organization he Wobbly troubadour and loved and served, the Industrial But doesn’t today’s new media let people— union organizer Utah Phillips Workers of the World,” says The rulers of this life are happy to have you shut yourself off (top) was a perennial Wayman, “was by dying.” pushing at buttons on a computer keyboard favourite at the Vancouver Rather than crafting an elegy for —thus giving the powers-that-be a free ride Folk Festival. Tom Wayman (right) first met him in

someone he greatly admired, in the real world. You can exchange virtual information by the hour PHOTO the early 1970s. Wayman has imagined the follow- or hit “send” to add your name to another online petition DILLON ing unconventional “exit interview” or denounce anything in your blog. That sound you faintly hear in the for his newest collection of poetry, background JUDE Dirty Snow. 978-1-55017-592-9 is the chortling of the ruling class: they’ve got you exactly where they want you.

28 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 feature KIDLIT

Origin of the Series ing the Spanish Civil War. “Had I been 20 in 1936, “I was approached by Eric early even: The Series [see I would have gone to fight in in the process,” he says, “and we Sstory at right] was born decided to make our characters when Eric Walters started Spain in the International twins. Their relationship is estab- thinking about a story in which a Brigades.” lished early in both books and beloved grandfather dies and develops through exchanged leaves his grandson the task of JOHN WILSON texts as they undertake their ad- spreading his ashes from the top ventures. of Mount Kilimanjaro... Then he “This is an exceptional case wondered what if he had more with the Seven books. The only than one grandson? What if he point of commonality is reading had seven? where each character is given their task/quest. After that, the stories “I thought about my favourite go their own ways as envisaged by writers and their different styles each author. and wondered how each writer “Obviously, I have read Be- would approach this same tween Heaven and Earth. I can’t narrative,” Walters says. speak for the other authors, but I “I made some phone calls. plan to read all the books. I’m in- Some of the writers plunged in John Wilson trigued to see the different direc- before the end of the call. Others tions taken by my colleagues. needed a day to think it over. Wilson says he’s in awe of “In quick succession though, Sarah Harvey, who edited all all seven of us signed on and we seven books and who undertook were off. Instantly, messages the task of making sure that every- started to fly between the writers thing in each book fitted with what as we crafted our individual 7 WONDERERS the other six characters did in the 7 WONDERERS other books. stories and then 'reshaped' ✫ aspects to fit in with what the Lost Cause — Seven: The Series volving quests for seven grandsons world according to their grand- others were writing. LOST CAUSE, FOR JOHN WILSON, IS by John Wilson (Orca $9.95) as laid out in their grandfather’s will. father’s instructions. an attempt, like most of his his- “For my book, I climbed Mount The eldest grandson has the task Electronic chapters are being Kilimanjaro. There, atop the torical fiction, to relive a time for OU’VE HEARD OF THE of spreading grandpa’s ashes atop made available each month, for which he was born too late. “I have mountain, I sent a text message Magnificent Seven and Mt. Kilimanjaro, as outlined in Be- seven months, prior to the official long been convinced that, had I been to , just as the John Wilson The Seven Samurai. tween Heaven and Earth (Orca) by release date of October 10. 20 in 1936, I would have gone to character in my book sends one And Snow White and Eric Walters, who brought the ✫ fight in Spain in the International to the character in John's book. Y THE LONE B C AUTHOR IN THE the Seven Dwarfs. And Seven series idea to the publisher. . . Brigades. Fortunately, since so few “I can only hope that the Wives for Seven Brothers. The seven novels can be read in series is John Wilson with Lost came back from that war, I never readers will enjoy these unique Now along comes Seven: The random order. The contemporary Cause (Orca $9.95), in which had the chance. Steve is me, reliv- books as much as we all enjoyed Series, for readers aged ten and action of each book occurs at grandson Steve investigates his ing the experiences I wish I could writing them.” up—seven novels by seven writ- the same time as the seven grand- grandfather’s activities in Spain have been a part of.” ers released simultaneously, all in- sons are dispersed around the with the International Brigades dur- 978-1-55469-944-5

29 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 30th Annual Lieutenant- reviews Governor’s Award KIDLIT for Historical Writing of non-fiction books published in 2012 by authors of B.C. History. (reprints not eligible)

Entry deadline: December 31, 2012

British Columbia Historical Federation All entrants must contact William Morrison before submitting books. [email protected] or 250-245-9247

Winner of 2011 Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing: Chuck Davis for “The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver”

photo by Mark Mushet

Art by Mike Deas, from I, Witness (Orca Books) YOUNG ADULT FICTION Annual Non-Fiction Contest* Graphic novels, blind orphans, science-fiction, $1500 in prizes available, plus publication! disease, urban exploration, homelessness, & cults $34.95 entry fee includes 1 year of EVENT 5,000 word limit I, Witness by Mike Deas & Norah McClintock pockets a box of magic eyes, he is transported (Orca $16.95) Deadline April 15, 2013 to an island on top of the world where the Shortlisted for the 2012 Christie Harris Illus- eyemaker, Professor Cake, provides him with an opportunity to visit the Vanished King- Visit for more information trated Children’s Literature Prize, Mike Deas’ eventmags.com graphic novel for young readers, Dalen & dom where he can rescue others, accompa- Gole: Scandal in Port Angus (Orca, 2011), nied by a knight errant, Sir Tode, who is part follows two aliens who arrive in a West Coast human, part horse and part cat. 978-0-670-06466-3 community where the fishing industry is dy- Shadowlands: The Guardian by Charity Gosling ing. They must save their own alien world (Brighter Books $21.25) from disaster as well as the town. Deas’ much grittier follow-up this fall is I, Wit- community-minded but globally connected ness, a teen graphic novel by Norah Shadowlands: The Guardian, a McClintock about two teens who YA science-fiction title by Vancou- witness a violent murder and are ver Island’s Charity Gosling, is the first book from a new Nanaimo- pursued by the killers. 9781554697892 based company, Brighter Books, The Right & the Real by Joëlle Anthony founded by Angela Jurgensen and (Putnam $19) her husband Dean, an electrical en- Joëlle Anthony’s young adult gineer. It’s touted as an eco-friendly, print-on-demand imprint using ma- novel The Right & the Real re- Susan Ketchen counts the plight of seventeen-year- terials approved by the Forest old Jamie when she refuses to join Stewardship Council of Canada, the The Right and the Real Church, a Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and cult that has both her father and her the Programme for the Endorsement boyfriend Josh among its devotees. of Forest Certification. 0986555517 It’s the follow-up to Anthony’s de- Grows That Way by Susan Ketchen O pen year-round with over 25,000 titles plus a great selection but Restoring Harmony, long-listed (Oolichan $12.95) of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. for the American Library Associa- tion’s Best Fiction for Young Adults Susan Ketchen’s Born That Way V isit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com competition. The -born (Oolichan, 2009) introduces four- Joëlle Anthony Anthony and her musician/partner teen-year-old Sylvia, a girl with a 250.539.3340 [email protected] Victor Anthony live on Gabriola Is- passion for horses and an undiag- 76 Madrona Drive Galiano Island BC V0N 1P0 land where “their only plan is to nosed disease called Turner’s Syn- avoid real jobs, write and play gui- drome. In the sequel, Made That tar in front of the wood stove, and Way (Oolichan, 2011), Sylvia starts live happily ever after.” medical treatment. The trilogy is 978-0-399-25525-0 now completed with Grows That Way in which Sylvia must accept I’ll Be Home Soon by Luanne Armstrong (Ronsdale $11.95) she will need estrogen supplements in order to approach normality. “I Luanne Armstrong’s fourteenth Luanne Armstrong have Turner’s Syndrome and I will book, I’ll Be Home Soon, is a always be a shrimp,” she narrates. young adult novel that follows the Her great comfort remains her horse quest of a homeless but far from Brooklyn while she is haunted by BURIED in the SKY END of GROWTH hapless girl named Regan as she imaginary encounters with a large, Friday, Sept 28 6:30-8pm Friday, Nov 9 7pm searches for her mother amid the hairy creature in the woods. FREE Book Talk at Banyen Public Talk/Signing perils of the inner-city. It’s not a 978-0-88982-285-6 UBC’s Robson Square Theatre bleak tale of life in the shadows; Peter Zuckerman & Amanda Infiltration by Sean Rodman (Orca $9.95) $15 Tickets at Banyen/Door Regan discovers compassion and Padoan: The Extraordinary Save 20% off book with ticket Story of the Sherpa Climbers help from a wide variety of people. The son of two anthropologists, on K2’s Deadliest Day. JEFF RUBIN is one of the 978-1-55380-180-1 Sean Rodman has taught school world’s most prominent experts Jonathan Auxier in Australia and now works at the on the future of oil and the Peter Nimble and his Fantastic Eyes by 3608 West 4th Ave. global economy. Former Jonathan Auxier (Puffin $20) Royal B.C. Museum. In his first teen fiction Chief Economist at CIBC World for reluctant readers, Infiltration, Bex and Vancouver, BC Markets for over 20 years, Rubin is the international bestselling Vancouver-born Jonathan Auxier has writ- Kieran are two teens who dare one another to 604-732-7912 author of Why Your World is About to Get a ten his first novel, Peter Nimble and his explore prohibited areas in the city, taking banyen.com Whole Lot Hotter and The End of Growth. Fantastic Eyes, a Dickensian tale of redemp- only photos for bragging rights, until Kieran tion about a ten-year-old blind orphan who pitches a plan that goes beyond mere urban was raised to work as a thief. When he pick- exploration. 978-1-55469-985-8

30 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 LIBRARIES

You might have heard about a controversial plan to revolu- tionize the facilities of the New York Public Library on 42nd Street. The NY Central Library Board wants to send two million books to a warehouse in New Jersey. The idea is to make the iconic building more friendly to tourists and comfy—with a café, of course. Writers have launched an offensive to defend the soul of the library, its books. BUILD IT Some 1,000 authors and scholars, including Salman Rushdie and Mario Vargas Llosa, have signed a broadside petition in hopes of thwarting the relegation of & THEY WILL WRITE books to mere warehouse objects. Of course it won’t happen here… “A room filled with computers and plastic tablets strikes me as about Almost every author on the planet has been inspired by libraries. Here Glen Huser—shortlisted for the 2012 as alluring as a garden full of artificial flowers.” – Glen Huser Sheila A. Egoff Prize for Children’s Literature for his young adult novel, The Runaway (Tradewind photographed screen representation can never capture. $12.95)—looks at the importance of the library in Shelves filled with books have always struck me as dis- schools and society—and in his career. plays of treasure—treasure filled with the mystery and promise of life and the universe. I think the Ontario school that went cyber was a Y HOMETOWN OF ASHMONT IN secondary school. We can hope a little more thought was Alberta was very small, so as given to their elementary sites. As a former teacher-li- brarian committed to reading to children, I find it diffi- Ma teenager, I was always look- cult to imagine sharing a plastic e-reader with a group of ing for chances to get away to the big city, to kindergarten kids in a story corner. For years, I had a collection of pop-up books that I Edmonton, where I could catch the shared with students on special occasions. They loved latest Elvis Presley movie, and browse the paper sculptures that sprang to life as pages were through its gigantic library, even if I turned. But even in secondary schools, I believe real books wasn’t allowed, as a non-resident, to check have a place alongside virtual books. Kids of all ages any of the books out. should have the option of taking a break from omnipres- ent screens to curl up in a comfortable spot with a book Libraries intrigued me. When I found there were that offers small satisfying sounds as pages are turned— boxes of books stowed away in the attic of the Ashmont sounds like a whispering of the winds of thought. They Municipal Building, I convinced the town officials to should be able to enjoy the feel of their fingers resting on let me set them out again, in what had once been a paper, the companionable comfort of a volume resting makeshift library, with rough wooden shelving and a open, inverted over a thigh as the reader rests his eyes barrel-shaped, wood-burning stove. for a few minutes or chats with a friend. One merchant donated some paint for the shelves. Even unopened, books are a kind of pleasing embel- Convincing a couple of friends to help me, we painted lishment to any room. I dread the day when all the shelves—two coats in fact, which never quite seemed ornamentation in the spaces in which we live to dry—and the book covers were always encrusted will be turned on with the flick of a switch— with bits of apple green paint. My friends and I “played and we’ll see plastic walls with electronic visu- librarian.” Old, donated book-of-the-month club selec- als of the décor du jour. tions and ancient encyclopedia sets provided me with Meanwhile, in 2010, more books than ever reading material for my mid-teen years. before in history were published. An unprec- Now I see an Ontario school has made the news with Glen Huser edented number of new books were released in an initiative to take away all the books in its library and print format in the U.S. alone, according to replace them with computers. A library landscape devoid Bowker, the company that manages Books in Print— of books is, to my mind, a pretty sad prospect. excluding so-called e-books. I realize that research tools are abundantly available That’s where libraries are needed. Libraries do an Glen Huser, on computers now and works of fiction and non-fiction Portrait of the amazing job of winnowing, separating wheat from chaff, can be accessed on various e-readers. But a room filled Artist as a Young somehow deciding what books are needed more for soci- with computers and plastic tablets strikes me as about Librarian: “In 1958, ety than others beyond the dizzying maze of the internet. as alluring as a garden full of artificial flowers. I did own some ✍ blue suede shoes, I love the feel of a book to my hands—its size and GLEN HUSER’S THE RUNAWAY, SET IN 1923, DESCRIBES but here I’m shape and heft, the texture of the paper—even the smell wearing penny the adventures of Leroy “Doodlebug” Barnstable on the of most books. Illustrations in books involve a fusion of loafers.” run from two abusive cousins, as he spends time with a ink and paint and paper that is pleasing in a way that a Chautauqua [traveling carnival]. 978-896580-21-0

Didja know? Didja know?

The Canadian Library Association is seriously concerned about the nega- According to a recent Mustel poll, tive impact of government budget cuts on libraries in federal departments here are the percentages for Vancouver residents who reported visiting and at Library and Archives Canada. While not all details are known at this (at least once) a building offering the time, indications are that libraries are being hit hard by budget reductions. following events, activities, art or books: At Library and Archives Canada, 430 people have been given notices, Ballet: 4.01% with more than 200 jobs to be cut over the next three years, representing TION Opera: 6.15% a reduction of 20% of their workforce. They have also had to cut their Ice skating: 14.05%

acquisitions budget, end their role in national inter-library loan activities, ILLUSTRA

and cut the National Archival Development Program, which has provided Health/Fitness club/centre: 17.5% FARRIS funding to Canadian archival organizations to increase their capacity to Art gallery: 19.14%

preserve archival materials and make them available to Canadians. JOSEPH Zoo/Aquarium: 19.93% According to the CLA, these cuts will negatively impact Library and “It’s about this couple who meet through internet dating, Museums: 21.61% see online shrinks, check each other out via health Archives Canada’s ability to provide front-line services, resulting in re- sites, find out they were lacking in data capacity, Swimming: 24.32% duced access to information for Canadians. discover both have hard drives and decide to delete.” Vancouver Public Library: 74%

31 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 LETTERS paper SERIES by David Yee K is for Kootenay FEET OF THE Feet of the Thanks for all that ink, on behalf of the ANGELS Angels Kootenay literary crowd, in the BCBW sum- by Evelyne de la Chenelière, mer issue. Anne DeGrace and I were remark- translated by Nigel Spencer ing that this was almost a K-is-for-Kootenay

EVELYNE DE LA CHENELIÈRE issue! Jenny Craig, Margo Talbot, Ernest TRANSLATED BY NIGEL SPENCER Hekkanen; there’s Shelley Adams on the top From drama to comedy to Marie has been fascinated seller list, a letter from Anne, and, of course, crime-thriller, Yee brings with angels ever since her we’ll always consider Fred Wah and Caroline us a variety of characters brother died. Now she and plots in a series of is writing her doctoral Woodward as ours. Plus an ad for the El- imaginative, thought- thesis on the portrayal of ephant Mountain Festival in Nelson! Did we provoking vignettes. angels’ feet in Renaissance miss anything? paintings. coming this fall from playwrightscanada.com Rita Moir Winlaw Totem Theatre’s guide to A Streetcar Rita Moir & Brier Named Desire, from The Opening Act

from Stage write

Th istledown PHOTO Press I covet each issue of BCBW since arriving in Steveston a year ago. Please write more about www.thistledownpress.com ARMSTRONG

author Susan McNicoll and her newly re-

DAN leased book entitled The Opening Act from Appearing at the 2012 Ronsdale Press. McNicoll is clearly passion- Vancouver International G is for Gabriola ate about stage performance in Canada. Writers Festival Just got my latest BCBW in the mail. Great The story of how professional theatre Given Dibidalen article on my friend Naomi Wakan, written began in Canada, post-war and prior to Strat- a novel by short fiction by by another good friend, Phyllis Reeve. They ford, is an important and inspiring one. So Susan Musgrave Seán Virgo are both very talented individuals and tireless few people know it.

---- | . ---- | . supporters of the rest of us in the Gabriola Meanwhile we can enliven the arts and MUSGRAVE VIRGO writing community. The whole issue, I think our lives simply by attending performances. “[Musgrave] inhabits her subjects like a second skin, “It’s a joy to see a fi ction writer deploying his imaginative powers to injecting them with a sad wisdom and complex sympathy.” the full in an age when given the dominance of fact the imagination is one of your best—from cover to cover. Bard on the Beach, for starters! Namaste. itself is under suspicion.” — National Post — Elm Street Magazine Roy Innes Yvonne Goode “Her prose is lucid, eloquent and poetic . . . ” “One of the best in Canada . . . what continues to astonish about Gabriola Steveston — Calgary Straight Seán Virgo is his incredible virtuosity.” —Toronto Star Letters / emails: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Van., BC V6R 2S3 [email protected] • Letters may be edited for clarity & length.

Juvenile Fiction AA GirlGirl CalledCalled TennysonTennyson byby JoanJoan GivnerGivner

This classic fantasy quest takes readers on an adventure written in the British tradition, fused with a contemporary voice. Givner alludes to the work of Tennyson, as “Tenn” loves poetry, story and rhyme; in fact it will be her love of great writers that helps her in her quest and leads her to success.

Thistledown Press • www.thistledownpress.com ISBN 978-1-897235-83 • $12.95

32 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 OBITS Bill Barlee 1932-2012

Neville Langrell (Bill) Barlee was one of the foremost historians of the B.C. Interior and an in- spiring force in the evo- lution of B.C. publishing. • “Bill Barlee, was a nugget, pure gold, remarkable in more ways than can be described.” RANDY MANUEL, ILLUSTRATOR AND Bill Barlee: campaign ad for MLA in successfully to enter federal politics for the FORMER PENTICTON MUSEUM DIRECTOR Boundary-Similkameen, 1988 Liberal Party in the Kootenay-Boundary- • Okanagan constituency in 2000. “If any recent B.C. politician deserves a As a self-described ‘moderate New “Basically he was a social democrat,” historical plaque, it would be him. Given Democrat’ and ‘an entrepreneur with a so- says Roberts. “He had quarrels with some how he knew, loved and chronicled so cial conscience,’ Barlee was able to draw aspects of the NDP and he had quarrels many places in this province, the hard votes away from other parties with his lo- with the Liberals. But mainly he always part would be deciding where to put it.” cal reputation as an author and as a popular wanted to help the little guy, people like VAUGHN PALMER, VANCOUVER SUN teacher of gold panning classes. farmers.” As B.C. Minister of Agriculture, Fisher- Barlee was always keenly interested in FORMER TRAIL HIGH SCHOOL ies and Food from 1991 to 1993, Barlee preserving historical mining sites at small teacher who became a pub- introduced the “Buy B.C.” campaign, re- communities such as Sandon, Hedley, lishing pioneer, Bill Barlee sulting in a Buy B.C. logo that appears on Beaverdale and Forks. was born in Grand Forks in food products from B.C. He also served as Bill Barlee in his ✍ home museum, 1971 A the provincial Minister of Small Business, TRIBUTES TO BILL BARLEE S CAREER AS A 1932 and partially raised in . ’ “My paternal grandfather went up north Tourism, Culture and Film in British Co- Roberts. “You can hear his voice in his writ- writer, historian and politician were numer- for the Klondike Gold Rush,” said Barlee, lumbia, 1993-1996 within the NDP govern- ing. But what always impressed me the most ous after he died in Victoria on June 14, “and my maternal grandfather owned a gen- ment of Mike Harcourt, during which was the way he checked his sources. He 2012. eral store in Cascade City, which is now a time he successfully advocated for the res- used to tell me there are hundreds of great “I first met Bill, as a wide eyed 12-year- ghost town. I guess that partly explains, toration of many historical provincial sites, stories out there, but 99% of them are b.s. old,” says Randy Manuel of Penticton. “In why I’ve been so interested in history.” including the Kettle Valley Railway. He wasn’t interested in just spinning yarns. 1959 he was my art and gym teacher, yet he Self-described as a descendant of Cana- Mainly known as N.L. Barlee as an au- He wanted to serve and preserve history.” still managed to hold us all in the palm of his dian pioneer writer Susanna Moodie thor and editor, he published under the name Barlee told Roberts his penchant for col- hand with tales of British Columbia's past. and a distant relative of Margaret Bill Barlee for his Canada West series. lecting stories arose at age six when he be- The most obnoxious student in any other Atwood, Barlee first entered the writing With Barlee always dressed in his “Ca- friended an old ex-miner in Rossland. Some class was held spellbound in Bill's room. game when he published 6,000 copies of nadian Tuxedo” consisting of a denim jacket, of Barlee’s extensive mining research collec- There were no 'bad kids' when Bill had con- Similkameen, Pictograph Country in 1963. Barlee was the lone interview guest for a tion is stored at UBC Rare Books and Spe- trol. After selling out his print run with the long-running B.C. history program for cial Collections. Samples of his valuable “Bill encouraged my drawing ability... help of his own roving sales trips (he loved Kelowna’s CHBC-TV called Gold Trails and collection of more than 15,000 Old West the subject matter, of course, was always to drive around the backroads with a trunk Ghost Towns, hosted by interviewer Mike artefacts, valued in the area of $1 million, historical, no bowls of fruit, but artefacts load of his books), Barlee produced local Roberts. It ran from 1986 to 1996, on have been shown on loan at the Museum of from Bill's western collection, thus tales history titles such as Gold Creeks and Ghost five different networks, and continues in re- Civilization and other museums. could be told while the techniques of artis- Towns, A Guide to Gold Panning and West runs on various channels. After he moved to Osoyoos from his tic style were learned. Kootenay: Ghost Town Country. “He was a wonderful writer,” says long-time base of Kelowna, Barlee tried un- “It was a pleasure to work with Bill in Authordom encouraged Barlee to leave the creation of the Kettle Valley Steam Rail- his teaching career and establish Canada way, The Mascot Mines at Hedley, and my West Magazine in 1976. In its first few Basil Stuart-Stubbs 1930-2012 favourite, the historic ships at Penticton, years, the magazine reputedly grew from a S.S. , Naramata, Okanagan (stern subscription base of 36 people to more than Basil Stuart-Stubbs, former univer- saloon section) and the CN #6 tug, all now 4000. Early issues of this quarterly publi- sity librarian at UBC, and director of the part of the Okanagan Inland Waters Marine cation about B.C. history are now collec- School of Library, Archival and Informa- Museum. tor’s items. The magazine was eventually tion Studies, died of pancreatic cancer in “I will always think of Bill Barlee, a nug- sold to publisher Garnet Basque. Vancouver on May 29, at age 82. The get, a treasure in the life and times of British Barlee was an intrepid collector of his- UBC flag was lowered in his honour. A Columbia.” torical artefacts related to B.C. and the Yu- pioneer of Public Lending Right, Stuart- Barlee was a catalyst for the growth of kon for much of his life. Private investors Stubbs helped create UBC Press and laid Sandhill Book Marketing of Kelowna, a suc- were once interested in a scheme to build a the foundation for the Association of Book cessful book distribution company for in- museum in Penticton to house Barlee’s col- Publishers of B.C. A new Basil Stuart - dependent authors such as himself, owned lection, during which time Barlee stored his Stubbs Prize for best scholarly book about and operated by Nancy Wise. prized artefacts in at least five different se- B.C. has been created in his honour. In lieu It was Barlee’s Canada West Magazine cret locations. of flowers or charity, he asked instead for that directly inspired Howard White to In a 1988 by-election, Bill Barlee was mourners to buy a Canadian book. For a produce his own regional publication, first elected as an NDP MLA in the tradi- thorough summary of his contributions to Raincoast Chronicles, giving rise to Har- tionally conservative riding of Boundary- literature, please visit abcbookworld.com. bour Publishing, one of the foremost pub- Similkameen. lishing houses of British Columbia.

33 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 WANTED Gently Used Books (CDs, DVDs, LPs too) for Friends of the VPL WHO’S Book Sale BRITISHCOLUMBIA Sorry NO textbooks or encyclopaedias Drop off until Oct. 17 at Dunbar, Oakridge, Renfrew Branches or Central (delivery bay off Hamilton M-F 10 - 4)

PLEASE BOX AND LABEL “FRIENDS” Info: 604 331.4049 WHO FRIENDS’ Book Sale Oct. 25 - 28 Central Proceeds from sale donated to Vancouver Public Library is for Acker

A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ENVIRON- mental Journalists, Maleea Acker de- Self-Publish.ca fied City Hall and her neighbours by transforming her Saanich backyard into a Garry oak savannah, as recalled in her memoir, Gardens Aflame: Garry Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast (New Star $19). The magnificent trees once flourished on southern Vancouver Island when the first Visit our website to find out all Hudson’s Bay employees arrived; Acker has Trina you need to know about tried to regenerate the vanished ecosystem Davies self-publishing of the Garry oaks which she claims were The Vancouver Desktop partially fostered by the Coast Salish peo- Publishing Centre ple, not only engendered by nature. 9781554200658 call for a free consultation PATTY OSBORNE, manager 4360 Raeburn Street North Vancouver, B.C. v7g 1k3 Ph 604-929-1725 www.self-publish.ca is for Davies helping self-publishers since 1986 SINGLE WOMEN FAR OUTNUMBERED SINGLE men in Berlin in the aftermath of World War Maleea II. Nonetheless timid, 30-year-old secretary Acker Subscribe Karin Maynard can hardly believe her good fortune when she is courted by handsome To receive the next 4 issues by mail, send a cheque for $25 Markus Richter. That’s the set-up for Trina Davies’ fifth play, The Romeo Initia- is for Barrett tive (Playwrights Canada $16.95). This Name ...... Cold War stage thriller examines the Stasi IT S HIGH TIME THERE IS A RETROSPECTIVE ...... ’ (East German secret police) program that look at the premiership of the man who sent handsome male spies to seduce West Apt/Box #...... gave North America the concept of the agri- German secretaries in order to gain ac- cultural land reserve—and so much more— Street...... cess to West German government intelli- during his three-year epoch in the early gence in the 1970s. 978-1-77091-053-9 ...... seventies. Veteran politicos Geoff Meggs, now a Vancouver city councilor, City...... and Rod Mickleburgh, a senior writer for The Globe and Mail, would appear to be Prov/Code...... is for Emma ideal candidates for the job of The Art of the Impossible: Dave Barrett and the NDP in Reply to: 3516 West 13th Ave. EMMA LEVEZ LAROCQUE’S A DREAM Power, 1972–1975 (Harbour $32.95). Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2S3 of Giants: The Story of the Sunshine 978-1-55017-579-0 Coast Trail (Ellbooks $26.50) features more than 150 colour images of the new 180-kilo- metre Sunshine Coast Trail. It also tells the is for Cambon story of a community of volunteers from the Powell River Parks and Wilderness So- THE FIRST FEMALE DOCTOR IN B.C.—DR. ciety who worked for 20 years to make a Mary McNeil—was registered to prac- trail that traverses a variety of landscapes, tice in 1893. Consequently that’s the year from coastal shoreline to mountain tops, and chosen by Eileen Nason Cambon to includes newly built shelters and cabins— commence her unprecedented anthology, or “huts”—for hut-to-hut hiking. Uppity Women We Are! 100-Year His- 978-0-9780654-4-7 tory of Medical Women of British Co- lumbia (1893-1993). The 536-page, large format book contains contributions and pro- files from, and about, more than 325 female physicians. Cambon requested biographi- cal information from more than 600 B.C. female doctors, resulting in some 160 re- sponses over a two-year period for her re- markable, self-published labour of love. We learn the first female neurologist in B.C. was Dr. Ludmila Zeldowicz who had been Emma Levez a doctor in the Warsaw ghetto. 978-0-9694983-1-5 Larocque c/o 4346 Locarno Crescent, Vancouver, BC V6R 1G3

34 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 is for Jaden

CONTINUING TO EXPLORE THE RELATION- ships OF adolescent sisters, Polynesian dancer and fitness instructor Denise Jaden has released her second YA novel, Never Enough (Simon & Schuster $11.99). Loann looks up to her all-too-perfect sister Claire—so much so that she even wants to date Claire’s ex-boyfriend; but Loann soon discovers that the appearance of perfection comes at an unhealthy cost. 9781442429079

is for Kale

KALE IS A VEGETABLE THAT CAN BE GROWN year-round throughout North America, help- ing families save hundreds of dollars a year on grocery bills. Sharon Hanna’s The Book of Kale: The Easy-to-Grow Superfood, 80+ Recipes (Harbour $26.95), is a garden-to-kitchen guide about growing this super-sustainable crop organically—as edible landscaping, on balconies and boul- evards, and even indoors. Known as a kale-evangelist, Hanna, of Vancouver, received the Mayor’s Prize for Environmental Excellence in 2006 for her inner-city children’s gardening program. Hanna contributes to GardenWise magazine and was West Coast correspondent for Gardening Life. 978-1-55017-576-9

B is for Barrett: Dave Barrett, circa 1972 is for Le Bel

Canadian Booksellers Association, pre- spent most of his funds exploring the PAULINE LE BEL OF BOWEN ISLAND IS AN sented at the 2012 Libris Awards in To- Amazon and surviving in rough locales, Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a singer ronto at which Patrick DeWitt’s drinking to excess. 978-1-92704-004-1 is for Farr with five CDs of original songs. She is The Sisters Brothers (Anansi) won the known for her portrayals of the “little spar- Libris Award for fiction. Eating Dirt also A DEVOTEE OF PIRATE RADIO, ROGER FARR row” and her interpretations won the BC National Award for Canadian Edith Piaf is a teacher at Capilano University whose of the music of Non-Fiction. Dirt 978-1-55365-977-8 is for Imperialism second book IKMQ (New Star $16) is an Jacques Brel. In experimental work of 64 passages that all 2001, she performed PREMIER OF B.C. FROM 1903 TO 1915, involve the “characters” of those four let- her one-woman Richard McBride was a devout Impe- ters. He previously show, The Way of the is for Hughes rialist but a dedicated British Columbian, as edited Open Text: Goddess: Songs outlined by Patricia Roy in her political Canadian Poetry Honouring the Di- IN NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE: A DRIFTER IN biography Boundless Optimism: Richard Pauline Le Bel and Poetics in the vine Feminine, at Van- the Americas (Book Thug $24), ex-bicycle McBride's British Columbia (UBC Press 21st Century, Vol. 2 couver’s Sacred Music Festival. She writes courier and Co-op Radio journalist John $95). While quarreling with Ottawa, he (Capilano University a blog integrating science, song, nature and Francis Hughes recounts a dangerous spurred economic growth and the expan- Editions $16) with spirit. Her new book is Science, Wisdom, Roger Farr education in “con-artistry, fear and kind- sion of railways. Born in New Westmin- poems by Shirley and the Future: Humanity's Quest for a ness” gained from his bike tour of Central ster, Roy is the leading academic authority Bear, Ken Belford, Ted Byrne, Angela Carr, Flourishing Earth (Collins Foundation and South America. Before hitchhiking on anti-Asian policies in B.C. This is her Steve Collis, Wayde Compton, Kim Duff, Press $22.95). 978-0978844172 Phinder Dulai, Emily Fedoruk, Reg back to Vancouver from Miami, Hughes ninth book. 978-0-7748-2388-3 Johanson, Christine Leclerc, Daphne Marlatt, Roy Miki, Jordan Scott, and Fred Wah. IKMQ 978-1-55420-064-1; Open 978-0-9810122-6-1 is for McIlwraith

THOMAS FORSYTH MCILWRAITH WAS A is for Gill young Canadian anthropologist who spent eleven months with the Nuxalk First Na- tion at Bella Coola between 1922 and 1924. CHARLOTTE GILL’S MEMOIR OF TREE- His two-volume ethnographic study called planting, Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big The Bella Coola Indians has been touted as Timber and Life with the Tree Planting the finest work of its kind about a North- Tribe (Greystone / west Coast First Nation. It was selected as Suzuki Foundation one of the one hundred most influential $29.95) has won both books published by University of Toronto the Hubert Evans Press in its 100-year history. McIlwraith Non-Fiction Prize was one of the few non-Natives who was and the Libris Non- No bicycle lanes on the Amazon: John Hughes imitates Huck Finn a couple of permitted to participate in winter Fiction Book of the days’ hike and part of a day’s sail from the Ecuadorian jungle village of Mishualli ceremonials and potlatches that were held Charlotte Gill Year Award from the on the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon. continued on page 37

35 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 PRINTERS & SERVICES

Nothing relaxes the mind like a great book.

PrJOUJOHgreat $BOBEJBOCPPLT

+PSHF3PDIBt#$.BJOMBOEt (FSIBSE"JDIFMCFSHFSt7BODPVWFS*TMBOEt

BOOK PRINTING Short-Run Hard/Soft Covers B&W Books Full Colour Books

911 FORT STREET, VICTORIA, BC V8V 3K3 GREEN-E Certified, Chlorine Free Paper TELEPHONE: 250.385.9786 FAX: 250.380.1622 BOOK MARKETING MATERIALS Postcards, Business Cards, TOLL FREE: 1.800.661.3332 Bookmarks, Invitations, Flyers, INFO@ PRINTORIUMBOOKWORKS.COM Catalogues, Sell Sheets, WWW.PRINTORIUMBOOKWORKS.COM Posters BC’S BOOK PRINTING EXPERTS – BUILDING TRUST IN CLIENT RELATIONS 100 YEARS ❖ 1912-2012

Printing quality books to meet your most difficult time line!

Houghton BostonHoughton Printers Boston Phone: (306)(306) 664-3458664-3458 709 43rd Street709 East,43rd Saskatoon,Street East SK S7K 0V7 Fax: (306)(306) 665-1027665-1027 Saskatoon, SK S7K 0V7 Email: [email protected]@houghtonboston.com

36 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA continued from page 35 tain George Vancouver amicably de- at the time. His letters have been collected flated the territorial dispute between Spain in At Home with the Bella Coola Indi- is for Ox and England for Pacific Northwest territo- ans: T.F. McIlwraith's Field Letters, ries. With a foreword by the current Chief 1922-4 (UBC Press $95) edited by John STEVEN PRICE’S SECOND VOLUME OF (Michael) Maquinna, the first Eng- Barker and Douglas Cole. Now al- poetry Omens in the Year of the Ox (Brick lish translation of the Spanish captain’s jour- most a century later Thomas Books $19) is according to the publisher nal is newly available as Voyage to the McIlwraith, who teaches in the “threaded with interjections from a Northwest Coast of America, 1792 Department of Sociology and An- Greek-style chorus of clever- (Arthur H. Clarke Co. / University of Okla- thropology at Douglas College, has minded, mischievous beings—half- homa Press $34.95), translated by the late published ‘We Are Still Didene’: ghost, half-muse—whose comment- Freeman M. Tovell with contributions Stories of Hunting and History aries tormentingly egg the writer by Robin Inglis and Iris H.W. from Northern British Colum- on.” Price addresses “the moral lack Engstrand. Includes reproductions of bia (UTP $50), in which he details in the human heart and the labour charts and illustrations by the scientists who Steven Price the history of the aboriginal village of living with such a heart.” Yet the accompanied the voyage. 978-0-87062-408-7 of Iskut over the past 100 years. He ex- Hopkins-like, sonorous beauty of the lan- plores how Iskut hunting culture and memo- guage reveals “grace and the idea of grace ries have been maintained orally. everywhere, in spite of what we do.” No original portrait of Juan is for Riddle We Are Still: 978-1-4426-4324-6; At Home With: 9780774809795 978-1-926829-76-0 Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra has survived. This memorial bust . at Quadra Park in Victoria, DOROTHY L. RIDDLE IS A CERTIFIED MAN- is for Phillips unveiled by King Juan Carlos in agement consultant, psychologist and eco- is for Naramata 1982, is a fanciful rendering. nomic development specialist, who has

RAY PHILLIPS, A DESCENDANT OF THE worked in more than 85 countries and taught CRAIG HENDERSON MOVED TO NARAMATA Klein family of the Kleindale area, on B.C.’s at graduate institutions in Canada, the in 1998 and was named Naramata Citizen Sunshine Coast—famous for its extreme U.S.A., Europe, and China. She serves on of the Year by the local OAP organization weather, llamas, and for the notorious Kleins is for Quadra the board of directors of the School for Eso- in 2010. He wrote and produced a Naramata who settled it—has won the British Co- teric Studies and as the director of the Serv- Centennial history play, co-produced the lumbia Genealogical Society Family History BORN IN LIMA, PERU, IN 1744, THE MAN COM- ice Growth Project. Her book, Principles 2007 video production Naramata: A Com- Book Award for The Little Green Valley monly referred to in Canada as Quadra— of Abundance for the Cosmic Citizen munity with Spirit and he has writ- (Harbour $24.95). Honourable men- but properly known throughout Spain, (AuthorHouse ten Naramata Chronicles (Vine tions went to Whoever Gives Us United States, Peru and Mexico as Captain $14.95), was a final- Vista Ventures Inc $20) containing Bread: the Story of the Italians in Juan Francisco de la Bodega y ist for the 2011 fifty stories drawn from the com- British Columbia (D&M) by Quadra—was the most highly-regarded Montaigne Medal munity that include answers to: Lynne Bowen and Texada Tap- of all the numerous Spanish captains who awarded to the most What really led to the unique name estry: A History (Harbour) by reached the Pacific Northwest coast prior thought-provoking of Naramata? Was it a séance, or Heather Harbord. to 1800. Hosted by Chief Maquinna at book published in Ray Phillips Dorothy Riddle clever marketing? 978-0-9696909-1-7 978-1-55017-483-0 Tahsis in 1792, Bodega y Quadra and Cap- 2010. 978-1449079253

A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD QUICKIES is an affordable advertising vehicle BC exclusively for writers, artists, publications & events. QUICKIES For info on how to be included: BOOKWORLD FOR INDEPENDENTS [email protected] www.gailboulanger.com www.gailboulanger.com www.emilymadill.com www.ekstasiseditions.com www.libroslibertad.ca Your ad here. Life Goes On George Seferis: Losing, letting go & living again Adventures Over Sixty Call Collected Poems by Gail Boulanger by Gail Boulanger The Captain Joe Series Nostos and Algos Translated by Manolis 604-736-4011 by Manolis How to gently and effectively Reflections on living and aging by Emily Madill A Nobel laureate and one of navigate your way through grief wholeheartedly; greeting each Life lessons for children. or email Poems that liberate and enchant Greece’s most important poets and loss. Distributed by Red new challenge as an adventure. the reader with images of days of the 20th century. 282 pages. SELF Tuque Books. SELF Distributed by Red Tuque Books. ISBN 978-0981257907•$11.95 each [email protected] past and days present. Coming out mid-October. HELP ISBN 978-0-9730802-1-6 • $22.95 HELP ISBN 978-0-9730802-3-0 • $22.95 KIDLIT Available from Amazon.ca POETRY ISBN 978-1-897430-81-1 • $22.95 POETRY ISBN 978-1-926763-23-1 • $25 www.salmovapress.com http://www.BrotherXII.com www.davidtracey.ca thelistenergraphicnovel.wordpress.com blackrosebooks.net The true story that www.eberhardtpress.org makes the powerful, including the CBC, nervous.

FINALIST for 2011 GRAPHIC NOVEL of the YEAR (Foreword Reviews)

Scratching the Who Killed Abraham The New Anarchism: Memories of Tiger’s Belly The Listener Lincoln by Paul Serup 1974-2008 Chekhov by Ron Sakolsky by David Lester Brother XII An investigation of North America’s by Robert Graham most famous ex-priest’s assertion Edited by Peter Sekirin A collection of hidden histories, “A dense and fiercely by John Oliphant that the Roman Catholic Church A history of libertarian ideas rebel poems, prickly rants, black intelligent work... all in a since the 1970s, with writing by Accounts of Anton Chekhov from The strange odyssey of a 20th-century was behind the assassination of his family, friends & contemporaries. humour, subversive stories, lyrical and stirring tone.” prophet & his quest for a new world. America’s greatest president. Murray Bookchin, Noam provocative parables and ideas. — Publishers Weekly (NY) BIO- Chomsky, Mark Leier BIO- ISBN 9780786458714 • $45 IDEAS GRAPHIC GRAPHY ISBN 978-0978097202 • $24.95 HISTORY ISBN 978-0-9811685-0-0 • $29.95 POLITICS ISBN 978-1-55164-336-6 • $28.99 GRAPHY Published by McFarland IN ACTION ISBN 111-0-00009-248-1 • $9.95 NOVEL ISBN 9781894037488 $19.95

37 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 39 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012 40 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2012