YOURBC FREE GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS BOOKWORLD VOL. 34 • NO. 1 • Spring 2020 WILLIAM GIBSON His novel, Agency, is an intriguing new take on the time-travel plot. Events in history can be altered and characters a century apart can converse. michael o’shea photo Review page 7 #40010086 publication mail agreement CHARLES DEMERS EMMA HANSEN E&N RAILWAY LOUISE AALL Comedian launches a The anguish of Historic hotels of Trailblazing doctor detective series. 23 a stillbirth. 13 Vancouver Island. 20 alone in Africa. 15 A li lɅ Ʌ ɅɅɅ. By ɑ ɑɑɅɑ ɅɅɃlɅ ɑ siǹ Ʌɑǹ JɃh ȀɑɅȀȀ 9781459821842 HC $19.95 “Rarely has severe weather been so sweetly packaged as in this story of Nate, a little cloud that becomes a hurricane.” —Booklist Bos aut sharing our environment Flippable Format! 9781459821002 HC $19.95 9781459822320 HC $19.95 “The text is informative and manages to treat “Truly a book for today and weighty issues seriously without being too scary.” our changing future.” —Booklist —Kirkus Reviews 2 BC BOOKWORLD • SPRING 2020 Buddha & BC TOP PEOPLE the Cave eople of a certain age may remem- SELLERS Point ber the Cave, P Isy’s, Oil Can Daniel Fox Harry’s, the Smi- Feel The Wild well taken lin’ Buddha, Gary Taylor’s Rock (Rocky Mountain Books $40) Room, the Luv-A-Fair and Rich- n 1981, when Robert Watt ards on Richards—the latter Charles Ulrich often referred to as “Dicks on was director of the Van- The Big Note: A Guide Dicks.” These long-gone night- to the Recordings of couver Centennial Mu- life venues linger in memories, Frank Zappa (New Star $45) I seum (now the Vancouver old newspaper clippings, and Angela Crocker Museum), he was looking now Aaron Chapman’s Van- Digital Life Skills for Youth: for a traditional Coast Salish spindle couver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Night Life A Guide for Parents, whorl with salmon and bear imagery Guardians, and Educators t (Arsenal Pulp $32.95), which but couldn’t find one. He asked a Mus- (Self-Counsel Press $21.95) looks back at Vancouver’s no- queam elder, Della Kew, who worked torious hot spots and begs the Jesse Donaldson as a docent at the museum, if she knew question, are the best days of Land of Destiny: Vancouver’s nightlife behind anyone who could help him. “I have a A History of Vancouver us? “It would be ridiculous to niece who draws,” she told Watt. This Real Estate say that all the great Vancou- (Anvil Press $20) was his introduction to Susan Point, ver nightclubs are gone,” he PHOTO not at all well-known at the time. says in the book’s conclusion. Now, Susan Point’s work is in demand “But there’s still a sense that MATHESON we’ve lost a vital part of the around the world and Watt’s book about TIM city’s nightlife that shouldn’t Point and her art, People Among the Susan Point (right), with Vancouver poet laureate Christie have disappeared so easily.” People: The Public Art of Susan Point Charles, reacts to People Among the People by Robert D. 9781551527833 (Figure 1/UBC Museum of Anthropol- Watt winning the 2019 City of Vancouver Book Award. ogy $50) has won the City of Vancouver Book Award. It tells the stories behind each piece of Point’s public art, ranging from her cast iron manhole covers in Vancouver, to cast bronze faces Julie Van Rosendaal in Whistler, to massive carved cedar portals in Stanley Park, Julie Van Rosendaal to moulded polymer murals in Dirty Food: Sticky, saucy, gooey, crumbly, Seattle. 9781773270425 messy, shareable food (Sandhill Book Marketing $19.95) MUSEUM When ART Meredith Leigh The Ethical Meat Gary Karlsen Handbook: revised and VANCOUVER updated second edition ran away to sea (New Society $39.99) WEST / resh out of high Christina Myers, ed. PHOTO school in 1965, t BIG: Stories about Life Gary Karlsen was PULLAN in Plus-Sized Bodies Ritz Hotel, Lounge, 1956, where the (Caitlin Press $24.95) expected to go to F Torch, Diamond Jim’s and Club university. He had SELWYN Mark Leiren-Young other ideas. Growing up in Zanzibar were all at one time located. Orcas Everywhere: Vancouver’s West End, he had frequently The History and Mystery of gazed at the deep-sea freighters in English tical miles of it, into little over a year,” says Killer Whales (Orca $24.95) Bay and wondered, “What would it be like to Roger Elmes, a retired officer of the Royal Jody Wilson-Raybould be on one? Where did they come from? Where Canadian Navy in the book’s foreword. Even- were they going?” he writes in No Ordinary tually, Karlsen returned to Vancouver, got a From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Seaman: A Memoir (Self-published $22.95). couple of university degrees and remained a Nations for a Stronger With a little ‘truth-stretching’ he managed to landlubber. As for the Havkatt and Polycastle, Canada (UBC Press $24.95) sweet talk his way on board the M/S Havkatt both continued as working ships, although to work as a deckhand. The journey took the sold off several times and renamed until being Bill Richardson 17 year-old to Tokyo, back to Vancouver for a too old to be profitable. Then, they were sold I Saw Three Ships: few days, then off again through the Panama to scrapyards to be broken up. “Kind of sad,” West End Stories Canal to New York City where he disembarked writes Karlsen. “These ships took us safely (Talonbooks $16.95) the following December. Shortly after, Karlsen between ports, and they thrummed with hu- Roy Henry Vickers took a passenger ship to Norway, his father’s man energy, my own included. I was fortunate ancestral home. But by August 1966, he had to have sailed on them.” 978-1-7752669-0-7 & Robert Budd signed a six-month contract to work aboard a Sockeye Silver, new tanker, M/T Polycastle. His book, “com- Deckhand Karlsen on the Havkatt, 1965. Saltchuck Blue (Harbour $9.95) presses a lot of LIFE—more than 38,000 nau- t Richard Wagamese One Drum: Stories and Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Annual subscription: $25 Ceremonies for a Planet Return undeliverable Canadian (D&M $18.95) BC addresses to: BC BookWorld, 926 West Indigenous Editor: Latash-Maurice Nahanee BOOKWORLD 15th Ave., Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Contributing Editors: John Moore, Heidi Greco, Geoff Mynett Mark Forsythe, Caroline Woodward, Valerie We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive Produced with the sponsorship of Green, Cherie Thiessen, Sage Birchwater. assistance of Canada Council, a continu- Service on the Skeena: Spring 2020 Pacific BookWorld News Society. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. ous partner since 1988, and creativeBC, a Horace Wrinch, Volume 34 • Number 1 Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. provincial partner since 2014. Frontier Physician BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics (Ronsdale Press $21.95) Publisher: Beverly Cramp Advertising & editorial: Consultants: Christine Rondeau, The current topselling titles from BC BookWorld, 926 West 15th Ave., Sharon Jackson, Kenneth Li major BC publishing companies, Editor/Production: Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1R9 Photographer: Laura Sawchuk In-Kind Supporters: in no particular order. David Lester Tel: 604-736-4011 Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Simon Fraser University Library; [email protected] Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix Vancouver Public Library; UBC Library. 3 BC BOOKWORLD • SPRING 2020 PEOPLE Learning to love differences he pressure to fit in at school can be excruciating for chil- dren. In Gina McMurchy- T Barber’s The Jigsaw Puz- zle King (Dundurn $12.99) eleven-year-old Warren not only has to navigate a new school, his twin brother Bennie has Down syndrome and at- tracts a lot of attention. Warren notices the mean looks and comments although Bennie doesn’t seem to care. How Warren learns to love his brother exactly as he is and stop worrying what other people think is the crux of McMurchy-Barber’s latest story. The subject of children with de- t velopmental disor- Jimmie Peever (in goaltender pads) the one-armed, elite athlete, 1926 ders is not new for McMurchy-Barber, who was raised by t loving parents with The Kootenays’ one-armed goalie an older sister who Gina McMurchy-Barber had Down syn- here’s a well-known story in Cran- ally requires use of both arms. Yet, somehow these feats drome. She previously crafted Free as brook about elephants escaping disappeared into the mist of time as all records of Peever a Bird (Dundurn, 2010), a first-person memoir by fictional character, Ruby from a circus in 1926, and fleeing end in 1928. Now Cranbrook author, Keith Powell rem- Jean Sharp, who “growed up in Wood- into the nearby woods. Eventu- edies this mystery with his new historical novel, In the loods” with Down syndrome after her mother had taken her there one day — ally rounded up and put back Shadow of Elephants: The Life and Times of Jimmie and never came back. The novel, which to work, one of the elephants Peever: One armed goalie and baseball player and was nominated for a Governor General’s T continues to inspire news stories for a herd of unruly elephants (Wild Horse Creek Press Award in children’s literature, ends with a summary of the history of Woodlands, years afterwards and the episode enters town folklore. Not $21.95). Mixing fact and fiction, Powell lets his central a facility in New Westminster for children so well-known, was the one-armed hockey goalie from character reveal historical events in the Kootenays, from with developmental disorders that closed nearby Kimberly, Jimmie Peever, who helped his team the super-secretive P-9 heavy-water project in Trail to the in 1996.