“Darrel J. McLeod (left) is among the authors shortlisted for a BC & Yukon Book Prize this year. Read details on all the shortlisted authors here.” FULL STORY
1. Whitewater Cooks With Passion Shelley Adams 9780981142425 Alicon Holdings
Another fabulous book in the Whitewater Cooks series! Full of all new recipes, this one focuses on fresh, healthy recipes and includes many innovative dishes that will inspire a passion for food and these amazing cookbooks!
Commodore manager Drew Burns
2. Live at the Commodore: The Story of Vancouver’s Historic Commodore Ballroom Aaron Chapman 9781551525662 Arsenal Pulp Press
Aaron Chapman (author of Liquor, Lust, and the Law, a bestselling history of Vancouver’s Penthouse Nightclub) delves into the Commodore’s archives to reveal stories about the constellation of characters surrounding the club over the last 80-plus years, as well as startling, funny, and outrageous anecdotes about the legendary acts that have graced its stage. Filled with never-before-published photographs, posters, and paraphernalia, Live at the Commodore is a visceral portrait of one of the world’s great rock venues.
Ian McAllister
3. Great Bear Wild: Dispatches from a Northern Rainforest Ian McAllister 9781771640459 Greystone Books
Ian McAllister, conservationist, photographer, and longtime Great Bear Rainforest resident, takes us on a deeply personal journey from the headwaters of the region’s unexplored river valleys down to the hidden depths of the offshore world. Globally renowned for its astonishing biodiversity, the Great Bear Rainforest is also one of the most endangered landscapes on the planet, where First Nations people fight for their way of life as massive energy projects threaten entire ecosystems. This stunning collection of photographs and personal narrative is the product of twenty-five years of McAllister’s research, exploration, and campaigning for the spectacular area he calls home.
4. Cardboard Ocean: A Memoir Mike McCardell 9781550176643 Harbour Publishing
Bestselling author and TV personality Mike McCardell, known for his humorous and touching portraits of ordinary BC lives, turns a new page and crafts a bittersweet memoir of his own hardscrabble childhood in New York City. Written with all the warmth and ironic humour his fans have come to know and love, Cardboard Ocean is an affectionate evocation of a childhood in a rough setting, but with the thrills, chills and loves that will be familiar to anyone who was ever young. McCardell’s unmistakable voice, unflagging humour and knack for finding magic in everyday life will thoroughly satisfy his devoted fans and charm those discovering him for the first time. In terms of sustained storytelling, Cardboard Ocean may be his best book yet.
5. Who We Are: Reflections on My Life and Canada Elizabeth May 9781771640312 Greystone Books
In this marriage of memoir and manifesto, Elizabeth May reflects on her extraordinary life and the people and experiences that have formed her and informed her beliefs. The book traces her development from daughter of activist parents, to waitress and cook on Cape Breton Island, to law student, lawyer, and environmentalist, and finally to leader of the Green Party and first elected Canadian Green Member of Parliament. As a result of these disparate formative experiences, May believes that Canadians must rescue our threatened democracy, return to our traditional role as a world leader, develop a sustainable economy, and take immediate and decisive action to address the climate crisis. Who We Are is both a fascinating portrait of a remarkable woman and an urgent call to action.
6. The Dirty Apron Cookbook: Recipes, Tips and Tricks for Creating Delicious, Foolproof Dishes David Robertson 9781927958179 Figure 1 Publishing
Unleash your inner chef with this collection of the best tried-and-true recipes from Vancouver’s acclaimed Dirty Apron Cooking School. Featuring more than 80 of the school’s time-tested signature dishes—from quick-and-easy starters to seasonal soups, sandwiches and entrées—this cookbook will become your go-to volume for delicious everyday meals and foolproof dinner party dishes. Lavishly illustrated with full page food photos and instructional sequences, loaded with chef’s notes and tricks of the trade and written with the home cook in mind, The Dirty Apron Cookbook is like your own private cooking class—a reference you can turn to again and again.
7. The Sea Among Us: The Amazing Strait of Georgia Edited by Richard Beamish and Gordon McFarlane 9781550176834 Harbour Publishing
Informative, descriptive, cautionary and entertaining, The Sea Among Us is the first book to present a comprehensive study of the Strait of Georgia in all its aspects with chapters on geology, First Nations, history, oceanography, fish, birds, mammals. invertebrates and plants. Covering everything from tsunami modelling to First Nations history to barnacle reproduction, the book is a sweeping overview of the waterway and serves as an essential BC reference text.
Robert Budd
8. Echoes of British Columbia: Voices from the Frontier Robert Budd 9781550176780 Harbour Publishing
In a follow-up to his well-received Voices of British Columbia, Robert Budd returns with more captivating tales of the province’s pioneering past in the very words of the people who lived them. Between 1959 and 1966, the late CBC Radio Journalist Imbert Orchard travelled across British Columbia with recording engineer Ian Stephen, conducting interviews with some of the province’s most remarkable and inspiring pioneers. The resulting collection contained 998 conversations totalling 2,700 hours of material—one of the largest oral history collections in the world and a precious treasury of Western heritage. In Echoes of British Columbia, author Budd skillfully renders some of the most entertaining and astonishing accounts from the Orchard collection into entrancing prose. Combining text, archival photographs and original sound recordings on three CDs, this collection brings the reader (and listener) in intimate contact with British Columbia’s past, deepening our understanding of the characters and events that shaped the province.
9. That Went By Fast: My First Hundred Years Frank White 9781550176881 Harbour Publishing
Ex-logger and gas station owner Frank White says living to the age of one hundred is not all it’s cracked up to be but it has some plusses. When he trundles down to the local shopping centre in Pender Harbour pretty girls hug him and everybody in town seems to be glad he’s lived another day. In this second memoir in two years, centenarian White sifts through his lengthy adventures trying to live up to those expectations of wisdom before deciding “Life just is.”
10. From the West Coast to the Western Front Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson 9781550176667 Harbour Publishing
It has often been observed that the First World War jolted Canada into nationhood, and as Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson show in this compelling book, no province participated more eagerly in that transformation or felt the aftershock more harshly than British Columbia. In From the West Coast to the Western Front, Forsythe, host of CBC Radio’s mid-day show BC Almanac, marks the 100th anniversary of World War I by teaming with historian Greg Dickson and the ever resourceful BC Almanac audience to compile a sweeping portrayal of that crucial chapter of BC history. This volume tells of submarine smuggling, bagpipes lost on the battlefield and of the ongoing struggles by soldiers who made it home. It tells of battles that set records for mass death amid conditions of unequalled squalor, but also of the heroism of front-line nurses and soldiers like George Maclean, a First Nations man from the Okanagan, who won the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
11. Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever Bruce Dowbiggin 9781771641319 Greystone Books
An incendiary inside look at the Canuck’s meteoric rise to the top of the NHL and their dramatic post-riot fall to mediocrity—all at a time when new efforts are being launched to save the once great team.
12. And the River Still Sings: A Wilderness Dweller’s Journey Chris Czajkowski 978927575505 Caitlin Press
Chris Czajkowski was born and raised at the edge of a large village in England, until she abandoned the company of others to roam the countryside in search of the natural world. As a young adult she studied dairy farming and travelled to Uganda to teach at a farm school. Returning to England she found nothing to hold her interest, so in 1971 she hitchhiked around the world spending as little time as possible in cities. Her travels took her to remote areas, where she learned mountain skills and discovered the wonderful joy of solitude. Arriving in Canada in 1979, Chris travelled to the West Chilcotin and built a cabin deep in the woods of British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. A few years later she built her second cabin beside an untouched and remote high-altitude lake. She called her new home Nuk Tessli and lived there for twenty-three years, turning her paradise into a thriving wilderness resort and guiding business.
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