True tales of a Buddy Holly wannabe
In Dirty Windshields, Smugglers’ frontman Grant Lawrence delightfully chronicles Ambition, Good Times and Pre-Adult Denial through sixteen years of touring… FULL STORY
Smokeaters for hire, for fire
Aaron Williams’ Chasing Smoke: A Wildfire Memoir (Harbour $22.95) describes 16-hour, high-adrenaline days in apocalyptic fiery landscapes. Chasing Smoke. A… FULL STORY
SOG. Save our glaciers
An unprecedented array of full-colour photographs of some of western Canada’s most striking glaciers and icefield elicits awe. Our Vanishing… FULL STORY
Mindfulness in the woods
So begins John Gellard’s review of veteran outdoorsman Rob Wood’s memoir, At Home in Nature: A Life of Unknown Mountains… FULL STORY
Vancouver Folk Festival: a history
Jeannie Kamins has written and published a VFMF history with a memoir by Gary Cristall who says, “I guess I… FULL STORY
A hunk, a hunk of Robbie Burns love
None can match the fervour of adoration felt in B.C. for Robbie Burns–as Fred Braches recalls after his discovery of… FULL STORY
Emily Carr’s secretive friendships
Written nine years after Carr died, published in 1954, it describes an idealized friendship with twenty vignettes. Emily Carr As… FULL STORY
Al Neil (1924-2017)
“New York has William Burroughs, Los Angeles has Charles Bukowski and Vancouver has Al Neil,” — local author John Armstrong… FULL STORY
Chariandy bags $50,000 honour
David Chariandy’s acclaimed second novel, Brother, concerns two siblings growing up in Scarborough in the 1980s. The $50,000 Rogers Writers’… FULL STORY
Vancouver’s first forensic investigator
By the time Canada’s Sherlock Holmes retired in 1949, he had outlasted thirteen police chiefs and sixteen mayors. Blood, Sweat,… FULL STORY
Why the red poppies matter
“Why is there not more vocal outrage over such bellicose behaviour from deviants like Donald Trump?” asks Howard Stewart. By… FULL STORY
Nanaimo’s founding force
Jan Peterson’s new biography untangles the fascinating relationship between the humanitarian Mark Bate and his friend and arch-rival, the coal… FULL STORY
Take me to the river
A new history of ILWU Local 502 celebrates how unionists have “successfully navigated the restructuring forces of globalization.” Reviewer Sean… FULL STORY
Biodiversity & the boardroom
Biodiversity markets remain small. Destructive development continues apace. So we must image new partnerships. REVIEW: Enterprising Nature: Economics, Markets, and… FULL STORY
An academic dissects the energy sector
Jonathan Peyton’s Unbuilt Environments examines five, major industrial initiatives, proposed or enacted in Northwest B.C. REVIEW BY WADE DAVIS. REVIEW… FULL STORY
Margaret Ormsby–catalyst & mentor
Everyone agrees she was a memorable character, forging the way for female scholars after her first office in 1940 was… FULL STORY
Lock ’em up, lock ’em up, lock ’em up
The internment camps at Fernie and nearby Morrissey were dress rehearsals for the removal of Japanese Canadians from the B.C…. FULL STORY
Women & the wild essentials
Taylor notes, “Cascadia…has always been considered counterculture, liberated, transgressive, rebellious, transformative.” REVIEW: Beckoned by the Sea: Women at Work on… FULL STORY
Johnny Cash — the Nanaimo story
Julie Chadwick has revealed how the singer’s rise to fame was owed much to the guidance of his unheralded Canadian… FULL STORY
The Kane scrutiny
In Victoria between April and June of 1847, the Irish-Canadian artist painted in the traditional territory of the Songhees (Lekwungen)… FULL STORY
