“So perhaps it’s not surprising that there is no chapter on the Pacific Province. Oh, there is plenty here on the ‘West,’ but in Globe geography the West stopped at the Rockies.” Ron Verzuh reviews A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada, by John Ibbitson [ed.] (Toronto: Penguin Random House [Signal], 2024) $34 / 9780771006289
“At first, I questioned the notion that we could rely on technology to solve the problems caused by technology. It seemed a slippery slope. But McDonald explores ways that using current technology could lead us out of the impending darkness.” Ron Verzuh reviews The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis with Today’s Technologies, by Bob McDonald (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2022) $23 / 9780735241961
A “wonderfully varied, worthwhile collection” that features 16 stories by new writers and literary heavyweights, BCS25 “is about as solid as short story collections get.”—Jessica Poon reviews Best Canadian Stories 2025, selected by Steven W. Beattie (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2024) $23.95 / 9781771966344
2024 donors to the British Columbia Review, a thank you from Richard Mackie.
“The poor will always be with us. Reverend Al’s book challenges each of us on how we are going to respond. Do we, in Sonia Furstenau’s memorable phrase, continue to ‘drive our Lamborghinis through the tent city on Pandora Avenue?’ We can do better.” Richard Butler reviews Muddy Water: Stories from the Street, by Al Tysick (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers [Resource Publications], 2024) $25 (USD) / 9798385215010
Bold art and great design work together to elevate an already exuberant, well-told tale about Katie Sandwina, a historical strongwoman. —Ginny Ratsoy reviews Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything, by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Jen White) (Naperville: Sourcebooks Kids, 2024) $28.00 / 9781728267814
“The enduring image provided by Manthorpe – one that bookends On Canadian Democracy – is the comparison of the state of Canada to that of the official home of its Prime Minister. The reader is brought to ponder the neglected crumbling façade of 24 Sussex, overgrown by weeds, infused with mould, and seemingly abandoned by its caretakers.” Matthew Downey reviews On Canadian Democracy by Jonathan Manthorpe (Toronto: Cormorant Press, 2024) $19.95 / 9781770867543
“In fewer than ninety pages, Dobie has produced an incredibly nuanced, eminently readable novel full of insights on being unhoused, a disappearing middle class, and the difficulties of romantic relationships, particularly when both parties have differing communication styles.” —Jessica Poon reviews The Tenants, by Pat Dobie (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2024) $18.00 / 9781772142297
“I felt, sometimes, as if I had agreed to listen to a storyteller and was met with impatience and anger, as if I, this white woman here reading, had disappointed him or frustrated him. I don’t even know if he would want my review of his memoir. Here it is, anyway.” Wendy Burton reviews Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir, by Danny Ramadan (Toronto: Penguin Canada [Viking], 2024) $26.95 / 9780735242210
“Her career has left marks on her stories of her life from beginning to (almost) end. Reading the memories in a collection, I hear her academic voice: wry, witty, reticent.” Wendy Burton reviews A Life in Pieces, by Jo-Ann Wallace (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771872560
“This tightly-written, 131-page extended essay contains 11 pages of references well-mined from film theory and queer theory in both English and German. Its three chapters cover the film’s production, including the melodrama between genre cinema and public health discourse…” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others) by Ervin Malakaj (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) $19.95 / 9780228018681
“Geselbracht, an environmental journalist and lawyer from Nanaimo who has written for Canadian Geographic and The Globe and Mail, has no time for climate denialism. Instead, he’s out to prove that climate action around the globe is making a difference; that there’s been progress in the effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and slow the planet’s warming.” Daniel Gawthrop reviews Climate Hope: Stories of Action in an Age of Global Crisis, by David Geselbracht (Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024) $24.95 / 9781771624268
“Whistler Hiking is divided into three main sections with, understandably so, the front stage given to a detailed, visual, and evocative approach to the shorter, medium, and longer treks in the Whistler area.” Ron Dart reviews Whistler Hiking by Marc Bourdon (Squamish: Quickdraw Publications, 2024) $34.95
“Wind sets out the many ways that Israeli institutions of higher education are enlisted in Israel’s settler-colonial project. Some are strategically situated to anchor Israeli territorial expansion, often standing literally on the sites of razed Palestinian villages.” Larry Hannant reviews Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, by Maya Wind (London: Verso, 2024) $39.95 / 9781804291740
“Throughout this book, the reader is taught that Yah’guudang (respect) should guide all aspects of daily living, and as the book progresses, we see more specifically how this practice should be carried out while one is out on the land for harvesting and when materials are being processed for basketry.” Sharon Fortney reviews From A Square to A Circle: Haida Basketry by Ilskyalas, Delores Churchill (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2024) $34.95 / 9781990776854
BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stuck with them. “Eclectic” is our word of the year.
“Probably my favorite chapter is ‘Adventures in Sexism: Media, Music and Mucking up the Boys’ Club,’ which begins, ‘It’s hard to pinpoint the first time I realized I mattered less to somebody because I was a girl.’ She then carries on beyond her own personal experience to pastiche media critiques of her main four female musicians, demonstrating the cruel extent to which they had to combat multiple forms of reductionism, from being compared to other women performers, to being dismissed as mere puppets of their Svengalis.” Catherine Owen reviews We Oughta Know: How Celine, Shania, Alanis and Sarah Ruled the ’90s and Changed Canadian Music by Andrea Warner (Toronto: ECW Press, 2024) $24.95 / 9781770417748
BCR asked some of our regular contributors about books they read in the past year that really stayed with them. “Eclectic” is our word of the year.
“Vahabzadeh, an urban Iranian until his emigration to the West Coast of Canada, where he teaches at the University of Victoria, is clear from the beginning. His perspective is scholarly and humane. He is sympathetic to the concept of universal human rights and the maintenance of particular cultures…” Linda Rogers reviews For Land and Culture: The Grassroots Council Movement of Turkmens in Iran, 1979-1980 by Peyman Vahabzadeh (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2024) $32 / 9781773636658
An “honourable and compassionate compendium of heartfelt statements from people who were willing to go to jail for their beliefs.” Sadly, it’s “over-long and at times tediously repetitive” too. —Ron Verzuh reviews Standing on High Ground: Civil Disobedience on Burnaby Mountain, edited by Rosemary Cornell, Adrienne Drobnies, and Tim Bray (Toronto: Between the Lines Books, 2024) $29.95 / 9781771136631