Once again, you can’t beat bookstores for one-stop Christmas or other gift shopping. They have something to please everyone, from toddlers to pre-teen manga fans, romance for lovers of all ages, cookbooks, puzzle books, to books with big print for the ocularly challenged – and no electricity or batteries required.
Some of the latest are aimed at lovers of all things B.C. from our own B.C. publishers:
Soul of Wilderness, by by John Baldwin and Linda Bily (Harbour Publishing): A wonderful armchair visit into B.C’s wild and frozen coastal mountain ranges, with full and double page striking photographs to illustrate the authors’ experiences.
Raincoast Chronicles No. 23 (Harbour Publishing, 40th anniversary edition): Just the thing for anyone fascinated by our unique West Coast. The stories are all here, on boats, fishing, float planes, local characters, nudists, logging, poetry, hunting, history, and even a few recipes.
A Field Guide to Seaweeds of the Pacific Northwest, by Bridgette Clarkston; A Field Guide to Common Fishes of the Pacific Northwest, by Andy Lamb, Bernard P. Hanby, Phil Edgell, A Field Guide to Foraging for Wild Greens and Flowers, by Michelle Nelson (Harbour Publishing): Wonderful, easily portable slim guides (just under five by nine inches, and less than one-quarter inch thick) unfold to reveal clear, bright colour photos of each species, with short descriptions and where they can be found. Excellent gifts for any weekend or summer hikers, young or old.
Light Years – Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper, by Caroline Woodward (Harbour Publishing): Writer, publisher’s sales rep and teacher, Woodward describes the life she found perfectly suited for a writer, being a lighthouse keeper on B.C.’s turbulent West Coast. Dispelling the belief that all our lighthouses have been closed, Woodward describes the history, location and work on each station, in a fascinating personal memoir.
The Royal Fjord – Memories of Jervis Inlet, by Ray Phillips (Harbour Publishing): An interesting series of short stories and memories, of the early days on the longest inlet on our coast, mingling tales on sea and land of First Nations, settlers, loggers. With archival photographs.
Tide Rips and Back Eddies – Bill Proctor’s Tales of Blackfish Sound, by Bill Proctor and Yvonne Maximchuk (Harbour Publishing): An eclectic and entertaining collection of history, memories, fishing experiences, local characters, boat and house building, logging techniques, with diagrams and photos to illustrate.
Watershed Moments – A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District, by Christine Dickinson, Deborah Griffiths, Judy Hagen and Catherine Siba. (Harbour Publishing): Whether or not you grew up in Courtenay or on Vancouver Island, anyone will be fascinated with this collection of beautiful and illuminating photographs of characters, places and daily life there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Or you can venture on to a variety of entertainment and worthwhile reading on just about anything.
The Horrors – An A to Z of Funny Thoughts on Awful Things, by Charles Demers, (Douglas & McIntyre): Demers, a Burnaby Central graduate, stand-up comic and regular on CBC’s Debaters, uses the alphabet framework to comment on a lot of serious topics. Sometimes autobiographical, always in a wryly humorous, often hilarious manner, that still makes his points.
Paint the Town Black, by Arthur Black (Harbour Publishing): Humourist Black, three-time winner of the Stephen Leacock award, brings us just the book to keep by a bedside for a few pleasant minutes of joining Black in looking at life’s foibles, his and the worlds - none of them longer than three pages.
All-Day Breakfast, by Adam Schroeder (Douglas & McIntyre): What happens when an accident touring a plastics plant eventually turns teacher and students into zombies? Schroeder takes the reader on a wild ride through dysfunctional families, searching for his children, while his hero tries to keep his body parts from falling off.
Craft Beer Revolution – The Insider’s Guide to B.C. Breweries, second edition, by Joe Wiebe (Douglas & McIntyre): For the beer aficionado with a discerning palate, this second edition has 40 new breweries, with reviews and info, and all the new and weird beer names you will ever see, including Filthy Dirty. Does not come with complimentary six-pack.
Of Myths & Sticks, by Kevin Gibson (Douglas & McIntyre): A whole book of stories and statistics about hockey games and heroes that no hockey fan, young or old, will be able to resist. Illustrated.
Bearskin Diary, by Carol Daniels (Nightwood Editions): The heroine Sandy is an aboriginal woman who has survived being taken from her mother, raised by foster parents, lived through the racist times in the schools and workplaces of the previous decades. She’s educated herself, emerging as a strong voice for those women of the past and towards a more hopeful future.
O Canada Crosswords, Book 16 – by Gwen Sjogren (Nightwood Editions): Once again, page after page of puzzling and often amusing crosswords, on Canadian themes.
Happy Hens & Fresh Eggs – Keeping Chickens in the Kitchen Garden – with 100 Recipes, by Signe Langford (Douglas & McIntyre): For hopeful chicken farmers, everything you need to know, with extra interesting facts about the birds, and every recipe that you would like for their eggs. Bright, with colourful photography, easy to read and pleasant to peruse.
Two new books coincide with commemoration of the invasion of Sicily by the Canadians in the Second World War:
Through Blood and Sweat - A Remembrance Trek Across Sicily’s World War II Battlegrounds, by Mark Zuehlke (Douglas & McIntyre): Trying to remind us of the desperate, hard-won battles in Sicily, overshadowed by D-Day memoirs, the author’s group follows the path of the forces, recounting each battle and victory.
My Father’s Son, by Farley Mowat (Douglas & McIntyre): Farley Mowat’s story of his 1940s wartime army experiences in Sicily, told through his chatty and revealing letters to and from his family. Appropriately re-released on the anniversary of the Sicilian invasion.
There’s still more: for history buffs, poetry and art aficionados:
Historical Atlas of Canada (Revised Edition) - Canada’s History Illustrated with Original Maps, by Derek Hayes (Douglas & McIntyre): A wonderful gift for anyone fascinated by old maps and Canadian history. The large format makes the old writing on the maps easier to read. Each map has its own story of its maker and reason for existence, part of our history.
White Eskimo - Knud Rasmussen’s Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Artic, by Stephen R. Bown (Douglas & McIntyre): An inveterate traveler and explorer, Rasmussen also was fascinated by the lives and customs of the people he met in the north, especially the Laplanders (Sami). An opportunistic charmer, he chronicled not just the geography, but the lives, customs and oral history of the indigenous people wherever he travelled, and the story of his life is one long adventure.
Shore to Shore – The art of Ts’uts’umutl Luke Marston, by Suzanne Fournier (Harbour Publishing): The title is that of the first Coast Salish sculpture in Stanley Park, the work of Marston, an established carver and artist. This is now part of the growing interest in this area of BC indigenous art, and its early history Beautiful colour photographs of both the artist’s work and the environment from which they evolved.
Marry & Burn, by Rachel Rose (Harbour Publishing): Rose’s poetry is not for the faint-hearted, with its raw imagery of desire as addiction, and addiction as destroyer, but at the same time enforcing the human need for caring.
The Shadows We Mistake For Love, by Tom Wayman (Douglas & McIntyre): Wayman’s stories set in B.C.’s Interior range from the mystical to the earthy, haunting tales of people and emotions brought to life with vivid detail..
Made In British Columbia – Eight Ways of Making Culture, by Maria Tippett (Harbour Publishing): Our architecture, forests, literature, art, and theatre, are represented by eight B.C. characters, from the earliest days to the present. In entertaining and informative prose, the author describes their lives, their achievements and their contributions this B.C.
Me Artsy – Edited by Drew Hayden Taylor (Douglas & McIntyre): Fourteen indigenous artists, in every area of art - dance, theatre, music, comedy, storytelling, novelists, two- and three-dimensional art - tell of what they do, how they’ve come to where they are now, and why they do it.
