Columbia Reviews

This is a sympathetic biography of the man responsible for Victoria (Vancouver Island's) magnificent architecture.

As a non Canadian I was drawn to this book as much out of interest about the man and his architecture as the love-hate relationship Canadians seem to have with him.

It is extensively researched and not only gives his background, but covers his life after his fame as Victoria's most famous architect.

It is easy to read and is in fact a great story.

Anyone who enjoys reading novels should not be put off by the fact that this is a biography! It has romance corruption and tragedy. This is all set at the time of the Klondike gold rush and is graphically described.

You need have no interest or knowledge in either architecture or history to enjoy this.

"CAP" Palmerston is just a regular 15-year-old guy totally absorbed in all the things you would expect during hot South Carolina summers in the early 50's - until his mother is offered a job in New Jersey. Then, CAP's southern roots call him to his "duty". He goes places and meets people he never dreamed he would. You'll want to know what CAP learns about himself - and others. Kevin O'Kelly has accurately depicted this era with great insight and emotion.

This book reads like a collection of short stories while relaying the often untold stories of well-known and unknown figures who helped shape the Northwest. As a native Oregonian, it was refreshing to read unfamiliar stories of people in familiar places. I was particularly struck by the stories of Woodie Guthrie, David Thompson and the well-to-do woman from the east who follows her new husband to the wilds of British Columbia. A great read for anyone interested in the people and development of the Northwest.

I checked out this book from the local library while researching Eloisa, Dr McLaughlin's daughter, for a character study. It has everything a reenactor or history enthusiast would want: several points of view on major historical events, and analyses as to which is more likely to be accurate. Many photos, both of the period and of the historical sites today. Great attention to geneological details, but not at all a dry read. There are chapters highlighting each member of the family, including inlaws. I was able to reconstruct what life at the Fort must have been like for the family, and the journal exerpts personized many famous people who we normally only know by name. I am a native northwestener, and thought I knew everything there was to know about the history of the Columbia. Maybe now I do.

This is must-read information for any tenant in the Province of Quebec. Your rights are in peril if you believe that the "system" will automatically work to protect you. Bennett's compilation of facts and anecdotes from advocacy workers in the Montreal rental market will open your eyes to what can happen when the law only works for the wealthy. Bennett's book shows how civil rights of tenants, especially poor tenants, are all too often irrelevant before the Montreal Rental Board, where the prime consideration appears to be catering to landlords by helping them evict tenants and up rents to increase the value of their business investments.
Access to justice, and the law, should not be about boosting anybody's business investment; it should be about mutual obligations in the rental contract.
On a note of personal interest, a subject not mentioned in Bennett's book and certainly worth writing a whole new book, is that the law in Quebec actually denies tenants the right to a private lock on their apartment doors! This results in home invasions, thefts, mail tampering, violence against tenants in the middle of the night by harasser-landlords and their building managers. This violence is particularly addressed toward women, who comprise the largest group of the poor and the biggest population living in low-income housing and slums.
As a woman and a tenant in Montreal, I can tell you the violence I have encountered:
(1) A month after I rented a nice new apartment in 1985, the building was sold to a developer who falsely reported to the City and Police that I was a prostitute, to elicit their harassment of me and force me to move out. The landlord assaulted me in front of witnesses, the courts let him off the hook by finding him guilty but burying the conviction so he could continue his job of driving a kindergarten bus. He came back and smashed my door in with his fist, splintering it from top to bottom while I was trying to move out on the advice of the Sergeant-Detective who had been shocked at the court's decision.
(2) In 1987, shortly after I moved into a nice new apartment and painted it, the janitor told other people in the building (falsely) that I was a prostitute, because I wouldn't sleep with him. I came home to find a 6-inch builder's nail driven through the glass eyehole of my door with a vicious note telling me, "Whore, get out of the building!" (3) In 1983, when I was living in a nice, respectable apartment and working days typing in a law firm, and evenings typing freelance from home, the janitor opened his door with nothing but his underpants on, a smile, and his hands full (!) when I came to pay the rent.
(4) In 1992 after I had sublet my humble nice new apartment to a good tenant who was shortly to move in, I came home from work at 2:00 a.m. (now owning and running a public typing service with a small office) and found my door broken in and the lock changed. I called police, showed them my lease that I carried in my purse, and they obliged the landlord to let me back in. Next morning, a statutory holiday, more police forced their way into my apartment accusing me of being a prostitute and urging me to abandon the premises: they parked a paddy wagon under my windows as a threat, with all the neighbours watching on the street. I filed a Police Ethics complaint, and for my efforts have spent the subsequent years being also harassed by Montreal Police. Meanwhile, my sublettee moved in and was a good tenant for two years.
Over the years, every apartment I have lived in has at some time been "invaded" by landlords and janitors with keys. I have found that men and women landlords both use the defamatory label of "prostitute" to slander a female tenant they want to get rid of to raise the rent; or, if they just have dirty minds and think you couldn't possibly be typing at home for a living with all that traffic and those young good looks. (I have now lost my young good looks.) I have worked for realty owners and know for a fact that some of them keep Polaroid cameras to secretly photograph your possessions to estimate their value in case they decide to evict. In the case of poor people, a candid color photo of your meagre possessions is often used secretly at the Rental Board to "show" the judges that 'obviusly, the apartment has been abandoned, there is nobody living there--' and the landlord then gets permission to put your belongings in the street.
Quebec has a Charter of Rights which states: "1. Every human being has a right to life, and to personal security, inviolability and freedom." And further states: "5. Every person has a right to respect for his private life" and "7. A person's home is inviolable." Unfortunately, it also has a Civil Code which states: "No lock or other device restricting access to a dwelling may be installed or changed without the consent of the lessor and the lessee." and is interpreted to mean that the landlord, his janitor, rental agent, building manager and any Tom Dick or Harry he hires, has a copy of your key.
This directly conflicts with the Quebec Charter of Rights which guarantees the fundamental right of "inviolability" of the home. If you buy a house, the bank does not oblige you to leave a copy of your key to secure your mortgage. Therefore, why should the class of TENANTS, who are lease owners, be treated any differently than home owners? We should not be kept as "livestock" by our landlords, who come and go at will, and whom we are supposed to believe are a superior breed of humans with 100% respect for your privacy and the law, when it is in their own best interests to deprive you of privacy and invade your home at will.

"The Shoe Monster" was written and illustrated by first and second grade students at North Shuswap Elementary School in Celista, British Columbia, and was received the "Kids are Authors Award."
This story is about a monster that lurks in the basement of Shuswap Elementary, and befriended Mrs. Bruneau (Mrs. "B") and has a nasty habit of stealing shoes from the students at night, but if you are lucky and ask Mrs. B nicely, maybe she can get the Shoe Monster to put your shoe back into the Lost & Found.
I personally received this book from my elementary school teacher in Kindergarten, and I have loved it ever since. If your son or daughter loves to read, write, and draw, then surely you can add this delightful story into his or her book collection!

The book is a must in the series of Willows and Parker. Worth the read and worth the money. The review featured by Publishers Weekly is accurate but I somehow doubt they bothered to read the book. Else they wouldn't have called Jack Willows Jack Williams. Tsk Tsk.

Seriously ignore the inaccurate name calling and get the book it's worth it

One of the most difficult of achievements for a novelist is to truly convey the essence of life in another time but Theresa Kishkan's portrayal of life in the frontier country of the Nicola Valley of British Columbia at the turn of the twentieth century rings absolutely true. And anyone who has ever visited the Nicola Valley will smell again the scent of the air, feel the heat on their skin and hear the bird songs, so evocative is her language. A wonderfully accomplished book.

Good mythtelling is poetry of the highest order, and it takes a poet to translate it. Robert Bringhurst's renderings of the verbal masterpieces of classical Haida storytellers are truly astounding, as it is his reconstruction of the facts surrounding their collection by American anthropologist John Swanton. As someone who works in the same field I must say that this book has been a great discovery for me. It is an example to follow, both in the style of the translations and in the wide range of the commentary.

This true-crime book is about 18 year-old Darren Huenemann, and his struggles to come to grips with reality. It explains his diabolical scheme to off his mother and his wealthy grandmother to get his inheritance early. It gives insight into Darren's thought pattern and his deepening interest in Albert Camus's brilliant play Caligula, and how he tries to emulate the tyrannical Roman Emperor in his day to day life. Darren's irresistable and manipulative personality lures in two outcasts, Derik Lord and David Muir, who Darren manipulates to commit the grizzly murders. The book gives extensive information on the backgrounds of Doris Leatherbarrow and Sharon Huenemann, the two victims. Overall "Such a Good Boy" is a thrilling and flawlessly written book and I highly recommend it and its movie counterpart, Scorn.