When the world outside gets colder, our best advice is to make the world inside much warmer. Depending on where you are in British Columbia, the Autumn season can mean snow, rain, or a frigid clear sky. Fortunately, we have books to keep us company as the temperature continues to drop. Even better, we have three book recommendations from bookstores in Whistler, Terrace, and Vancouver, as well as an additional three options to consider. Should these six reads not be enough, check out Reading Recommendations from 3 Vancouver Island Bookstores. Enjoy!
Armchair Books (Whistler) Recommends Freshly Picked
Whistler, BC may be a tourism hot spot, but make no mistake! Armchair Books in Whistler Village caters to local readers as well as passers-through. Dan Reid from Armchair is keen to support BC books and the local authors who write them. This is why he recommends Freshly Picked: A Locavore’s Love Affair with BC’s Bounty by Jane Reid, published by Caitlin Press. He says,
Jane Reid is a long-time advocate for buying local, especially local produce. Woven together with histories and amusing stories on fruits and vegetables, Jane gives us the low down on where and when to take advantage of locally grown produce in BC.
Jane Reid is also a frequent contributor to Edible Vancouver & Wine Country magazine. Look for this title at Armchair Books and other independent bookstores.
Misty River Books (Terrace) Recommends The Promise
The driving distance between Whistler and Terrace is 1,201 kilometers — and yet the power of a good book recommendation can connect them in this article. Misty River Books is another champion of reading local. Fortunately, good BC literature is not hard to find. Bookseller Cheryl recommends The Promise: Love, Loyalty & the Lure of Gold by Bill Gallaher, published by Touchwood Editions:
I only encountered The Promise this year, but it is the most amazing tale of the 1862 gold rush era in Barkerville. I will never drive the Fraser canyon again quite the same after reading how Robert Stevenson and company navigated it. It also shows the smallpox epidemic starting, and how it ravaged Indigenous Peoples as they succumbed to that awful disease… and Roberts’ side, though he thought he was healthy so didn’t need the vaccination. I grew up next to Stevenson Road in Sardis and never knew the history of the family that gave it that name.
Bill Gallaher is an accomplished singer-songwriter in addition to writing many other books of historical fiction. If you’re the type of reader who likes to discover a hidden gem of an author with a wealth of titles to read, pick up a copy of The Promise.
UBC Bookstore (Vancouver) Recommends Hustling Verse
Vancouver is a city teaming with literary talent and bookstores that champion BC books. While locals may be familiar with stores on Main, Broadway, or Pender streets, we recommend making a trip to the University of British Columbia where Dina del Bucchia (herself a BC author) and other staff showcase much more than textbooks and academic work. Shelves of BC history, poetry, and more are readily available and lovingly curated. From the UBC Bookstore, Dina recommends Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry edited by Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme, published by Arsenal Pulp Press:
Fall poetry can be even more thrilling than spring poetry because as the days get darker and colder we need those words to keep us company and sustain us. And all poetry lovers need to get a copy of the brilliant Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry. Featuring outstanding poems by local talents you should be reading, like Cassandra Blanchard, jaye simpson, and Mercedes Eng, and edited by the incomparable duo of Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme, this impressive array of poems hold beauty, wit, and truth. Every poem here is essential, illuminating, and really freaking great.
Justin Ducharme is filmmaker, writer, dancer, and curator from the small Métis community of St. Ambroise on Treaty 1 Territory. Amber Dawn is a writer and creative facilitator, whose books include Sub Rosa, winner of a Lambda Literary Award, and How Poetry Saved My Life, winner of the Vancouver Book Award.
If you liked these books, you may also like…
Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food edited by Rachel Rose (Anvil Press)
(from the publisher) Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food brings to the table some of Canada’s best contemporary writers, celebrating all that is unique about Vancouver’s literary and culinary scene. Punctuated by beautiful local food photographs, interviews with and recipes from some of our top local chefs, each of these short pieces will shock, comfort, praise, entice, or invite reconciliation, all while illuminating our living history through the lens of food. Sustenance is also a community response to the needs of new arrivals or low-income families in our city. The contributors have donated their honoraria to the BC Farmers Market Nutrition Coupon Program. A portion of sales from every book will go towards providing a refugee or low-income family with fresh, locally grown produce, and at the same time will support B.C. farmers, fishers, and gardeners.
River of Gold: A Novel by Susan Dobbie (Ronsdale Press)
(from the publisher) In this sequel to the best-selling novel When Eagles Call, two Hawaiian labourers — Kimo Kanui and his friend Moku — end their contract with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Fort Langley and trek north to join the great Cariboo gold rush of the early 1860s. Along with a black man from the Carolinas and a native Sto:lo woman won and freed in a card game, they face dangers and challenges along the trail as winter sets in. It is a story of the Cariboo, that great leveller, where a person’s mettle counted more than purse or pedigree, where strong men and women from all corners of the globe came together to forge a new and different society for British Columbians.
Inside Killjoy’s Kastle: Dykey Ghosts, Feminist Monsters, and Other Lesbian Hauntings edited by Allyson Mitchell and Cait McKinney (UBC Press)
(from the publisher) Lesbian feminist histories can have a haunting effect on the present. This book explores the making and experience of Killjoy’s Kastle, an immersive walk-through installation and performance artwork (by Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue). Inspired by Evangelical Christian hell houses of the past, the exhibition has been staged in three cities so far – Toronto, London, and Los Angeles – engaging thousands in interactive encounters with the spirits that haunt feminist and queer history.