Straight from the V.I.A. library (my office!), here are 7 new books written by local authors and/or released by local publishers which you might want to consider buying a loved one this holiday season.
FOR YOUR MOM/AUNT/ANYONE OVER 45:
1. Come Fly With Me - Michael Bublé's Rise to Stardom, a Memoir
By Beverly Delich with Shelley Fralic, published by Douglas & McIntyre
"In 1993, when Beverly Delich first crossed paths with a talented-but unknown eighteen-year-old singer named Michael Bublé in a Vancouver talent contest, little did she know they would soon embark on an unlikely and exhilarating adventure. Delich was to become Bublé’s manager, moving with him to Toronto, and later Los Angeles, as they tried to break into a tough, unforgiving business. From the early days of endless auditions, frequent rejections, and struggling to get bookings, to the giddiness of hobnobbing with celebrities and musical royalty, Delich recounts the pivotal and sometimes heartbreaking decisions that would take Bublé to the top of the charts. Come Fly with Me unravels the never-told tale of Bublé’s success. It is also an engaging account of sacrifice and loyalty, the story of a strong independent woman who devoted close to a decade of her life to guide a talented, mercurial artist to superstardom."
Learn more HERE.
FOR YOUR DAD/ANYONE INTERESTED IN WILDLIFE/THE OUTDOORS:
2. The Cougar - Beautiful, Wild and Dangerous
By Paula Wild
"Elusive, graceful, powerful. Whether they’ve seen one in the wild or not, everyone is fascinated by the big cat called cougar, puma, mountain lion and approximately forty other names. But don’t let their big size fool you. Olympic class athletes when it comes to jumping, cougars have been observed leaping 5.5 metres straight up from a standstill, 18.5 metres down from a tree and nearly 14 metres horizontally onto their prey. As the biggest feline in Canada, and the second largest in the Americas, the cougar’s range stretches from the Yukon to Patagonia. They’re found in the untamed backcountry, along the edge of suburban developments and, at times, in such unlikely places as the downtown parking garage of the Empress Hotel in British Columbia’s capital city of Victoria.
Once one of the most widely distributed large mammals in the Western Hemisphere, cougar populations were decimated by hunting in many areas. But their numbers are increasing, especially in western Canada and the United States. And cougar encounters are becoming more common. Statistics from the past two hundred years show that nearly half the attacks on humans have occurred since 1990. Paula Wild describes surprisingly frequent urban sightings and the mysterious predatory habits of the cougar, as well as the magical powers attributed to them by First Nations people and the cougar’s history as it transitioned from predator to prey during the bounty hunting years. She illuminates their lives in captivity and she delves into the research on the role they play in the delicate balance of our ecosystem.
The Cougar is a skillful blend of natural history, scientific research, First Nations stories and first person accounts. With her in-depth research, Wild explores the relationship between mountain lions and humans, and provides the most up-to-date information on cougar awareness and defense tactics for those living, working or travelling in cougar country.
Both feared and admired, cougars are rarely seen, but odds are that a big cat has watched you walk through the woods while you’ve been totally unaware of its presence. And that’s part of what makes the cougar an icon of all that is beautiful, wild and dangerous."
Learn more HERE.
FOR YOUR SMARTYPANTS FRIEND WHO LOVED JPOD AND LIFE AFTER GOD:
3. Worst. Person. Ever.
By Douglas Coupland
"Worst. Person. Ever. is a deeply unworthy book about a dreadful human being with absolutely no redeeming social value. Raymond Gunt, in the words of the author, "is a living, walking, talking, hot steaming pile of pure id." He's a B-unit cameraman who enters an amusing downward failure spiral that takes him from London to Los Angeles and then on to an obscure island in the Pacific where a major American TV network is shooting a Survivor-style reality show. Along the way, Gunt suffers multiple comas and unjust imprisonment, is forced to reenact the "Angry Dance" from the movie Billy Elliot and finds himself at the centre of a nuclear war. We also meet Raymond's upwardly failing sidekick, Neal, as well as Raymond's ex-wife, Fiona, herself "an atomic bomb of pain."
Even though he really puts the "anti" in anti-hero, you may find Raymond Gunt an oddly likeable character."
Learn more HERE.
FOR THAT INTELLIGENT PERSON ON YOUR LIST WHO LOVES POETRY, ACTIVISM, AND WRONGS BEING RIGHTED/ACKNOWLEDGED:
4. Children of Air India - un/authorized exhibits and interjections
By Renée Sarojini Saklikar
"children of air india is a series of elegiac sequences exploring the nature of individual loss, situated within public trauma. The work is animated by a proposition: that violence, both personal and collective, produces continuing sonar, an echolocation that finds us, even when we choose to be unaware or indifferent.
This collection breaks new ground in its approach to the saga that is Canada/Air India, an event and its aftermath that is both over-reported and under-represented in our national psyche.
329 deaths. 82 Children. Canada's worst mass murder. The accused acquitted.
What does it mean to be Canadian and lose someone in Air India Flight 182?
Why does 9/11 resonate more strongly with Canadians than June 23, 1985? The poems in this book search out answers in the "everything/ness and nothing/ness" of an act and its aftermath, revealing a voice that re-defines and re-visions.
Air India never happened. Air India always happens."
Learn more HERE.
FOR ANYONE WHO OWNS A COFFEE TABLE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA:
5. Emily Carr Collected
Introduction by Ian M. Thom
"Nearly seventy years after her death, Emily Carr’s works continue to capture the grandeur of British Columbia’s landscape and define our vision of the nation. The approximately one hundred works reproduced in this collection showcase the breadth of Carr’s career, from early watercolours in Skidegate and Alert Bay on the northwest coast to charcoal sketches in mid-career to the stunning oils of trees, ravens, and mountains that characterized her later career.
Beautifully designed, its small format and price is ideal for giftbuyers and visitors to the province, this volume is a compendium of some of Carr’s best and most memorable works."
Learn more HERE.
FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF VANCOUVER:
6. Seize the Time - Vancouver Photographed, 1967-1974
By Vladimir Keremidschieff
"A photo portrait of Vancouver's extended "summer of love," Vladimir Keremidschieff's Seize the Time captures an era of profound change in Lotusland.
Vlad's infatuation with photography began in 1967 when a friend introduced him to the craft and then left town, taking his 35mm Pentax camera with him — Vlad just had to get one of his own. His blossoming love of the darkroom matched his fascination with the adolescent city blooming into life before his eyes. For the next seven years, Vlad recorded the captivating wonders unfolding in front of his lens. Seize the Time presents 100 images originally shot for the Georgia Straight, the Vancouver Sun, The Province, and Vlad's own pleasure.
These photographs document Vancouver at a moment of profound change, when the buttoned–down, rainswept city of developer Tom "Terrific" Campbell was being washed away by the social and cultural wave of the Sixties. Vlad was on hand to record the cityscape, the business suits and severe coifs, and the hippie phenomenon that pushed all of that to the side. The music was a massive part of this, and Seize the Time includes a fantastic selection of rock musicians who played in Vancouver, Seattle, and nearby music festivals: Cream, Blind Faith, Phil Ochs, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Dylan and The Band, and many more. The music festivals, the protests, the squats on the North Shore mudflats, and the passion of that moment in time are indelibly captured by his photographs.
When Vlad left Vancouver in 1974 he put his negatives in storage, where they remained for almost forty years. In 2011 he began selecting and scanning the best of his images from that magical moment, preserved now in Seize the Time."
Learn more HERE.
FOR EVERYONE:
7. We Are Born with the Songs Inside Us - Lives and Stories of First Nations People in British Columbia
by Katherine Palmer Gordon
"First Nations are the fastest growing population in the country. There are thousands upon thousands of young First Nations people growing up today who, together with the kind of individuals whose stories are told in this book, represent a future for this country that is brighter than it has been for a long, long time.
—from the foreword by Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations
Since 2004, journalist Katherine Palmer Gordon has interviewed dozens of young First Nations people living in British Columbia—artists and community leaders, comedians and consultants, musicians and lawyers, people who are household names and those known only within their own communities. We Are Born with the Songs Inside Us collects sixteen candid stories gleaned from those interviews, stories of people who share an unshakeable belief in the importance of their cultural heritage to their well-being, to their success at what they do, and to their everyday lives.
Included are Kim Baird, former chief of the Tsawwassen First Nation; Lisa Webster-Gibson, spoken word artist and rock-and-roll drummer with Delaware-Mohawk and Scottish-Canadian heritage who lives and works on Gabriola Island as an Environmental Assessment Professional; and John Marston (Qap'u'luq), an artist and storyteller from the Chemainus First Nation who learned to carve from his father. "What I put into each piece," he says, in his interview with Gordon, "is 100 percent me."
Shattering stereotypes, We Are Born with the Songs Inside Us gathers the thoughts and hopes of young native people living in twenty-first century Canada. Each has a compelling, meaningful story that deserves to be told, understood and, above all, celebrated."
Learn more HERE.
FOR THAT FRIEND OF YOURS WHO'S INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR CITY:
*. Vancouver WAS Awesome
By Lani Russwurm
This is the book that Arsenal Pulp Press published with us. Learn all about it HERE and be sure to pop in to the RELEASE PARTY on November 19th.
FOR THAT FRIEND WHO USED TO LISTEN TO PUNK ROCK AND PLAY HOCKEY, OR FOR THAT PERSON WHO JUST LOVES BC AND THE CBC:
**. The Lonely End of the Rink
By Grant Lawrence
A full feature on Grant's latest book is coming soon. In the meantime, learn about it HERE.
