This might be a liiiiiittle specific but hoping this fab community can come through. I was born in another province but have lived in BC since I was knee high to a grasshopper – I’m a BC girl at heart. My father still lives in the province I was born in and for Christmas this year, we’re going to send him some BC-themed prezzies and I want to include some books. He typically reads non-fiction, often about historical political figures of note but not exclusively. Has anyone got any recs for non-fiction books about people from or events that took place in BC or books by authors based in BC?? Many thanks!
by msmacfeel
4 Comments
Hmm… I’m sure you could find a more relevant book, as far as your request is concerned, but maybe Lands of Lost Borders (Kate Harris)? It’s a memoir about biking the Silk Road. Harris grew up in Ontario, I believe, but after the events she describes in her memoir, she settled in a remote BC town called Atlin. The memoir briefly shares her first impressions of Atlin, and I actually think she wrote most of the memoir in Atlin, but BC is definitely not the book’s main setting.
I would check out Crawford Kilian, a novelist and college professor living in Vancouver; he was born in the U.S., but has lived in BC since 1967, when he was 26. I’ve only read his sci-fi and fantasy novels – the Chronoplane Wars series is fascinating, but he wrote the last book first, so it can feel a little anticlimactic because his writing style wasn’t as polished and the concept hadn’t been as well thought out – but his bibliography lists a number of books about BC and its history, including _Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia_,
Try Alfred Carmichael-Indian Legends of Vancouver Island
Fellow BC girl here.
Emily St. John Mandel is from Vancouver Island. I have read Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility and really enjoyed both (although they are fiction so not sure if that’s what you are looking for).