10 Vancouver Reads from the CityNews Bookshelf
Posted April 6, 2024 3:30 pm.
April 6th was designated as Vancouver’s official birthday in 2019. It was on that date in 1886 that the city was first incorporated. So, in honour of Vancouver’s 138th birthday, we have compiled a list of 10 reads from the CityNews Bookshelf archives that delve into our city’s past, present, and future.
A record number of people left British Columbia for other provinces last year. The rising cost of living and sky-high rents are often cited as reasons why people are looking elsewhere to live. That is something former East Ender Norman Nawrocki knows all too well. BC’s seemingly never-ending housing crisis is fodder for Vancouvered Out, his 17th and latest book.
Decrim: How We Decriminalized Drugs in British Columbia
In 2023, BC took the bold, and to some controversy, the step of allowing adults to legally carry small amounts of illicit drugs for personal use as part of a three-year federal trial. How that came to pass is the subject of Decrim, a memoir by former Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart, now the director of The Centre for Public Policy Research at Simon Fraser University.
East Side Story: Growing Up at the PNE
Calgary has the Stampede, Edmonton has K-Days, in Toronto it’s the Ex, and in Vancouver, the yearly summer celebration is known simply as the PNE. And few know it better than Vancouver-based writer, comedian, and elementary school teacher Nick Marino. He spent six summers working at the fair, beginning at age 12 in 1980. East Side Story, his first book, is part memoir, part history.
Exploring Vancouver: 10 Tours of The City and Its Buildings
Vancouver may not be in the top tier of great architectural cities of the world, but its buildings do tell a story of how this once rough frontier town has become, for good or ill, a world-class urban center. Now, a new book is telling that story once again – well, a new old book actually. Exploring Vancouver by Harold Kalman and Robin Ward is now in its 10th edition.
White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver
Incidents of anti-Asian racism rose dramatically during the pandemic. Sadly, anti-Asian sentiment is hardly a new phenomenon in Canada, particularly on the West Coast. In White Riot, author Henry Tsang reminds us those ugly feelings have always been bubbling below the surface.
Noonday Dark: A Doctor Annick Boudreau Mystery #2
Vancouver is the backdrop for Noonday Dark, the second novel starring Dr. Annick Boudreau, the mystery-solving psychologist that author Charles Demers based on his therapist. The story centers around the disappearance of Danielle, a comedian who writes jokes on the side for a Vancouver mayoral candidate.
Using Power Well: Bob Williams and the Making of British Columbia
From his working-class roots in Burnaby and East Van to becoming an alderman, an MLA, a cabinet minister, and later a top bureaucrat, Bob Williams has led a life full of achievements, many of which we now take for granted. Williams shares his remarkable story in the memoir Using Power Well.
Mount Pleasant Stories: Historical Walking Tours – Walk One: Mount Pleasant’s Heritage Heart
It may not have the fame of Strathcona, the West End, or Chinatown, but author Christine Hagemoen argues Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant has just as rich a history as those other neighbourhoods and it’s one worth saving. Hagemoen’s Mount Pleasant Stories is the first in a series of planned guidebooks.
To say Vancouver exists outside of history completely is to erase the generations of people of all races, Indigenous and settler, who have helped make the city what it is today. That is the argument author and historian Daniel Francis puts forth in Becoming Vancouver, the first history of the city written in decades.
Fool’s Gold: The Life and Legacy of Vancouver’s Official Town Fool
Vancouver has an official flag, an official motto, and, for a brief time in the late 1960s, even an official town fool. However, to Joachim Foikis, the job wasn’t all fun and games. In Fool’s Gold, author and historian Jesse Donaldson explains now it was a role Foikis took very seriously.
