October 6 - Bolen's Books

October 06, 2008

October 6 - Bolen's Books

I went to John Schreiber's book launch tonight for Stranger Wycott's Place, the newest volume in the Transmontanus series by New Star that Terry Glavin edits. I finally got to meet Terry, which was a treat, as well as the impressively named Sage Birchwater, and I greatly enjoyed listening to John talk about the book and the experiences that went into it. Plus I used up a birthday gift certificate, and (predictably) spent a little extra as well:

ed. W.F. Garrett-Petts, The Small Cities Book: On the Cultural Future of Small Cities ($18.99 - a New Star Book that uses Kamloops as their example to "[localize] questions of globalization and cultural identity at the municipal level... [and to] explore notions of social capital" - exactly my thing, in other words)
John Schreiber, Stranger Wycott's Place: Stories from the Cariboo-Chilcotin ($19)

As Schreiber says in the first chapter of his book, "Through learning where we are, we may learn who we are" (p.11); this is an awfully brief way of explaining why I study what I do.

I'm not sure yet if Schreiber's motto justifies my birthday gift of Granta 102 (on "The New Nature Writing," about which Keith Talent alerted me some time ago), but it definitely authorizes the other gift: a limited edition, boxed, signed hardcover of Roderick Haig-Brown's 1960 The Living Land, which - needless to say - I'm greatly enjoying already.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Both books sound really interesting, Richard. The Chilcotin one is eomthing I've had on my radar but the first one you list really intrigues me as well. I have a small book published as part of an exhibit in Kamloops a few years ago in which members of the local population created maps relating to memory and place; a dvd accompanied the book and part of this featured a talk given by Robert Kroetsch at the opening of the exhibit. I've always thought Kamloops to be a kind of intact city, situated as it is at the confluence of both arms of the Thompson River and this project was a provocative examination (and celebration) of that placement, across history and topology. I was in Kamloops last weekend and thought of that book, in fact. So very timely that you alert your readers to this new publication.
Theresa K.

October 8, 2008 at 6:13:00 PM PDT

richard said…

The second one has been on my radar for a little while as well, Theresa. Much of my sense of place comes from Turtle Valley, just above Chase, east of Kamloops, so the book's kind of a natural. I like many of the things they're doing at TRU these days - I don't know Leigh Matthews personally from the ALECC listserv, but we've emailed a bit, and she did a great job with the Goose feature on the Kamloops area.

What was your book from Kamloops?

October 8, 2008 at 7:43:00 PM PDT

Anonymous said…

The Homeless Mind: An Exploration through Memory Mapping. The show was curated by Will Garrett-Petts, Donald Lawrence, and David MacLennan and the book -- an extended essay, really -- is by Garrett-Petts and Lawrence. Beautifully done. I'm currently at work on a long essay about Ponderosa pines and thought about some of the pieces in the book as we explored Heffley Creek and other small communities near Kamloops. I was reading some old newspapers and was fascinated by the wedding reports, for instance, from outlying areas -- Louis Creek, Rose Hill. The sense of the outlying communities and their adjacent-ness (is this a word? It's still early and I'm only now getting to my coffee!) to the central locus. In other communitity reports in the old newspapers, it will be mentioned that someone has spent two days in Kamloops, travelling by car from home in Savona or Quilchena. A whole novel of possibilities...
Theresa

October 9, 2008 at 8:12:00 AM PDT

Anonymous said…

Thanks, Theresa, for your kind comments on our work. We have two further projects on the go: one in press (again with New Star), and a follow-up to the Small Cities Book> (which should be ready next November).

Regards,

Will GP

January 4, 2009 at 8:43:00 PM PST

richard said…

What's in press, Will? I'm very gradually working through The Small Cities Book, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

January 4, 2009 at 8:51:00 PM PST