Department - Books

Autumn 2004,
Volume 25, Number 2

A Perfectly Beautiful Place
MICHAEL ELCOCK, MEd '78
Oolichan Books, 2004 . 350 pages . $22.95
A penetrating memoir that spans continents-from Belfast to Malta, Hawaii to Prague and Paris-to offer a clearer view of places and people and an embrace of anecdote, absence and history.

After Goodlake's
TERENCE YOUNG, BA '79
Raincoast Books, 2004 . 360 pages . $21.95
Young's first novel is about Fergus Goodlake-owner of Goodlake's Deli, happily married for 25 years, and involved in an affair with a younger woman. The relationship starts carefree but eventually destabilizes and collapses the foundations of everything in his life.

Cool to be Kind
VAL LITWIN, BA '01, CHRIS BRATSETH, BA '99, BRAD STOKES, BA '01, ERIK HANSON
ECW Press, 2004 . 258 pages . $19.95
In 2002 four friends crossed the country committing as many random acts of kindness as possible. Here they offer all the resources and inspiration needed for your own randomly kind acts.

Cutty, One Rock
AUGUST KLEINZAHLER, BA '73
Douglas & McIntyre, 2004 . 168 pages . $25.00
With the passion and intensity rooted in early manhood in New Jersey, the Griffin Prize-winning poet offers memoirs that have been called "swaggering, bleak, hilarious-full of piercing and mournful assessments of life and art."

Fantastic Feats and Failures
DAVID GARRISON, BEng '94, SHANNON HUNT, MA '91, JUDE ISABELLA
Kids Can Press, 2004 . 52 pages . $9.95
From the editors of Yes Magazine comes a book that helps kids (ages 8-12) explore the odd and surprising story of engineering's brilliant designs and terrible design-flaws.

Fragmented Identities
DENISE ROMAN, MA '97
Lexington Books . 189 pages . $70 USD
Observing postcommunist Romania as a native and scholar, Roman shows how aesthetic and moral judgments are born from and embedded in popular culture. The focus is on the act of identity-formation and the construction or absence of identity-politics in several minority or disempowered groups.

Mountie in Mukluks
PATRICK WHITE, BA '04
Oolichan Books, 2004 . 250 pages . $34.95
The history of the Canadian Arctic comes to life through the adventures and oral accounts of RCMP officer Bill White-the least cop-like cop to ever build an igloo.

No Ordinary Mike
ERIC DAMER, BA '89 & CAROLINE ASTELL
Ronsdale Press, 2004 . 264 pages . $24.95
Michael Smith claimed BC's first Nobel Prize for developing a technique to manipulate genes. Smith's remarkable life is chronicled-from childhood in semi-rural England, to a career as a leading scientist on Canada's West Coast.

The Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums of All Time
MARTIN POPOFF, BA '84
ECW Press, 2004 . 450 pages . $24.95
Headbanging chart-toppers and lesser-known gems are catalogued and critically appraised in Popoff's eighth book of music journalism that combines fan surveys and band interviews. Top album: Metallica's Master of Puppets.