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Back in May The Economist magazine got up our noses here in Vancouver by declaring our city "mind-numbingly boring." How could they say such a thing, we fumed? What about the mountains? the bike lanes? the sushi? Weren't we Paris by the Pacific?

However, The Economist had a point. If the city  itself is not boring, its obsession with real estate is. Vancouver was created as the result of a huge real estate deal -- the grant of land to the Canadian Pacific Railway in...

What better way to spend a sunny, blustery Sunday than to go in search of historic sights? Which is why my companion and I were down along the Fraser River trying to get a look at the remains of the old Celtic Cannery, all in aid of a history of Vancouver upon which I have set sail. The original buildings still exist, though they are behind a fence on private property...

For Remembrance Day, here are a trio of previously-published pieces about books related to war.

1. An essay on the Warrior Nation.

2. A note on an early Great War Novel.

3. The definitive two-volume history of Canada's participation in World War One.

Vancouver's current frenzy of real estate speculation is no secret so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, driving along Burrard Street on the weekend, to discover that a hole in the ground has replaced one of the city's well known business establishments, the Art of Loving sex shop.

Normally the Art of Loving would not be considered a literary landmark, but it played a delightful cameo in my own publishing history.

In 2006 I published a book about the history of...

The newest issue of Geist magazine (#98) is reaching the newsstands. My regular column looks at a new book by historian Christopher Moore, Three Weeks in Quebec City (Allen Lane), about the Quebec Conference of 1864.

The conference drew up the 72 resolutions that led to the creation of Canada three years later.

For me, the takeaway from Moore's fine book is that Canada was not born on the battlefields...