Daniel Francis

Reading the National Narrative

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January 19, 2022

I've been reading Stendahl to start the new year, Scarlet and Black. No particular reason. I've always wanted to and suddenly the opportunity presented itself.

My local coffee shop (Brazza on Lonsdale Ave. in North Vancouver) added a "lending library" during a recent renovation. Take one, leave one. I was browsing through the books on offer and there was Stendahl. So I took.

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December 16, 2021

After many (and I mean many) years, the new Museum of North Vancouver has opened near the bottom of Lonsdale Avenue next door to the Shipyards district.

I have not had a chance to visit yet, but plan to do so over the holiday. I urge you to do the same, if for no other reason than to see the refurbished streetcar, full-size, planted in the museum's lobby. But there is much else to see and...

December 9, 2021

The other day I had an extended conversation with podcaster Sean Graham about the new book. We talked about some of the images outsiders have of Vancouver and some of the themes which are discussed in the book.

If you are interested in listening to that chat, Sean has posted it on his History Slam podcoast at the Active History website...

November 24, 2021

Mark Forsythe, writer and former CBC Radio host, has penned a very nice review of Becoming Vancouver in the latest issue of BC Bookworld.

You can pick up the magazine at convenient locations around the province -- I often get mine on the ferry -- or find it online at the BC Bookworld...

October 17, 2021

The Ormsby Review, Canada's only provincial on-line book review site, has turned five years old.

Named for the pioneering BC historian Margaret Ormsby, the site was the brainchild of its founding editor, Richard Mackie, and his co-conspirator Alan Twigg. Five years after they launched it, Ormsby has published 1250 reviews of books by British Columbia writers and about British Columbian...

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