Bowering's B.C.

by George Bowering

Genres: Nonfiction, History

Paperback

Published January 1, 1996

About the author

George Bowering was born and brought up in the Okanagan Valley, amid sand dunes and sagebrush, but he has lived in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta — great sources of hockey stars. Along the way he has stopped to write several books on baseball. He has also picked up Governor General’s Awards for his poetry and fiction, and otherwise been rewarded with prizes for his books, except in his home province of British Columbia. His earlier ECW book, His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for 2000. He lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised this isn't more widely read. It is quite well written, funny, and entirely not boring. Lots of stuff left out of history textbooks is given better treatment here. The plights of First Nations, Chinese, and Japanese are well discussed, as well as women in general. There is always a pleasant but vague anti-government sentiment and in fact, doesn't suffer from patriotism at all, which is refreshing.

As the book goes on though, it does tend to start focusing more and more on the history of government. I may have wished for a bit more insight into other aspects of life at times as we got into the 20th century, but overall, a great book, very informative. Recommended.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read peoples history of british columbia

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not your standard history of BC -- the bibliography notes that "this contains children's books, camping guides, etc., lots of stuff you don't see in a lot of histories" -- and Bowering leans into that while mixing in humour, cynicism, and sarcasm. In many ways is a people's history of the province.

[Jacob Mcconnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wry novelist’s history of BC that pulls from all kinds of intriguing sources. I’ve been describing this to people as akin to hearing BC’s history told by a well-intentioned and somewhat tipsy uncle at a party. Not always politically correct; not always even factually correct, but entertaining as heck and full of odd and colourful tangents.

If this is your first foray into BC history, you’d do well to supplement yourself with fact-checking and delving deeper using online resources such as The Canadian Encyclopedia and the recently created BC: An Untold History timeline and series.

With those disclaimers out of the way, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book. Especially if you want to get a firsthand sense of how strange it would have been living through the varied and sometimes surreal phases of the Social Credit Party.

[Stephen Chastain · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun history read but it gets a bit slow toward the end. Flowery descriptions of the colourful characters of BC's government slowly give way to frantic lists of names that hum and blur together until I found myself losing some interest. Still worth a read-through though, as the vast majority of the book is quite a page-turner.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious! I just love Bowering's sense of humour.