BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
This collection of poems takes us on a journey — a very personal journey of Pamela Porter's own — to Africa and South America, those corners of the world the news reports never seem to cover: to Angola's thirty-year-long civil war, a landscape overrun with poverty, AIDS, and infant mortality; and to the struggles of ordinary people still haunted by the past horrors of Argentina's “dirty war.” With language deceptively simple, filled with music, colour and rich detail, Porter writes with grace and compassion, making a fierce beauty from all she sees, celebrating the resilience of the poor and oppressed, who nonetheless remain determined to live their lives with dignity and with joy. Whitman said, “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” In reading these poems, Porter's journey to “become the wounded person” becomes our own — as freshly as though we have travelled with her. Winner of the Governor General's Award for The Crazy Man, Pamela Porter has given us another book to treasure, one that takes us into the heart of what it means to be a human being on this earth.
“The first thing to admire in Cathedral is the poetry itself. Porter's lines are direct, clear, narrative in intent, yet embedded with dazzling imagery that brings scenes fully alive.”— Canadian Bookseller