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."
A musical quilt, this unique guitar becomes a passionate metaphor for Canada.
The Six String Nation guitar, Voyageur, is made from sixty-seven pieces of Canadian history: Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle is a tone bar, the Grey Nuns convent in Winnipeg-once a classroom to Louis Riel-makes up the back and sides, Paul Henderson's hockey stick from the 1972 Canada/Russia Summit Series is a detail on the pickguard, the sacred Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii forms the top face and gold from Maurice Richard's 1955-56 Stanley Cup ring adorns the ninth fret.
Thanks to a crazed determination to share this guitar and his impassioned vision of Canada with as many Canadians as possible, Taylor has taken the guitar to festivals, conferences, schools and community events, from sea to sea to sea. Along the way, countless citizens have added their own definitions of what it means to be Canadian, either through music or the very act of engaging with this object that is at once artifact and living instrument. Six String Nation allows them to, literally, hold history in their hands-and add a little harmony of their own.
Illustrated with documentary photos and gorgeous portraits of the people that Voyageur has encountered, Six String Nation chronicles the journey of one special guitar, from conception through construction to the road it still travels across our land.
"Braiding the stories of the guitar, its pieces, and its fans makes for a powerful back story, a kind of magic that is positively galvanizing."
"Jowi Taylor, a Toronto broadcaster...set out in 1995 to create an object more quintessentially Canadian then hockey, Tim Horton's doughnuts, insulin, the CN Tower and Lake Louise. Eleven years later, he was able to hold it in his hands -- an acoustic guitar made from 64 bits of Canadian history."
"Collectively, these relics sound like the contents of a small and somewhat eccentric museum of Canadiana. And so they are -- except that this museum makes sweet music when it's strummed, because this repository of true-north iconography is an acoustic guitar.'"
"The Voyageur was a true labour of love for this writer, radio host and producer, involving some science, some alchemy, and a whole lot of hard work. Six String Nation, the book chronicling the Voyageur (and Taylor's) journey from an initial idea to a very tangible reality, was published just over two months ago. It paints a vivid picture of Canada through stunning portraiture and insightful interviews with a wide range of people who contributed to the project, or who had the opportunity to try their hand at playing the Voyageur once it was finally finished."
"Six String Nation, a marvelous and optimistic and quintessentially Canadian book."
"People seem to love Taylor and his patriotic axe."
"The ongoing mission of Le Voyageur and the Six String Nation project is to encourage Canadians to tell the story of Canada from a multitude of perspectives, to know and embrace Canada's diversity as a kind of commonality and to celebrate the power of music."
"Six String Nation is a reminder of the power and position of music in Canada today. Putting everything else aside, maybe it is music that holds this nation together, the magic of singing and playing that unites us: Acadians, Quebecois, Albertans, First Nations Peoples, Metis, Ontarians, men, women, professional musicians and amateur pickers alike."