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."
It is generally known that the West Coast's once-great commercial fishing industry has fallen on hard times, but as Alan Haig-Brown demonstrates in this new book, reports of its demise are exaggerated. A veteran of the industry himself, Haig-Brown here offers a "state of the industry" report, discovering pockets of surprising activity among the vistas of closed processing plants, downsized fleets and corporate concentration. The Ray Phillips family of Pender Harbour continue to support a second generation
by fishing halibut and black cod. Albert Radil and his two brothers have found success trawling hake in Queen Charlotte Sound. Seiner John Lenic is taking advantage of the miraculous reappearance in BC waters of the pilchard, once thought extinct. Former Vietnamese "boat person" Lon Truong hopes to finance a triumphant return to the Mekong Delta by trawling BC shrimp. The Assu brothers of Campbell River still seine chum salmon in the same Johnstone Strait tide rip their father used to fish, as did many generations of Assu ancestors before them, but they have to work fast to get their work done in the near-impossible 12-hour time limit set by the DFO. In Haig-Brown's story of the west coast fishery, boats get equal time with people and fish. He laments the destruction of some historic old seiners, just as he relishes the preservation of an old
Finn Slough gillnetter named the Eva and approves the activities of fishboat superfan Randy Reifel, who uses his considerable wealth to buy up endangered boats and keep them in working order.
Is the whole fishing industry now on life support? It seems to be headed that way, but this book offers many practical and persuasive reasons why it doesn't have to be.