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."
Stone Rain is a triptych that investigates what it means to see. In particular, the set of three lyrical sequences asks how the artist-observer, the urban witness, and the foreign traveler all shape the world as the site of story.
In Storyboards, a Northwest Coast Mask Exhibit serves as inspiration for lyric poems in which the poet imaginatively recreates the encounter of early explorers with the aboriginal people and pristine coastal regions of the Northwest, and interweaves these with the artist's reflections on the mask exhibit.
City Limits is grounded in the geography and culture of Vancouver. The poems in this section range across the entire territory of the urban landscape, and provide a close-up, finely ironic view of the city and its inhabitants. "Strait goods define the city's limits, shelled cliffs, salmoned reaches, firred forest, musselled shore"
Bicycle Rack brings to sensuous life a city in China, as seen through the eyes of a foreign traveler. "One young lover pedals dreamily, his eyes inward. Perched side-saddle behind him, his girlfriend, legs crossed, polishes her nails."
W. H. New lives in Vancouver. Among his many books are Underwood Log, which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Poetry, Borderlands, Grandchild of Empire, Touching Ecuador, and The Year I Was Grounded. Among New's academic works is The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada which he edited. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006.