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."
Art, love, and history furnish the setting in this tale of fate and destiny. Set in Vancouver in 1962, we follow Cyril Andrachuk, son of immigrant parents from the former Ukraine, as he makes his way from high school to menial labour jobs, from first love to first heartbreak, from sibling rivalry to malicious family betrayal.
Cyril is the only Canadian-born member of the Andrachuk family, his parents and older brother having survived the Holodomor, Stalin's systematic starving of the Ukraine in the 1930s during which two million people died. Cyril's mother carries the scars and memories of a past she can't let go of; she mourns the early death of her husband and feels responsible for the malnourished, brittle bones of her eldest son, Paul. Cyril is a mystery to her: he wants to be an artist he draws incessantly and talks about going to art school. He draws his late-father's tools saws, drills, hammers, wrenches, everything. When Cyril produces a series of large commemorative "Stalin stamps" his mother questions her son's insensitivity; when an act of impassioned violence erupts in the house, it is Cyril's sanity that is called into question.
The Delusionist is a darkly comic novel about love, loss, creativity, and coming to terms with the horrors of history.
Praise for Grant Buday:
"Buday's genius is that of the storyteller." The Vancouver Sun
"mordantly funny" The National Post
"a rollicking black comedy of errors with a host of unforgettable characters" Quill & Quire (on White Lung)
GRANT BUDAY has published nine books and many articles, essays, and short stories in Canadian magazines and quarterlies. While he has travelled extensively throughout the world he currently lives on Mayne Island, British Columbia, with his wife and son, where he manages a recycling depot. He is fifty-seven years old.