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."
Born and brought up in Whitechapel, John Sebastian Helmcken worked his way through apprenticeships as a chemist and a medical pupil before gaining admission to Guy's Hospital to complete his training. The accounts he gives of working class family life and of the great economic and social disadvantages he had to confront in order to become a doctor make this volume of memoirs not only a valuable historical document, but also an autobiography with considerable human interest.
Dorothy Blakey Smith, formerly an Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia and more recently on the staff of the Provincial Archives, is the editor of "The Journal of Arthur Thomas Bushby, 1858-1859," James Douglas in California, 1841, and Lady Franklin Visits the Pacific Northwest. She has also written a short biography of James Douglas for the Canadian Lives series and has contributed numerous articles to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.