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."
In 1998, Dzawada'enuxw artist Marianne Nicholson scaled a vertical rock face in Kingcome Inlet to paint a massive pictograph to mark the continued vitality of her ancestral village of Gwa'yi. Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time is the story of that painting, of earlier politically defiant rock art, and of "coppers," ceremonial shields that are a central motif in these images. Judith Williams tracks the history of a culturally and geographically rich locale at a flashpoint in Native-white relations. She investigates the rock art around Kingcome Inlet, explores the disintegrating Halliday homestead, and plumbs the archives to measure colonialism's legacy. Documenting Nicholson's painting of the new pictograph, Williams describes the symbiosis of old and new that has seen Gwa'yi and the Kwakwaka'wakw prevail despite all attempts to eradicate their culture.
Artist and writer Judith Williams gathered material on the settling of Kingcome Inlet by homsteaders and the copper/cow pictograph's relation to the potlatch ban during ten years of visits to the inlet. She is the author of two previous books, High Slack and Dynamite Stories. Williams's work has been shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery, UBC's Museum of Anthropology, and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. She splits her time and mind between Vancouver and Refuge Cove on West Redonda Island in Desolation Sound.