The Rain Review of Books

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Editorial
Michael Barnholden
The Rain 3:4 (November 2005-January 2006): 1


This will be the last editorial duty I will be performing for The Rain. I have decided to pass on publishing and editorial chores to my friend and compadre Aaron Vidaver who will bring to the task a lot of energy and enthusiasm as well as commitment and intelligence. He will need all of that and more—I will not be saddling him with the excess baggage of expectations—The Rain is his to do with as he pleases. The project has been a lot of work and a lot of pleasure, but the time has come for me to move on. I have a new (paying) job as managing editor at West Coast Line, I’ve started back to school at SFU, and I have had some health issues.

I thought I’d try to give an account of the three years and twelve issues of The Rain that I have been responsible for. Originally I wanted to create a space for a discourse around issues that were being debated in books that were relevant to Vancouver. I was disturbed by the lack of attention books were paid in local media. Local books received even less attention. There have been some changes: some gains, some losses (Granville Books and Women’s Books, gone but not forgotten). The Georgia Straight started a book review insert with, of course, about seventy-five percent advertising, BC Book World started running reviews, too short to be anything but superficial. The Vancouver Review resurrected itself, transformed almost beyond recognition. A new book review paper out of Victoria focusing on international work, The Pacific Rim Review of Books looks promising. None of these publications have taken up the connected challenges that The Rain presents: first that reading is a social act and second that history falls like rain. The point I have been trying to make is that reading is not an ideologically neutral act, that the products of intellectual discourse are loaded with intention and it is imperative to read that social intention with a view to who gets wet and who stays dry. In other words, books both present and require an operative critical apparatus. I hope mine has been visible.

Certainly it is visible in my new book Reading the Riot Act. I am developing a companion map that lays out a walking tour for sites connected to events in the book. I include it here as a gift. You don't need the book to make use of the map but with some cross referencing it would probably help.

Any list would be incomplete. So I won’t list all the people I want to thank, but rather thank everyone who helped out; I know who you are.

Over to you, Aaron.