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."
'Shag Carpet Action' is Matthew Firth's boldest and brashest collection of stories yet. Centred on the novella "Dog Fucker Blues" this collection examines what it's like to be down but not quite out in the 21st century. The book examines people clinging to the edge of physical, mental, sexual, psychological, and financial survival, bordering on the brink of ruin. This new collection continues Firth's deep mining into the bowels of Canadian life. From there he unearths tales of some of Canada's forgotten people who survive with their wits and guts during these harsh times.
Behind the covers of 'Shag Carpet Action' are stories about rival garbage collectors warring over a possible strike; suburban lust and yearning involving the creative use of a son's Spider-Man toy; the travails of a man who has a vasectomy but then finds that there are more painful events to deal with on his agenda; shameless and bombastic people who just don't care who overhears their conversation-and on it goes. Absurd, raunchy, funny stories whose sharp, salty characters are boldly credible and wonderfully rendered by one of Canada's most adventurous and courageous writers.
"Matthew Firth is one of my favourite writers. I wait for new Firth books with all of the same sense of need and anticipation that I once felt while waiting for my heroin dealer to show." - Tony O'Neill, author of 'Sick City'
"Matt Firth is the literary incarnation of the boy your mama warned you about. These short stories, as tightly clenched as an angry fist, are not for the faint-hearted. Firth will probably never win any big prizes, because he cock-punches the kind of pastoral/historical claptrap that passes for literature among wine-drinking book clubbers." -Jenn Farrell, author of 'Sugar Bush and Other Stories' and 'The Devil You Know'
"Firth's strength lies not simply in provocatively deploying overt sexuality, but rather the way he leverages bald carnality to make broader, potent statements about thehuman condition." - Quill & Quire
Matthew Firth has run his own independent micro press, Black Bile Press, since 1993. He edits/publishes the literary magazine 'Front & Centre', and he's had a regular books column in the 'Ottawa Xpress' since April 2002. Previous publications include the short story collections 'Can You Take Me There, Now?'; 'Fresh Meat'; and most recently 'Suburban Pornography & Other Stories' (Anvil Press, 2006).