About BC Books Online
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."
Description
Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots is the story of a man who had no obituary and no funeral and who would have left no trace if it weren't for the woman he'd called Toots, who took everything she remembered of him and — for seven days — wrote it down.
Erín Moure, a poet who once lived in Vancouver, begins this "work of the imagination" ("minto," in Galician, means "I'm lying") with a quote from Judith Butler about those persons who have "come to belong to the ungrievable," though there may be some that grieve them.
In recording the tale of the little man, through memories and Google searches, the book gives a glimpse into an entire era of urban Canada, from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and Main Street and Chinatown to a long-ago Montreal between the Great Depression and Expo '67.
"A beautiful testimony to a life bravely lived on the edges of contemporary values."
— Aaron Peck
Contributor Notes
Erín Moure's most recent book of poems is Planetary Noise: The Poetry of Erín Moure, edited and introduced by Shannon Maguire (Wesleyan University Press, 2017). No one alive now knows who Toots is.
