About Irolita Books

I'm a used and rare bookseller based in Aurora, Ontario. I began selling books in 1987 in an open shop in Newmarket, Ontario called Starlight Books. The store did well, and I sold it in 1992. Since then I've sold books by internet and mail order only.

While I carry a general stock covering most topics, you'll find a strong bias towards books on Canadian history, indigenous history, horses, aviation, motorsports, and military history. This reflects my personal interests — as with most booksellers' specialities. If such a motley selection seems curious to you, well: my parents were both drivers on the Can-Am circuit for Team Renault in the 1960s, my mother was a bush pilot until fairly recently, and I've had horses all my life.

As for the store name, Irolita comes from the fairy tales of the 17th-century French salons — that remarkable circle of women writers who gave the genre its shape. The most famous of them, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy, coined the term contes de fées (fairy tales), and wrote the first tale to feature "Prince Charming". Charles Perrault — usually credited as the founder of the modern fairy tale — published his first fairy tales several years after d'Aulnoy.

Where the men tended toward simpler moral tales, the women of the salons wrote stories that were subversive and complex, centered on the agency of women. The fairy tale, in their hands, became a kind of literary camouflage — a way to explore forced marriage, social justice, and intellectual independence under the cover of enchantment.

Irolita, the Princess of the Linnets, appears in the work of Henriette-Julie de Murat — another of these women, and another who has largely faded from memory. Irolita's tale appears as a story within a story, offered as a gift of hope to someone in captivity, proof that even when trapped, the mind remains free through stories. It seemed a fitting name for a bookshop.

Some Favourite Books

In no particular order, and subject to change without notice.