Tag Archives: adult non-fiction

Moon, Stars, Sun

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A picture of the full moon through the branches of a tree

September is promising to give us a plethora of spectacular cosmic events.

The month was ushered in by a Super Blue Moon, while on the 17th of September, Venus will be at its brightest. The 19th will have Neptune at opposition (meaning the planet will be brighter than any other time of the year and will be visible all night long via telescope). On the 22nd, Mercury will be at its highest point above the horizon in the morning. Look for the planet low in the eastern sky just before sunrise!

This year’s Autumnal Equinox will also fall on September 23rd, meaning there will be nearly equal amounts of day and night throughout the world. Finally, the last Super Moon of the year—the Harvest Moon—is set to rise in all its glory on the 29th. Meanwhile, Illuminarium at the Distillery District is offering an all-ages immersive event titled Space: A Journey to the Moon and Beyond!

In honour of these and other cosmic events, here are some lovely books all about the heavens above.

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Celebrating Ukrainian Heritage Month

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Cover image for Andrei Kurkov's novel Grey Bees.

September is Ukrainian Heritage Month here in Ontario, so I wanted to share some recommendations from our Ukrainian collection. You loyal readers out there will hopefully be tempted to explore some of these intriguing reads. Included below are Ukrainian, Canadian-Ukrainian, and other authors with ties to the country. Given that they make up a significant proportion of our population, Ukrainian people have substantially contributed to our society (Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is Ukrainian-Canadian, for example). This contribution includes the development of a spectrum of rich artistic and cultural expression.

Andrei Kurkov

Andrei Kurkov was born in Russia and writes his fiction in Russian, but he moved to Kyiv when he was only two years old. His identity has been steeped in the experience of living there, and he’s become one of the most well-known Ukrainian writers the world over. With the advent of the war in Ukraine, he has become something of a representative for his people, even sharing a personal war diary with BBC Radio 4. Here he talks with the Guardian about getting used to air raid alerts sounding through his cellphone several times a day.

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Confessions of a Toxic Tech Company

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Image of Twitter and Elon Musk's account with the new X logo
image via CNN

You’ve probably heard the news about Twitter—I’m sorry, the recently rebranded ‘X’—and everything Elon Musk is doing with the social media giant to, it seems, drive the company right into the ground. (For fun? For profit? In a fit of megalomaniacal spite? Who knows, but as someone without a Twitter account and zero stake in the game, it sure is fun to watch.)

Which got me thinking about the movie The Social Network and the toxic histories (to match the largely toxic climates) of so many social media companies.

On the one hand, it’s horrifying, considering how much of our information these companies have and the control they can exert on our lived reality (see: fake news, as just one example). On the other hand, it’s definitely entertaining to dive deep into the dramas surrounding all these companies.

In the spirit of that, here are some stories of toxic tech companies, the wild egos behind them, and what affect they have on our society, our minds, and our future.

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