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The climate book / by Thunberg, Greta,2003-author,editor.;
"Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts--geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and Indigenous leaders--to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster"--
Subjects: Essays.; Climate change mitigation.; Climate justice.; Climatic changes; Climatic changes.; Environmental justice.; Environmental protection; Environmental protection.; Environmentalism.;

The trial of Katterfelto / by Redhill, Michael,1966-author.;
In the late-eighteenth century, the conjurer and amateur scientist Gustavus Katterfelto has made a name for himself travelling across the English countryside with a bag of tricks. For audiences, his astonishing stunts are pure magic. For Katterfelto, each one is carefully engineered and executed with the help of his colleague, confidante and amanuensis, and our narrator, Roger Gossage. Yet one day in their travels, the two men come across a mystifying object beyond their ken: a metal horn that emits a disembodied woman's voice. She calls herself Siri of Toronto, and claims to speak from a place plagued by climate catastrophe and social unrest. As they begin to use the horn in their magic shows, Gossage and Katterfelto must work to understand the origin and intent of Siri's call -- a quest that will put them up against the limits of reason and test Roger's allegiance to the man he calls his friend. Endlessly inventive, richly imagined, and entirely its own, The Trial of Katterfelto is a consciousness-expanding novel that writes directly into the most urgent questions we face as a species: who we are, what we have done, and what we might do from here.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Friendship; Future, The; Magic; Quacks and quackery; Technology;

Earthly materials : journeys through our bodies' emissions, excretions, and disintegrations / by Wood, Cutter,author.;
"To live, our bodies must continuously shed materials. Stop urinating, stop defecating, stop expelling breath, and death is near. While we often think of these materials as embarrassing waste products, they serve far more complex functions. The color of our mucus, the volume of our flatus, the rhythm of our breath: taken together, these materials tell a story of the human that produced them. Moreover, the exchange, elimination, and frequent disguise of our effluence has been elemental to the development of human civilization, and our lives today are still governed by a host of laws and superstitions and social mores about the materials our bodies leave behind. In each of twelve discrete chapters, Earthly Materials tells a story about one of the materials the human body sheds--from breath and urine to vomit and tears. Sometimes the questions examined are historical: What have we physically done with all the urine produced in our cities? Sometimes they approach the matter through a philosophical lens: Is it ever logical to cry? Sometimes they explore recent scientific discoveries: How is mucus forcing us to reconsider our understanding of natural selection? But they always offer a window into how we negotiate our place in the world and how we get along with one another."--
Subjects: Trivia and miscellanea.; Human anatomy; Human body; Human physiology;

The teller of small fortunes / by Leong, Julie,author.;
"A fortune teller finds an unexpected family on her journeys in this heartwarming and charming fantasy debut. Tao, an immigrant fortune teller, lives in a wagon and roams the dusty outskirts of the kingdom of Eshtera. Fleeing a troubled past, she travels between villages telling only small fortunes: whether it will hail next Thursday; what boy will kiss which barmaid; when the cow will calve. Big fortunes come with big consequences ... which she wants to avoid at all costs. Life on the road can be lonely but, to Tao's surprise, companionship comes unexpectedly. She encounters Mash and Silt, an ex-mercenary and semi-reformed thief; the oddball pair endear themselves to Tao and enlist her in the search for Mash's lost daughter. Next the trio finds Kina, a brilliant baker, with a knead for adventure. And, finally, Fidelitus rounds out their party, a cat smart enough to mark the travelers as ready suppliers of fish. As they journey together across Eshtera, confronting small-minded villagers and philosophizing trolls alike, Tao's unlikely new friends break down her walls and unravel her secrets. Ultimately, Tao must decide what's more important: her hard-won freedom, or reuniting a family not her own"--
Subjects: Fantasy fiction.; Novels.; Prophecy; Quests (Expeditions); Friendship;

Lost & found : a memoir / by Schulz, Kathryn,author.;
"Eighteen months before her beloved father died, Kathryn Schulz met Casey, the woman who would become her wife. Lost & Found weaves together their love story with the story of losing Kathryn's father in a brilliant exploration of the way families are lost and found and the way life dispenses wretchedness and suffering, beauty and grandeur all at once. Schulz writes with painful clarity about the vicissitudes of grieving her father, but she also writes about the vital and universal phenomenon of finding. The book is organized into three parts: "Lost," which explores the sometimes frustrating, sometimes comic, sometimes heartbreaking experience of losing things, grounded in Kathryn's account of her father's death; "Found," which examines the experience of discovery, grounded in her story of falling in love; and finally, "And," which contends with the way these events happen in conjunction and imply the inevitable: Life keeps going on, not only around us but beyond us and after us. Kathryn Schulz has the ability to measure the depth and breadth of human experience with unusual exactness and then to articulate the things all of us have felt but have been unable to put into language. Lost & Found is a work of philosophical interrogation as well as a story about life, death, and the discovery of one great love just as she is losing another"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Schulz, Kathryn.; Schulz, Kathryn; Families; Fathers and daughters; Lesbians;

The obstacle is the way : the timeless art of turning trials into triumph / by Holiday, Ryan,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (page 197-199) and index."An updated and expanded edition of the book that launched a global phenomenon, The obstacle is the way presents an infinitely elastic formula for turning our toughest trials into our greatest triumphs. Since bestselling author Ryan Holiday introduced Stoicism to the world with The obstacle is the way in 2014, this simple but powerful philosophy for life has taken the world by storm. This brilliant and engaging book is an invaluable source of wisdom for anyone who wants to become more successful at what they do, whether you're a student, a parent, a professional athlete, or a world leader. Now, Ryan Holiday has updated and expanded this modern classic with a new introduction and new content featuring a diverse set of inspiring characters. Icons of history -- from Epictetus and Demosthenes to Amelia Earhart and Richard Wright -- followed a simple formula to achieve greatness. They were not exceptionally brilliant, lucky, or gifted. Their success in overcoming extreme obstacles was the result of a timeless set of philosophical principles that the greatest men and women have always pursued. In obstacle is the way, Ryan Holiday unpacks those lessons and reframes them for today's world, giving us an indispensable formula for turning our toughest trials into triumphs. This new edition is a chance for old fans to revisit a classic and for a new generation to discover the power of Stoicism"--
Subjects: Self-help publications.; Motivation (Psychology); Self-realization.; Stoics.;

The road to Appledore : or, How I went back to the land without ever having lived there in the first place / by Wayman, Tom,1945-author.;
"Acclaimed author Tom Wayman's account of his shift from urban to rural. The recent pandemic accelerated an existing trend among urban Canadians to move to the country. Yet to quote from a 2022 Globe and Mail article, "People from cities don't always realize what they're getting into." For anyone setting out in that direction, or dreaming of doing so, Tom Wayman's The Road to Appledore: Or How How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place is rewarding reading. The book follows Wayman from Vancouver to southeastern BC's Slocan Valley, deep in the Selkirk Mountains, and presents with his characteristic humour and philosophical insight his ensuing major shifts of perspective and knowledge. Mishaps, misadventures and moments of delight and wonder abound in Wayman's prose reflections on his decades of living immersed in nature and the contemporary rural--from having to deal with a bear cub in his kitchen, to engaging in a vigilante action to protect a community water system, to the quiet satisfaction of growing his own food and flowers. Wayman depicts the rural southwest of Canada in intimate detail, transporting readers alongside him."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Wayman, Tom, 1945-; Mountain life;

The outsmarters / by Ellis, Deborah,1960-;
"Eleven-year-old Kate lives with her grandmother, who runs a junk shop in a big old house on the outskirts of town. It sometimes feels sad to be in the business of collecting other people's leftover stuff, but Kate knows sad. She's a bit lonely, and she doesn't remember her mother, who left long ago. Still, Kate dreams that one day her mother will return, and when she does, she'll need money. So Kate sets out to make some, just in case. At first she wants to offer psychiatric advice, like Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon. Gran squashes that idea: "You are not a psychiatrist. You'll just get sued." But what about a philosopher, who Gran says is just someone who thinks deeply about important things. "I do that all the time," Kate says, and soon she opens up a Philosophy Booth to provide answers to life's big and small questions for $2 a pop. But who can answer Kate's questions? Where does her grandmother go in her truck at night? And why won't she talk about Kate's mother? These are hard questions to answer, and Kate gets help from two kids who come into her life. Myndeelee, who moves into the house behind Gran's, and Brandon, who Gran seems to hate, though Kate can't figure out why."--
Subjects: Families; Grandmothers; Friendship; Survival; Self-reliance in children;

The fifth season : creativity in the second half of life / by Nepo, Mark,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Now in his seventies, poet and philosopher Mark Nepo explores the rhythms of aging in the second half of life. As the years go by, the question for each of us becomes more and more real: What does it mean to age? Despite the limitations that come as the body wears down, Mark Nepo believes that there are many gifts to inhabit by aging. So much is gained and so much is shed along the way. As Mark began to reflect on the gifts and challenges of this process we're all immersed in, he realized, more than ever, that we are called to live a creative life as we age. We are led to what the Chinese call "the fifth season" -- that moment in late summer when the glare of the sun fades so that we can see clearly the true colors around us. The Fifth Season offers Mark's wise and gentle insights on growing older, helping readers identify the second half of life as a turning point, a time of integration and transformation that guides us in making sense of our experiences. All seasons lead to this season; all experiences lead to this understanding of experience. In truth, Mark writes, we each must face living and dying from the inside of the one life we are given. But we can share the journey, which is the purpose of this book, to be a companion in your effort to enter the fifth season of your life"--
Subjects: Aging.; Older people; Older people;

An alphabet for Joanna : a portrait of my mother in 26 fragments / by Rogers, Damian,author.;
"Throughout her life, acclaimed poet Damian Rogers was never given a satisfactory account of the circumstances around her birth. The "truth" behind the stories she was told by her mother--the free-spirited, beautiful and often troubled Joanna--constantly shifted, and Damian could collect only fragments: a trip to California, a mysterious trauma, a miscarriage followed by a psychotic break, and a dramatic return to Detroit, pregnant. Now, in the present day, as 40-year-old Damian copes with Joanna's debilitating frontal-lobe dementia, she realizes she may never truly uncover the full story. At once a riveting portrait of a time and place (Detroit and Southern California from the mid-1960s to the late-1980s), an unconventional mother-daughter saga, and an exploration of how memory constantly shapes and reshapes our intimate relationships, at its heart An Alphabet for Joanna is a meditation on the relationship between mental illness and creative life. Damian Rogers writes effortlessly across genres, including lyrical memoir, investigative reporting, and powerful philosophical reflection, as she pieces together the ways we build lives out of stories. And by tracing her mother's deterioration into the present day, she poignantly shows how, even when memory fails, we remain connected through art, empathy, and imagination."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Rogers, Damian.; Rogers, Damian; Children of mentally ill mothers; Mentally ill mothers; Mothers and daughters.; Poets, Canadian (English);

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