This group is for serious readers who enjoy reading and discussing thoughtful intelligent books. It is an off-shoot of the Toronto Non-Fiction Book Club, a thriving discussion group that has been running for several years. We are experimenting with a second location for people who live in the west GTA and would like something closer to home (Brampton, Burlington, Milton, Mississauga, Oakville, Toronto, etc.).
https://sites.google.com/site/wgtanfb/home
New members and ideas are welcome - please join here: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/wgnb
Book Selection Guidelines:
Non-fiction - to help keep connected to the content.
300 or fewer pages (or increments of) - to allow time to complete before the upcoming meeting within a month.
Accessible library copy - to be cost-efficient.
Decently rated/reviewed - ~ 4.2 or higher on Good Reads.
Discussion-oriented.
Explainer, Elucidator, Enchanter: A Gradation of Great Writing
Mississauga, ON
Founded Nov 7, 2013
The Successive Meeting:
The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin
,
Ken Liu
(Translator)
4.08
441,572 ratings42,268 reviews
Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.
Genres
Science Fiction
Fiction
Audiobook
China
Fantasy
Book Club
Science Fiction Fantasy
...more
472 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2006
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-problem?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_6
The Successive Meeting:
No book for break
The Successive Meeting:
Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters
Serhii Plokhy
4.11
1,429 ratings166 reviews
A chilling account of more than half a century of nuclear catastrophes, by the author of the “definitive” (Economist) Cold War history, Nuclear Folly.
Almost 145,000 Americans fled their homes in and around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in late March 1979, hoping to save themselves from an invisible enemy: radiation. The reactor at the nearby Three Mile Island nuclear power plant had gone into partial meltdown, and scientists feared an explosion that could spread radiation throughout the eastern United States. Thankfully, the explosion never took place—but the accident left deep scars in the American psyche, all but ending the nation’s love affair with nuclear power.
In Atoms and Ashes, Serhii Plokhy recounts the dramatic history of Three Mile Island and five more accidents that that have dogged the nuclear industry in its military and civil incarnations: the disastrous fallout caused by the testing of the hydrogen bomb in the Bikini Atoll in 1954; the Kyshtym nuclear disaster in the USSR, which polluted a good part of the Urals; the Windscale fire, the worst nuclear accident in the UK’s history; back to the USSR with Chernobyl, the result of a flawed reactor design leading to the exodus of 350,000 people; and, most recently, Fukushima in Japan, triggered by an earthquake and a tsunami, a disaster on a par with Chernobyl and whose clean-up will not take place in our lifetime.
Through the stories of these six terrifying incidents, Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances. Today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the world, with nuclear power providing 10 percent of global electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is nuclear energy?
Genres
History
Nonfiction
Science
Politics
Technology
Russia
Audiobook
...more
345 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2022
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59011975-atoms-and-ashes
The Successive Meeting:
Painkiller
https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81095069
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69807523-pain-killer
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxycontin.html
The Successive Meeting: