The stars hold mystery and truth for many people – myself being one of them. I grew up wanting to be an astronomer until I realized how much math was involved, and have always been fascinated by astrology as well. October brought Mercury into retrograde and, like many others, I’m still not sure what that means for my sign. If you’re like me and want to find out what your sun, moon, and rising signs are, check out the titles below for some books TBPL has to get you started.
With so much information to dive into, it can be a bit overwhelming. But if you’re interested in Western astrology, look no further than The Secret Language of Astrology: The Illustrated Key To Unlocking the Secrets of the Stars by Roy Gillet. Rather than page upon page of text, this book is well laid out and not intimidating at all. Gillet lays out astrology’s past in different cultures so you can see where the practice came from, and quickly moves onto explaining the planets. I found it super interesting that Gillet includes what the pattern each planet’s rotation around the sun looks like, as well as its attributes and some insight into the mythology behind the names. And that’s only the first quarter of the book! Gillet goes into detail about each sign of course, and discusses birth charts and how to read them.
If you’re more interested in discovering the Chinese Zodiac I would look to The Complete Book of Chinese Horoscopes by Lori Ried. As many people already know, in the Chinese zodiac your sign is determined by the year and month you were born rather than the day and month and right now we are in the Year of the Rat. Each sign is repeated every 12 years and the signs are very different from Western Zodiac signs. This book will help you understand each sign day-to-day as well as through different aspects of life.
A really cool book we have about Western astrology is called Blame Your Planet: A Wicked Astrological Tour Through the Darkside of the Zodiac by Stella Hyde. It’s exactly what you think it’ll be — a dark look into your personality. Hyde doesn’t pull any punches and digs deep into what the “darkside” of your sign means for you. Many times the qualities that are normally associated with your sign are flipped on their head; described as reaching for the stars? Nope, you are actually hiding from all your problems and forcing others to deal with them! It was a wildly entertaining and surprisingly insightful read.
Some might find it helpful while reading these books or doing their own research to have Parkers’ Encyclopedia of astrology by Julie and Derek Parker on hand. This book is a complete encyclopedia to explain what different terms mean, such as that Hercules is “a hypothetical planet said to rule Leo.” Who knew!
Of course, the Library has many books about astrology and they’re easy to find! In our online catalogue (search.tbpl.ca) you can search “astrology” or “zodiac” and many more options will show up. To place a hold on any of these titles, you can go online to your library account or call 345-8275 to place a hold.
Nicole Koroscil
Thunder Bay Public Library's Book Blog 
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