Star-Struck

Detractors, including pretty well every astronomer on Earth, dismiss it as utter folly. Yet roughly one-quarter of Canadians adults, and many more millions around the world, believe the changing position of celestial bodies affects their lives. In Star-struck: My Adventures in Astrology, feature writer Leslie Scrivener explores the practice, which began in 2000 BCE and continues to be a mainstay of popular culture and newspaper horoscope columns. She meets the astrologers, gets her “chart” done and grapples with something that has no scientific backing but whose practitioners seem generous and humanistic.

Star Dispatches is a weekly series of quality journalism in ebook form from the newsroom of the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper.