Classic Books

Let's get together at the food court just east of Bloor/Yonge Station and discuss books that interest us! Books we're reading, books we've read or books we'd like to read. Fiction, non-fiction, short stories, poetry, magazine articles, comic books...

\*These classes are not a language exchange, but instead are meant to be a step in between so that students feel confident maintaining in depth and grammatically correct oral conversations outside of class\* \***Meetup event numbers only tend to show new students registering and do not include returning students attending class.** **Per class, there is an average of 7 students.** The first 2 classes are free and then only cost between $15 and $35 depending on which type of class you want to continue with\* These French, English (For Spanish and French speakers only), and Spanish classes are primarily meant for adults who are travellers, or who are planning to live in a French, English, or Spanish-speaking country. The classes are primarily oral-based through guided conversations. They will teach you how to handle conversations in situations such as **"Going to the Convenience Store"**, **"Making Plans"**, **"Negotiating Prices"**, and **"Going out for a Drink"**. To ensure that students get used to using the language automatically, students will learn to maintain contextual conversations with timing before moving on to the next lesson. Call (647)787-9953, e-mail us info@monkeylingo.ca, or visit monkeylingo.ca for more information! **Online and private classes are also available!** No other language classes are as conversational as these ones. We guarantee it! Cheap parking can be found using the "Spot Hero" app.

**NO PHILOSOPHY EXPERTISE REQUIRED!** **🏛️ WHAT'S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY ABOUT?** Practical Philosophy is a weekly meet-up that brings critical thinkers together for an opportunity to dive deep on a topic, practice communicating, and building a community. All with no ‘official’ philosophy knowledge required! 😎 Practical Philosophy is based on the idea that philosophy should be accessible to all, and not something reserved only for academics. Each week we choose a topic, and the goal is to use the conversation to develop our critical thinking and communication as we explore that topic. The goal is to help develop our Critical Thinking, Communication, and Community 🙌 **📓 HOW DOES IT WORK?** Each week, we pick one topic and discuss it. The topic for the week is shared, generally in the [Whatsapp group](https://chat.whatsapp.com/B7LyJIeBlaH5VtXkMJTTph?mode=gi_t), along with jump-off points to get the conversation going. When groups get bigger than 7-8 people, it’s important that we break into smaller groups. This way we are able to maintain a conversational flow as opposed to having our meetups feel like a discourse or lecture. **General Meeting Agenda** Each Practical Philosophy meet-up follows this general timeline: * 19:30-19:45 - People arrive and chat, get to know each other before the official start. * 19:45-19:55 - Meeting introduction, explanation of Practical Philosophy and the topic for the week, read the guidelines and the overview so attendees know what to expect in terms of timelines. * 19:55-21:15 - Break into small groups - introduce yourselves and general thoughts on the topic, open discussion afterwards. At this point the group can review the ‘jump-off’ questions as needed, but they are just there to help guide the conversation. It’s not obligatory to answer them. * 21:15-21:30 - Bring everyone back together to discuss conclusions of the topic - each group gives a short 1-minute summary. Organizer concludes the meeting and everyone takes a group photo. * 21:30 - The official meeting is over but it’s a great opportunity to get to know people in a non-structured environment, so we often stick around, chat, and get to know each other. **🧧PRICING?** Practical Philosophy is operated entirely on voluntary donations! If we are meeting in a café, buy a beverage! Donations are 100% voluntary, but they help us to bring the gift of deep conversation to people around the world. If you'd like to support, you can [donate here](https://www.zeffy.com/en-CA/donation-form/donate-to-practical-philosophy)! (Practical Philosophy is a registered Canadian charity) **💛 WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY** **🗣** “I feel like Philosophy Club helps someone build their own belief system through a series of perspectives while not promoting what’s right and wrong” - Ekam 🗣 “I got hooked from day 1 and felt it was the right place for me. I feel it is a place where people can go to learn and discuss new perspectives and increase critical thinking and community by interacting with people who might challenge your point of views but at the same time encourage you to have openness and mind flexibility.” - Daniel **🤓 FAQ** * **​What will we talk about? What's the topic?** ​The topic for the week is shared every Sunday in the Whatsapp group. We try to add the topic to the comment section on this event page as well but if you don’t see it, the topic and the jump-off points will be in our [Whatsapp](https://chat.whatsapp.com/B7LyJIeBlaH5VtXkMJTTph?mode=gi_t). * **Do I need to study or read anything to attend?** No preparation is necessary. This isn’t a study of other thinkers. We want to know what you think about the topic, not what an old philosopher thought. If you have a perspective from a religion or a school of thought to share, throw it on the table and we’ll discuss it. * **Is there a specific philosophy that Practical Philosophy is focused on?** The goal of our meet-ups is to not have dogmatic discussions, and flex our critical thinking muscles. Because of this, we want to hear from every realm of thought, and don't study a particular school. * **Is it mostly men that attend?** Surprisingly, no! Although often, philosophy is seen as a Candelabra affair in a dark room with a bunch of guys, our Practical Philosophy meetups are generally 50/50 between genders, and we don’t meet in any dark rooms. * **Can I come alone?** Of course you can, we encourage it :) * **Can I be late?** Please don't be! We do have a 15 minute grace period where we allow people to funnel in while we hang out, but after that if you arrive too late, it disrupts the flow of the conversation. * **Where do you meet?** The location is posted in Meetup and our [Whatsapp](https://chat.whatsapp.com/B7LyJIeBlaH5VtXkMJTTph?mode=gi_t) group for this location. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you join the Whatsapp group! If you want to know what other cities have a Practical Philosophy Club, you can see our chapters on our [website](https://www.practicalphilosophy.club/practical-philosophy-locations/). 🤝**POLICY** To respect our members privacy, we ask that no one privately message a member without first getting explicit consent. (This looks like speaking in person and being asked to message privately.) Contacting or texting other participants without prior consent is not permitted and may result in removal from the group. Practical Philosophy reserves the right to enforce this policy at its discretion to maintain a safe and respectful environment. **PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY CLUB - Philosophy, everywhere. ✨** We started in Practical Philosophy back in 2021 and there are now 50+ chapters in over 25 countries, including Canada, Spain, Japan, Mexico and many more! 🗺️ **\*\*\*** **Join our Toronto [Whatsapp Group](https://chat.whatsapp.com/B7LyJIeBlaH5VtXkMJTTph?mode=gi_t) 👈** **Follow us on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/practicalphilosophyclub/) 👈** **Our [website](https://www.practicalphilosophy.club/) 👈**

\*These classes are not a language exchange, but instead are meant to be a step in between so that students feel confident maintaining in depth and grammatically correct oral conversations outside of class\* \***Meetup event numbers only tend to show new students registering and do not include returning students attending class.** **Per class, there is an average of 7 students.** The first 2 classes are free and then only cost between $18 and $35 depending on which type of class you want to continue with\* These French, English (For Spanish and French speakers only), and Spanish classes are primarily meant for adults who are travellers, or who are planning to live in a French, English, or Spanish-speaking country. The classes are primarily oral-based through guided conversations. They will teach you how to handle conversations in situations such as **"Going to the Convenience Store"**, **"Making Plans"**, **"Negotiating Prices"**, and **"Going out for a Drink"**. To ensure that students get used to using the language automatically, students will learn to maintain contextual conversations with timing before moving on to the next lesson. Call (647)787-9953, e-mail us info@monkeylingo.ca, or visit monkeylingo.ca for more information! **Online and private classes are also available!** No other language classes are as conversational as these ones. We guarantee it! Cheap parking can be found using the "Spot Hero" app.

We’re thrilled to invite you to an exciting meetup! We'll have one talk presented by an Elastic employee and one presented by a community member. Bring your questions and come support the community! **Agenda** **5:00 PM** – Doors Open Come in, say hello, grab some food, and settle in for an engaging evening. **5:45 PM** – **"Lessons from evaluating production AI Agents for over a year", presented by** Susan Chang, Principal Data Scientist at Elastic **6:15 PM** – Q&A **6:30 PM** – "**Elasticsearch Journey – Working in Different Industries", presented by** Yasir Zaid, Elastic Certified Engineer **7:00 PM** – Q&A **7:15 PM** – Networking & Event Wrap-Up Stick around to chat, connect, and share insights with fellow attendees. **When:** Thursday, May 14th 5:00 - 7:00 pm **Where:** [Centre for Social Innovation - Spadina](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=43.650017%2C%20-79.397156) 192 Spadina Ave. · Toronto, ON 3rd floor, The Viola Desmond Room **Abstracts** **"Lessons from evaluating production AI Agents for over a year"** This talk covers methods of evaluating AI Agents, with an example of how the speakers built evaluation frameworks for a user-facing AI Agent system which has been in production for over a year. We share tools and frameworks used (as well as tradeoffs and alternatives), and discuss methods such as LLM-as-Judge, rules-based evaluations, ML metrics used, as well as selection tradeoffs. **Bio:** Susan Shu Chang is a Principal Data Scientist at Elastic, where she leads work on production-grade machine learning, including generative AI and agentic workflows. She is also an internationally recognized speaker, O’Reilly author, and keynote presenter at major global technical conferences. **My Elasticsearch Journey – Working in Different Industries** This talk explores Yasir Zaidi’s hands-on experience using Elastic products to deliver strategic solutions across banking, insurance, and telecommunications. Through real-world examples, the session will cover how Elasticsearch and the broader Elastic Stack have been used for search architecture, security, SIEM, and observability, along with some of the newer and more exciting projects now being built with Elastic. The talk will also highlight recent Elasticsearch features and innovations, and how they are opening up new possibilities for modern enterprise use cases. **Bio:** Yasir Zaidi is the Owner of ZD Inc. ([https://zd-inc.net/](https://zd-inc.net/)) and Elasticsearch Experts ([https://elasticsearch.expert/](https://elasticsearch.expert/)), and Co-Founder of 360metrics ([https://www.360metrics.io/](https://www.360metrics.io/)) and Certified Elasticsearch Partner Solution Architect. He has delivered hundreds of Elasticsearch projects for organizations around the world, with experience spanning Observability, SIEM, Enterprise search, Cloud deployments, and AI-powered search solutions, Serverless and much more. His work includes engagements with Ericsson, SAP, Intact Insurance, Videotron, RONA, Geotab and Desjardins Bank, just to name a few. Backed by three master’s degrees and Elastic certifications, Yasir brings deep technical expertise and proven global delivery experience. Linkedin: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasirzaidi/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasirzaidi/) Spots are limited, so don't miss out!

\*These classes are not a language exchange, but instead are meant to be a step in between so that students feel confident maintaining in depth and grammatically correct oral conversations outside of class\* \***Meetup event numbers only tend to show new students registering and do not include returning students attending class.** **Per class, there is an average of 7 students.** The first 2 classes are free and then only cost between $18 and $35 depending on which type of class you want to continue with\* These French, English (For Spanish and French speakers only), and Spanish classes are primarily meant for adults who are travellers, or who are planning to live in a French, English, or Spanish-speaking country. The classes are primarily oral-based through guided conversations. They will teach you how to handle conversations in situations such as **"Going to the Convenience Store"**, **"Making Plans"**, **"Negotiating Prices"**, and **"Going out for a Drink"**. To ensure that students get used to using the language automatically, students will learn to maintain contextual conversations with timing before moving on to the next lesson. Call (647)787-9953, e-mail us info@monkeylingo.ca, or visit monkeylingo.ca for more information! **Online and private classes are also available!** No other language classes are as conversational as these ones. We guarantee it! Cheap parking can be found using the "Spot Hero" app.

\*\***The Toronto History Walks Yearly Pass is available. Get it now for $125.00 for 1 year of unlimited tours, email** **torontohistorywalks@gmail.com** **for more information or for signing up!\*\*** \*\* **Please note: Please e-transfer the ticket amount when booking your space for this tour! You can e-transfer to the following email at:** **torontohistorywalks@gmail.com** The only authorized cemeteries within York were Anglican or Roman Catholic. Citizens who did not belong to either church had no choice but to find burial arrangements outside York. The General Burying Ground received Royal Assent in 1826 and land that came to be known as Potters Field was acquired and started operation soon afterwards. Over time, additional cemetery lands were added and in 1873, a new cemetery available to all citizens was established. The new cemetery was situated on the farm land of the Cawthra family near Yonge Street. This walk is for all fitness levels. Please dress for the weather. This walk will begin and end outside the Yorkminster Park Baptist Church at 1585 Yonge Street just north of Heath Street. This tour has a ticket price of $15.00 per person! This tour has space for **11** explorers, so if you do plan on attending please secure your tickets early. \*\* **Please note: Please e-transfer the ticket amount when booking your space for this tour! You can e-transfer to the following email at:** **torontohistorywalks@gmail.com**

Note you will need to RSVP to attend our event this Saturday May 16 at Danu Social House. You can RSVP here: [https://luma.com/icabijip](https://luma.com/icabijip)

**Don't just read about history. Live it!** [Click here for tickets](https://exploringwithbinetti.ticketspice.com/lunching-with-lady-eaton-may-2026) Relive the charm, style, and sophistication of a bygone time. For one extraordinary afternoon, [The Carlu](http://www.thecarlu.com), perched on the 7th floor of College Park will be transformed back into Eaton’s College Street department store, and the legendary Round Room Restaurant. * Indulge on a menu of classic Eaton’s recipes. * Listen to live music that evokes the spirit of a more glamorous era. * View a vintage fashion show which showcases the fashions from the decades Eaton’s College Street was open - 1930s to 1970s. * Learn about the T. Eaton Company, Lady Eaton, and how Eaton’s transformed downtown Toronto. [Click here for tickets](https://exploringwithbinetti.ticketspice.com/lunching-with-lady-eaton-may-2026)

\*These classes are not a language exchange, but instead are meant to be a step in between so that students feel confident maintaining in depth and grammatically correct oral conversations outside of class\* \***Meetup event numbers only tend to show new students registering and do not include returning students attending class.** **Per class, there is an average of 7 students.** The first 2 classes are free and then only cost between $18 and $36 depending on which type of class you want to continue with\* These French, English (For Spanish and French speakers only), and Spanish classes are primarily meant for adults who are travellers, or who are planning to live in a French, English, or Spanish-speaking country. The classes are primarily oral-based through guided conversations. They will teach you how to handle conversations in situations such as **"Going to the Convenience Store"**, **"Making Plans"**, **"Negotiating Prices"**, and **"Going out for a Drink"**. To ensure that students get used to using the language automatically, students will learn to maintain contextual conversations with timing before moving on to the next lesson. Call (647)787-9953, e-mail us info@monkeylingo.ca, or visit monkeylingo.ca for more information! **Online and private classes are also available!** No other language classes are as conversational as these ones. We guarantee it! Cheap parking can be found using the "Spot Hero" app.

CN Tower - $59 + Tax Ripley's Aquarium - $50 + Tax Food - Pay yourself.

Join us for **The Belle's Stratagem**, a sparkling comedy of manners where wit, romance and clever disguises collide in a battle of the sexes set in 18th-century London.. The play will be presented by Stage Centre Productions at the Fairview Library Theatre in North York. ***You can purchase discount ticket(s) to attend with our group or any available performance.*** **THE PLAY:** In this Restoration comedy, Letitia Hardy is madly in love with her betrothed, but he seems disinterested in her. Desiring to marry a man who adores her equally, she plans a bold deception to win his heart. *** **TICKETS** **Discount Tickets:** $27 (includes HST and meetup fee) **Regular Tickets:** $35 adults, $30 for students / seniors 60+ (includes HST) *** **HOW TO PURCHASE** Sign up on this event page and use the promo code Thup25 to get your discount tickets. You can book **[online](https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=scp)** or by calling the box office at (416) 299-5557. If leaving a voice mail, include your name, phone number, show name and date/time of the performance. You can also send an e-mail to scptickets@gmail.com. ***You do not have to attend with our group. You may use our promo code Thup25 to purchase discount tickets for any available performance.*** Please note the box office may be slow to return your call or email because it's run by volunteers. Be patient. You will eventually receive a response. Members are responsible for purchasing their own tickets directly from the theatre. **Seating Arrangements:** Seating is reserved so members will get together before, during and after the show. Belinda will be seated in B13. *** **OVERVIEW** **When:** Saturday, May 16, 2026 **Time:** Play starts at 8 p.m. Meet Belinda at 7:30 p.m. **Where:** Fairview Library Theatre, 35 Fairview Mall Drive, North York, Ontario (near Don Mills station on the Sheppard subway line) **Runtime:** About 2 hour, 15 minutes (includes intermission) *** **MEETUP ARRANGEMENTS** Meet Belinda at 7:30 p.m. beside the box office inside the lobby. She is very short and will be wearing a bright pink hat and pink eyeglass frames. Cell # (416) 879-7575 for use on day/time of performance ONLY. **Parking:** There is free parking in the lot beside the theatre.

Join us for an engaging history discussion as we explore the Sui and early Tang dynasties, a transformative era that reshaped China after centuries of division. The Sui dynasty reunited the empire in 589, restored centralized rule, expanded the Grand Canal, and launched ambitious military and administrative reforms. Yet its heavy demands on labor and failed campaigns against Goguryeo quickly led to rebellion and collapse. Out of this turmoil rose the Tang dynasty, which built on Sui foundations while creating one of the most powerful and cosmopolitan states in world history. The early Tang era saw imperial expansion, legal and bureaucratic refinement, Buddhist influence, cultural confidence, and the rise of Chang’an as a global capital. **Topics for Discussion** * The Reunification of China under the Sui * Emperor Wen and the Restoration of Centralized Rule * The Construction of the Grand Canal * The Sui Legal and Administrative System * Emperor Yang and Imperial Overreach * The Goguryeo Campaigns * Rebellions and the Fall of the Sui Dynasty * The Rise of Li Yuan and the Founding of the Tang * The Xuanwu Gate Incident and the Rise of Li Shimin * The Tang Legal Code and Bureaucratic Government * Expansion into Central Asia * Chang’an as a Cosmopolitan Capital * Buddhism, Daoism, and Imperial Legitimacy

For our inaugural meat up we will discuss the fan favorite David Grann’s Killers of The Flower Moon. Synopsis: The book investigates a series of murders of wealthy Osage people that took place in Osage County, Oklahoma, in the early 1920s after extensive oil deposits were discovered beneath their land. After the Osage are awarded headrights in court to the profits from oil deposits found on their land, the Osage people prepare to receive the wealth to which they are legally entitled from sales of their oil deposits. The Osage are viewed as the "middle man" and a complex plot is hatched to eliminate the Osage inheritors one by one, by any means possible. Officially, the count of the wealthy Osage victims reaches at least 20 but Grann suspects that perhaps hundreds more may have been killed because of their ties to oil. The book details the new FBI’s investigation of the murders and the eventual trial and conviction of cattleman William King Hale as the mastermind behind the plot. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/193388249-killers-of-the-flower-moon We will meet at ForFive in Rosslyn in the upper floor seating area.

8/3/2025: setting the date, can be adjusted as the date approaches. Looking forward to the gorgeous weather and sparking rose'.

We will meet in the Janney Parlor.

Curl up with a good book and a hot cup of your poison of choice. Maybe start a book club to talk about your favs and read together.

15. Vers La Libération /542 end p. 600. 58 pages.