Orrery, by Donna Kane, launches after an impressive countdown

Orrery, by Donna Kane, is a collection of poems inspired by Pioneer 10, a space probe originally launched in 1972 to study the moons of Jupiter. Given the content of the book, the concept of a “book launch” took on a new meaning. A countdown was in order.

Kane asked ten people to submit a reading of a poem from the book, and on each of the ten days counting down to the launch, a video was posted. Harbour Publishing would like to thank all the amazing readers who took part in helping her to launch this book as part of the Countdown Reading Series: 

TEN: Brian Jungen (artist)
NINE: Megan, Ira and Atley MacLeod
EIGHT: Katherin Edwards (writer)
SEVEN: Charles Kux-Kardos (National Space Institute member)
SIX: Dr. Matthew Shindell (Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum)
FIVE: Dava Sobel (science writer, author of Galileo’s Daughter)
FOUR: Wayne Sawchuk (wilderness guide and writer)
THREE: Erín Moure (writer and translator)
TWO: Bob MacDonald (host of CBC’s Quirks and Quarks)
ONE: Mark Wolverton (author)

Mark Wolverton is the final reader, and the author of The Depths of Space: The Story of the Pioneer Planetary Probes: the only book we know of dedicated solely to the Pioneer probes. The book served as the key resource for Donna Kane’s own research into Pioneer 10.