January 22, 2025 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2025. Once upon a time, a certain reader devoured all of Agatha Christie’s novels in one roughly year-long go at the suggestion of his book-loving dad who saw the works of the masterful English crime writer as Continue Reading

Book review: Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

(courtesy Hachette Australia) If you were a cinemagoer in the ’80s and ’90s, when big budget action blockbusters were at their inarguable height, you would well acquainted with what it’s like for innocent people to get caught up in a situation far bigger than themselves. These are usually not the Continue Reading

AFFFF25 movie review: Meet the Leroys (Nous, les Leroy)

(courtesy IMDb) The end of something is always bittersweet. Even the final moments of something awful comes with a sense of mourning for what otherwise might have been; but when it’s something like a marriage between two people who were once genuinely in love, that sense of loss and grief Continue Reading

Book review: Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods

(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) It has oft been noted that there is nothing new under the sun, and while the Bible got the ball rolling on that one, plenty of others have taken up the cry that try as we might to be creatively original or to dream up a Continue Reading

Old friends. New Roommates. Thoughts on Mid-Century Modern

(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s all too easy form some people to dismiss sitcoms as disposable TV, something you watch for an escapist laugh and nothing more. And while there’s nothing wrong with losing yourself in quick gags and sparkling quips that punctuate storylines that only run to 22 minutes or Continue Reading

Movie review: Bob Trevino Likes It

(courtesy IMP Awards) People need people. No, that is not inspired by the 1964 Barbra Streisand track of almost the same name but by the simple recognition of the innate sociability of the human species. We need to belong. We need to matter, and at a profound level, and when Continue Reading

Book review: My Hot Housemate by Susannah Hardy

(courtesy Hawkeye Publishing) Let’s get one thing clear right from the start – we love literary romantic comedies because, and yes, there will be a lot of this particular word, we love LOVE. Who doesn’t want to read about someone battling insurmountable, wretched circumstances, crash ‘n’ burn existential hell and Continue Reading

Chef. Spy. Lover. Carême tells the story of arguably the world’s first celebrity chef

(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTCarême follows the thrilling story of the world’s first celebrity chef, Antonin Carême (starring Benjamin Voisin), who rose from humble beginnings in poverty in Paris right up to the height of culinary stardom in Napoleon’s Europe. While he dreams only of becoming the most famous chef in Continue Reading

Book review: The Lamplighter’s Bookshop by Sophie Austin

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Challenging the status quo is never an easy task. Especially when it’s 19th century England, where Victorian propriety of the most suffocating kind rules, at least for those in the upper classes, and where one small step, however intentional or unintentional, can mean social death Continue Reading

The short and the short of it: Overcoming fear to help others movingly infuses the delightful The Robot and the Whale

(courtesy IMDb (c) Premium Films) SNAPSHOTA long time ago humans left the planet Earth. Lobo, a cheerful robot who loves animals and plants one day meets a stranded whale on the beach. Lobo will have to overcome his fear of water in order to save her, but it’s not easy Continue Reading

Book review: Space Brooms! by A. G. Rodriguez

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) A digital preview copy of Space Brooms! provided by Angry Robot Books in return for an honest and objective review; the novel releases 29 April 2025. When I switched on the phone to read the graciously suppled preview pdf of Space Brooms! by A. G. Rodriguez, Continue Reading

A revolution begins … Thoughts on Silo season 2

Book review: The Serial Killer’s Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Choiunard