January 28, 2026 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) What does it mean to live a good life? We all have airily vague ideas of what that might entail from doing good to others to treating people with kindness to not using plastic and prioritising people over digital obsession. But it’s wide and open Continue Reading

Graphic novel review: Assorted Crisis Events Vol. 1 by Deniz Camp (writer) and Eric Zawadzki (artist)

(courtesy Image Comics) God bless humanity – for a complicated, contrary and multifaceted species, we sure do like to keep things simple. A clear example of our preference for everything being deliciously binary or linear is the way we view time which, depending on who you ask is multiversal in Continue Reading

Book review: Here and Beyond by Hal LaCroix

(courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing) We live in troubling times. Hardly a news flash there; one glance at the nightly news is enough to traumatise you with updates on the creeping annihilation of climate change, the democracy-decimating horrors of fascism and the possibilities of new pandemics, fresh wars and death and violence Continue Reading

The short and the short of it: Grief and letting go in the digital spotlight in Light Hearted

(courtesy Little Black Book Online (c) Sye Allen) SNAPSHOTLight Hearted, a new short film from director Sye Allen, is a poignant look at what happens to life once it has been touched by grief. Joy, a widow, has her own routine in place. It’s a quiet life with the absence Continue Reading

Book review: Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Before her life gets massively and royally upended, Margo Millet’s life is not an easy one. Caught between a narcissistic mother who does love daughter but only on very conditional grounds and an absent ex-pro wrestler father who is loving but only in her life when he Continue Reading

Nature’s greatest empire … witness the rise and fall of The Dinosaurs

(courtesy First Showing (c) Netflix) SNAPSHOTWelcome to The Dinosaurs – an epic journey into a lost world. From executive producer Steven Spielberg, Amblin Documentaries, and the award‑winning team behind Life on Our Planet, this groundbreaking doc series follows the rise and fall of the dinosaurs across hundreds of millions of Continue Reading

Valentine’s Day movie review redux: You’ve Got Mail

(courtesy IMP Awards) They were heady days back in the late ’90s. Back before there were omnipresent online ads enticing you impulsively and immediately purchase you didn’t know you wanted, or Twitter became a bonfire of shouted opinions or inboxes became a stressful hallmark of cubicle serfdom, receiving an email Continue Reading

Valentine’s Day book review: Better Than the Real Thing by Brooke Crawford

This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026 “Life,” declares the front cover tagline of Brooke Crawford’s debut novel, Better Than the Real Thing, “is messy.” The central character of this rawly emotionally honest romcom, which serves up a potential fairytale ending but not Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more Valentine’s Day songs #133: MIKA, Go-Jo, Harry Styles, St. Lucia + Maisie Peters

(via Shutterstock) Ain’t love grand? It is, it absolutely is, but it’s also confusing and complex and hard and wondrous and alive and dying and full of hope and crushed by loss. It’s so many things, and while it’s ultimately a good and powerful thing, it needs songs that speak Continue Reading

Valentine’s Day book review: Swept Away by Beth O’Leary

(courtesy Hachette Australia) As premises go, the one what washes through Swept Away by Beth O’Leary is a doozy. We are meant to believe, and honestly you will trust us, that two people can retire to a houseboat for a one-night stand and find themselves, the next day, floating to Continue Reading

Joy to what’s left of the world … Thoughts on Fallout S2

(courtesy IMP Awards) The end of the world is generally considered to be a fairly awful, lawless, dark and terrible place where civility has died and base humanity rules in all its terrible glory. You know it, I know it and Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), ex-Vault 33 Dweller and unexpected Continue Reading

Book review: The Greatest Possible Good by Ben Brooks

Movie review: Train Dreams