This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. If we’re honest, most of us live in fairly ordinary, decidedly unexciting cities or towns where everyone is as reasonably straight down the line as you can expect the contrarily idiosyncratic human race to be. They Continue Reading
Books
Book review: Outlaw Planet by M. R. Carey
What an extraordinary story. As you reach the end of Outlaw Planet by M. R. Carey, one of the finest contemporary voices working in science fiction and fantasy, you will be consumed by the idea that here is one of the very best and most human stories you have ever Continue Reading
Book review: Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. At first glance, a novel premised on the idea that one man, moving across America over some decades, managed to start, and crucially, abandon, four families, who then seek to unite many years later via a Continue Reading
Book review: Bookish by Matthew Sweet
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. In the usual course of pop culture back and forth, a TV or streaming show would be watched in that medium, and then, the eager viewer would turn, if they were so inclined, to the book Continue Reading
Book review: The Naked Neanderthal by Ludovic Slimak
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026 It is perhaps inevitable that we filter everything we see through our well-entrenched worldview. Try as we might to look beyond what we intrinsically know and understand, and it is to course possible to do that, Continue Reading
Book review: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. What a magical story is contained in the novella-length pages of Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newtitz. Set in a post-apocalyptic mid-21st century California, which has just won its independence after a brutal war with an insidiously Continue Reading
Book review: Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee Hye
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. If you’re a book lover, you will be well acquainted with the magical power of bookstores to soothe the stressful soul, to calm the rapidly beating heart and to make you feel like all the things Continue Reading
Book review: Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain
(courtesy Simon & Schuster) If the festive season is all about love and renewal, then novels set in summer are all about the capacity of a time of sunshine, outdoors activity and time with friends and family in relaxed setting to recharge the soul and give you a brand new Continue Reading
New Year’s Eve book review: New York, New Year, New You by Rachael Bloome
(courtesy Secret Garden Press) The idea that you can reinvent yourself if you just find the right inciting incident is a seductive one. It defies the idea that who we are at any one point in time is the only person we will ever be, and encourages us to dream Continue Reading
Conquering the TBR like a mountaineer: My top 25 books of 2025
(via Shutterstock) I can overstate how much reading means to me. It makes commutes feel fleeting and full of characters and events and excitement it would otherwise meaningfully lack. It fills my stressy moments with such a profound sense of escapist release. And it dials down my anxiety and sense Continue Reading