Books

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Ltd.) There is so much power in just being yourself. This reviewer didn’t see it for years, hemmed in by strident opinions from “those who knew better” in the church and in a slew of other places, and I suspect that the eponymous protagonist of Flora’s Continue Reading

(courtesy official author site) Falling in love at Christmas is de rigueur if you want to mark the season properly. That or finding Santa Claus when he’s missing and saving Christmas in the process; but given how tough finding love can be often, maybe finding the big man in red Continue Reading

(via Shutterstock) I am like a big kid when it comes to Christmas. I have always loved the season and one of my favourite things is reading as many Christmassy books as I can get my hands on; these guys they are more adult in tone and style but my Continue Reading

(courtesy Storm Publishing) While any kind of Christmas romcom is usually good for the soul, helping you to believe in redemption, healing and true love, the really good ones, at least for this reader, also project a strong sense of cosy and supportive community. That’s important because finding your special Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books) When you love dearly dies, suddenly everything about them becomes vitally and inviolably important. That hit home very hard to me in the wake of the passing of my dad (2016) and then my mum (2019); suddenly I need to watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation every year, Continue Reading

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Ever since Charles Dickens published his novella A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas aka A Christmas Carol in 1843, it has been adapted repeatedly (almost immediately as a play in 1844), its universally relevant truth of finding redemption in the Continue Reading

(courtesy Amazon) Life’s “Great and Terrible Sadnesses” have a way of wiping absolutely everything before them and even reducing a season full of love and good cheer like Christmas to a dull, depressive footnote in a long line of unremarkably barren calendar moments. That’s certainly been the experience of Grace Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Ever since I discovered her breakthrough sitcom Miranda, I have loved the whimsy and old-fashioned chatty cheerfulness of comedian/writer/actor Miranda Hart with the sort of enthusiasm that people much younger than me reserve for zeitgeist-heavy K-Pop bands. She embodies all of the fun and silliness of Continue Reading

(courtesy NetGalley) Life is full to the brim with traumatic moments. Hardly a surprise there; while most of us head into life all wide-eyes, enthusiastic and bushy-tailed, believing no harm can befoul us and all we will have are sunshine and rainbows, we soon discover life, alas, has other ideas. Continue Reading