(courtesy Hachette Australia) It’s a truism of any form of storytelling that genres generally come with cast-iron rules. If you want to write in those genres, and have people, in this case, read your books, you have to include certain tropes and cliches to keep the punters happy; however, simply Continue Reading
Books
New releases May book review: Good Boy by Michelle Wright
(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) There are some books you read, and then are others, and good lord if Good Boy by Michelle Wright isn’t one of them, that you experience, you live, you breathe and you don’t soon forget. A novel about the most unique of second chances, Continue Reading
Movie review: Remarkably Bright Creatures
(courtesy IMP Awards) If you had someone die who was absolutely central to your world, and whose absence makes it feel considerably smaller and barren, then you will understand the wholly disorienting sense of everything feeling like it just STOPS. The world might keep moving around you with its customary Continue Reading
New releases May book review: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) If you have even a modicum of self awareness and personal integrity, the idea of pretending to be something you’re not often doesn’t sit well with you. The only way you can live with a fake persona and your real self sitting cheek-by-jowl is to Continue Reading
There’s something magical about the creation of upcoming stop-motion wonder, Wildwood
(courtesy official LAIKA Studios YouTube channel) SNAPSHOTStep inside Laika’s Wildwood, where a powerful golden eagle commands the skies and magic takes flight. Wildwood – based on Colin Meloy’s illustrated book series – will see Prue McKeel leave behind her home of Portland, Oregon, venturing into Wildwood on a dark quest to save Continue Reading
From fossicking for fossils to a champion for life on Earth: Sir David Attenborough at 100 (curated article) #Happy100thDA
(courtesy The Conversation / BBC, CC BY-NC-ND) Article by Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University (via The Conversation) Sir David Attenborough turns 100 this week. Very few people have the good fortune to live for a century. Fewer still achieve Continue Reading
A lifetime of service to the natural world – and those who love it: Happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough! #Happy100thDA
One of the great and much-loved constants of my life has been the presence of Sir David Attenborough in many of the natural world documentaries I have watched and have come to love. A man who clearly loves, champions and advocates for his very precious subject matter, who possesses a Continue Reading
New releases May book review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
As a reviewer who knows a metric ton of books in a year, I have come across a few “second chances” books in my time, stories which ask what might happen if socially isolated or broken people burdened by past mistakes were given the opportunity to remake their lives (deliberately Continue Reading
Book (ish) review: Star Wars: The Perfect Weapon (short story) #StarWars #Maythe4thBeWithYou
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) One of the more enjoyable pop culture trends of recent years has been the willingness to give less iconic characters a little more time in the storytelling sun. Concomitant with this, has been an appetite for imbuing these characters, good and bad, with more humanity and Continue Reading
UPCOMING READ: As We Fall Through Time by Claire North
(courtesy Hachette Australia) SNAPSHOTFrom the multi-award-winning Claire North comes an extraordinary and epic tale of time travel, betrayal and a love that echoes through the centuries. In the beginning, the world will end. This is the story of what happens next. When Cal meets a soldier of the French Revolution, Continue Reading