Books

Have you ever had one of those friends who found themselves a new religion or transformative way of thinking, one so powerful that it completely changed and profoundly the way they approached life that they talked about nothing else every time you saw them? Even worse, so enthusiastic was their Continue Reading

There are many predictable, known things in this life but grief, alas, is not one of them. The form it takes is as individual as the person grappling with it, a contrary beast that demands different things of different people, and which is never, ever left behind, though its impact Continue Reading

(cover image courtesy Penguin Australia) SNAPSHOT Set in the landscape of the Australian bush the stories recount a series of conflicts between the lazy, destructive Bottersnikes and good-natured, hardworking Gumbles. Inspiration for the series came from the emerging environmental movement. The two species were intended to represent opposing attitudes towards Continue Reading

Michael Ausiello is a brave man. Though I have never met the highly-respected US entertainment journalist, and know him only by his work on TVLine, which he founded, I have come to this opinion based solely on the heartbreakingly-hilarious book Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies (A Memoir of love, loss Continue Reading

It will surprise precisely no one that the world is a dark and violent place with little of the storied justice so beloved of the sorts of Hollywood thrillers which, by law, must now star only Liam Neeson. That is not to say though that the world is without some Continue Reading

Barney Conroy, a man who never met a confrontation-avoiding lie he didn’t like, who always chose complicated cover-ups over the simplest and easiest of responses to any given situation and who yet somehow ended up with the love of his life, Gloria, and a delightfully-sweet daughter Emily, is back as Continue Reading

The apocalypse is once again upon us. Not so good if you like running water, mobile phone service or law and order and human civility; but great if you, like me, are looking for a fresh take on the end of the world. With Peng Shepherd’s richly-intimate, vibrantly-magical The Book Continue Reading

For all the existential car crashes it has left in its wake, humanity remains a curiously-upbeat species. It must be an evolutionary quirk that enables us to stare disaster and loss, much of it of our own creation, in the face and still believe, all evidence to the contrary, that Continue Reading