Books

  As the temporary custodians of relatively short lifespans, humanity has always looked longingly at the idea of immortality. Everything from the fabled Fountain of Youth through to vampires and religious dogma (though in many cases you have to die to get this extension to your lifespan, rather complicating the Continue Reading

  With a built-in warning that humanity is its own worst enemy – by a considerable margin and that’s without a nasty zombie-creating virus on the loose in the world – Deadline picks up the shambling good work of its brilliant predecessor Feed, and runs with it, far faster than Continue Reading

  When it comes to popular parlance, love, to put it mildly, is a popular topic. Whether we are falling into it, breaking up with it, celebrating its longevity or mourning its unexpected brevity, it consumes a lot of pop culture air. For all that well-deserved ubiquity, one aspect of Continue Reading

Young adult literature is starting to explore death in depth. Erin Farrow, Victoria University The inevitable and universal nature of death has made it a popular topic of children’s literature. While death has appeared in these stories for centuries, death in young adult novels has become much darker and more Continue Reading

  Childhood is, on a whole lot of levels, a time when we figure a whole lot of stuff out. It’s messy, it’s fun, it’s complicated, it’s not; what it is above all though is a training ground for the rest of life, figuring out who we are, what we Continue Reading

  As a young gay man growing up in a Christian household back in the ’70s and ’80s, there was a distinct moment, most likely several really, when it dawned on me with a sickening sense of dread that I was not like everyone else around me. All the good Continue Reading

  The loss of Maurice Sendak in 2012 was a cruel blow for anyone who delights in brilliantly-imaginative stories for children. He was a fearless writer and illustrator, happy to buck trends and go for broke, unwilling to simple churn out the same old same old because that’s what had Continue Reading

  It is generally agreed that being in the middle of a zombie apocalypse is something you should avoid at all costs, what with the end of civilisation, degradation of humanity and threat of imminent death. But what if the apocalypse came and went, and left society mostly functioning, compromised, Continue Reading