Books

  Just like life itself, Caraval is equal parts enchanting magic, and devious darkness, a journey into the very heart of humanity wrapped in a thousand colours of the rainbow. Colour features strongly indeed in Stephanie Garber’s debut novel, which pivots on the idea that magic abounds around us if Continue Reading

  SNAPSHOT Library and Information Week, held from 21-27 May 2018 with the theme “Find yourself in a Library” aims to raise the profile of libraries and information service professionals in Australia. It gives libraries and information services the opportunity to showcase their resources, facilities, events, contacts and services through different Continue Reading

  We live in a world of constant change. That’s not a newsflash to anyone who’s paying even the smallest bit of attention to the fast-moving pace of the modern world, but if you compare it to the relative slow unfolding of history, where major innovations took decades to take Continue Reading

  Once again the worlds have come to an end. No, that is not a typo – I do indeed mean multiple worlds; for in Anne Corlett’s impressive debut novel The Space Between the Stars – the title is a reference to hearing the voice of “god”, however you interpret Continue Reading

  What makes you happy? Kind of stumped for an answer? Don’t worry. it’s a question that leaves a lot of people flat-footed, including the first-person protagonist of David Machado’s illuminating novel The Shelf Life of Happiness which beautifully and blisteringly honestly examines what makes us happy. Or given this Continue Reading

  I don’t care who you are – getting a book published is a pretty damn big, ridiculously-exciting, thrilling and amazingly good thing to happen! Even if you’re the famed Duplass Brothers, who have given us films like Safety Not Guaranteed and Skeleton Twins, and TV shows like Togetherness and Continue Reading

  Alex Woods is a quirky guy. A very quirky guy. But then that’s what makes the protagonist of The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence such an endearing, affecting delight. Struck by a 2kg meteorite at the age of 10 when it comes hurtling, rather destructively, through the Continue Reading

  First Contact in science fiction storytelling is normally an eminently serious undertaking, with the meeting of alien and human usually presaging some great generation-defining moment that may be good or bad but is never less than gravely portentous. In Kylie Chan’s Scales of Empire, a sci-fi novel and the Continue Reading

  Who hasn’t, at one time or another, wished for a little more magic in their lives? In Robert Dinsdale’s The Toymakers, there is fantastically magical realism in abundance but you end up questioning much of the time, even in a book as beautiful as this often but not always Continue Reading

  There is a tendency to see comedians are endlessly, blissfully happy people, full to the brim with bonhomie and good cheer, their minds, and souls, a captivating whirl of good thoughts, humourous observations and pithy, funny oneliners. But as Robin Williams proved all too devastatingly, that is often far Continue Reading