Books

  People, by and large, place a great deal of faith in first impressions. They are an unofficial yardstick by which the worth of a person is judged and we cling them as social markers like a drowning man holding tenaciously to a buoy. But it becomes quickly apparent in Continue Reading

  Deep with all of us there is a void in this shape of whatever it is we most crave, need or want. Not all of us will admit it’s there of course, or if we do, be largely aware of the shape it takes, but it is there nonetheless, Continue Reading

  When there are teddy bears involved, going out in the woods today, or any day for that matter, sounds like an altogether delightful undertaking. Not so though if you’re Hayden Bellatrix Holland, possessor of a kickass creative middle name, a distinct lack of warm-and-fuzzy teddies, a fabulously cool housemate Continue Reading

  I am not quite sure how I managed, given her luminously fun and comedically-intelligent personality, to miss Busy Philipps bright and shining presence in our world before I encountered her on Cougar Town, but miss her I did. Not really being into Freaks and Greeks during its brief run Continue Reading

  Which came first? The book or the film? It might look like the easiest of questions to answer since the book almost always precedes the movie (except in major franchise tie-ins but that is a different kettle of promotional and artistic fish entirely); but as with the much-discussed chicken Continue Reading

  It’s a rare thing indeed to reference another review in your own but in this case it’s pertinent because the charmingly appreciative words of Laline Paull, author of The Bees, are what convinced me, along with a whimsically bittersweet title, to buy Seni Glaister’s remarkably lovely first novel with Continue Reading

  In this ever-more mobile digital age, where job tenure is fleeting, geographic locales are a home but for a moment, and social ties fray and fasten at the speed of tweet, we remain, as a species, heavily-dependent on a sense of place for our sense of identity. Even when Continue Reading

  We are so in love, as a species, with the admittedly very attractive idea of love that we often over-romanticise it. Decking it with roses and chocolates, viewing with rose-coloured glasses and Vaseline-tinted lenses, love is elevated as a warm-and-fuzzy ideal which can answer and make up for all Continue Reading

  There is a particular pleasure that comes from reading a book by Maria Lewis, the happy result of the author’s singular ability to seamlessly blend the mythical and the magically real into the ordinary everyday to the point where the most outlandish of concepts suddenly seem not just possible Continue Reading