Books

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) Stepping out of comfort zones is easier for some people more than others. But the truth is that no matter our willingness to push those envelopes and test those boundaries, all of us have well-mapped and comfortably known places that we prefer to inhabit over Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Is it possible to forge a meaningful and fulfilling present from a past laced with great sadness, fear, abuse, pain and loss? That’s a metric ton of existential hellishness to craft something currently good from and as Cool Water by Myfanway Jones opens, Frank Herbert has more Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) One of the many ways we cope with grief is to fall in on ourselves. Collapsing into some sort of dark, emotional blackhole feels less demanding, less stressful than continuing to engage with a world which has taken so much from us and which will never, can Continue Reading

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) One of the loveliest side effects or consequences of reading and loving books is that more often than you might expect that a solitary pursuit – mostly though not always; reading out loud to someone incapable of doing it themselves, anyone? – becomes a group activity, Continue Reading

(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) The greatest accomplishment for any writer, and this is from a humble blogger (my own time) and content writer (day job), is to get someone who would not ordinarily read a particular genre to pick a book clearly belonging to it and to spend valuable reading Continue Reading

(courtesy io9 / image (c) DAW Books – illustration by Greg Ruth, design by Jim Tierney) SNAPSHOTWhen there is a call, there is often a response. Najeeba knows. She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call Continue Reading

(courtesy Annick Press) When you read about some conservative group or another working to ban gay this or bay that in the dubiously-expressed, and wafer-thin justified – let’s be honest, not even that; bigotry seems to thrive on vehement, evidence-free denunciation and little else – it’s often presented as little Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) One of the things that makes reading such an escapist pleasure is when an author takes a well-worn concept, one that should by rights have no fresh mileage or capacity to surprise left in its tired, narrative-driving bones, and totally and utterly turns it gloriously on Continue Reading