(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024) There is something redemptive about the act of reading. That may seem like an artful overstatement to some, but the truth is, when you open a book and lose yourself in the story within, a lot of the pain and Continue Reading
Books
Book review: Translation State by Ann Leckie
(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024) We often associate identity with what are on the surface reasonably superficial things – name, dress style, choice phrases, interests and hobbies; they all matter, of course, because they express who we are but they pale in comparison with the Continue Reading
Book review: The Map of William by Michael Thomas
(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024) Every one of us reaches at a point at the start of our adult lives where many of the childlike things that defined us fall away or are transformed and we have to reckon with what it means to be Continue Reading
Book review: All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) One of the things that daunts many readers, including this reviewer, in an age of content plenty and time paucity, is embarking on a series of books, especially a lengthy of one of say, nine books. It’s not that the narrative arc doesn’t enthrall with its Continue Reading
Do readers dream of running a bookshop? Books about booksellers are having a moment – the reality can be less romantic
(Photo by Fahrul Azmi on Unsplash) This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. My mother and I wanted to open a bookshop. We signed up for a CAE course, which was cancelled when the bookseller who ran it went out of Continue Reading
Book review: New Year’s Kiss by Lee Matthews
(courtesy Penguin Random House) We love the idea of reinvention. There’s something immensely appealing about the idea that we’ve made mistakes or decisions that have changed us in some way , or life has strangely twisted us in some way, and that all that damage can be undone. The idea Continue Reading
Conquering the TBR like a mountaineer: My top 25 books of 2023
(via Shutterstock) Ever since I was a kid and bullying made the real world a scary and dangerous place to be, I have found books to be the ultimate comfort, the one escape I can count on to make everything seem a whole lot more magical and good again. Even Continue Reading
Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a good streaming-reading-listening night!
(courtesy Pinterest (c) Charles M. Schulz) Merry pop culture Christmas everyone! I have had a ball as always this year writing about all kinds of books, movies, TV/streaming shows, graphic novels/comics and songs, and while it’s been tough to keep writing in my spare time when my day job as Continue Reading
Festive book review: All is Bright by RaeAnne Thayne
Christmas miracles are the stock in trade of the season. They pop as regularly as stocking stuffers and garlands of ivy and baubles, and while they might be vanishingly rare in the festive desert known as the rest of the year, they are thick on the decorative ground when Christmas Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I read The Christmas Carrolls – A Fantastically Festive Family by Mel Taylor-Bessent
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) What is there to be said about the wondrously fun and glittering festive fun that is the familially festive joyfest that is The Christmas Carrolls: A Fantastically Festive Family by Mel Taylor-Bessent? Why you could call it “‘festabulous” or “Christmasriffic”, “merrynifiscent” or perhaps even “bauble-illiant”. Continue Reading