Books

(courtesy 47North) For the idealists amongst us, there is a seductive idea out there that the only way for humanity is up, and up and UP. No backward steps, no regression, no evolutionary slips down the hill from whence we came; it’s all forward towards better things and more progressive Continue Reading

(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024) he world, it is often observed (accurately or not) into two groups – dog people or cat people. You are, it is opined one or the other, and thus shall you will for the rest of your life. Regardless of Continue Reading

(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024) There was once a boy whose entire life was defined not by the good things in his life, and they were there in the form of a loving family, a rich engagement with learning and an overall garrulous love of Continue Reading

(courtesy UQP) Every nation has a story that it likes to tell about itself. These stories serve to either bolster a nationalistic sense of identity, propagate an aggrandising myth of nationhood or portray history in a way that burnishes the country and its founders rather than detracts from it. Australia Continue Reading

(courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing) Imagination, it likely goes without saying, sits at the very heart of all writing. After all, how can a writer venture into worlds other than their known, into the souls of people they can’t possibly know except by creating them in their hearts and minds and fashion Continue Reading

(courtesy Allen & Unwin) We are supposed to face our fears; that’s the prevailing advice and stacked up against being frozen to the foot by dreading what terrified your soul, it’s pretty sound advice. In theory. But, and here’s the sticking point, facing what makes us fearful goes against every Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster) Working out who you are is a full-time, lifelong job. But it gets going in earnest when we’re teenagers when life goes from idle, childlike curiosity to something chaotically emotional and emotional with a thousand competing questions buzzing for contemplative airtime in our head. It’s a Continue Reading

(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024) When stories are well and truly seared into the popular consciousness, as is the case for many fairytales, it can devilishly hard, and yes, that descriptive word has been used quite deliberately, to take another run at them and give Continue Reading

(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

(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