This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026 It is perhaps inevitable that we filter everything we see through our well-entrenched worldview. Try as we might to look beyond what we intrinsically know and understand, and it is to course possible to do that, Continue Reading
Books
Book review: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. What a magical story is contained in the novella-length pages of Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newtitz. Set in a post-apocalyptic mid-21st century California, which has just won its independence after a brutal war with an insidiously Continue Reading
Book review: Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee Hye
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026. If you’re a book lover, you will be well acquainted with the magical power of bookstores to soothe the stressful soul, to calm the rapidly beating heart and to make you feel like all the things Continue Reading
Book review: Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain
(courtesy Simon & Schuster) If the festive season is all about love and renewal, then novels set in summer are all about the capacity of a time of sunshine, outdoors activity and time with friends and family in relaxed setting to recharge the soul and give you a brand new Continue Reading
New Year’s Eve book review: New York, New Year, New You by Rachael Bloome
(courtesy Secret Garden Press) The idea that you can reinvent yourself if you just find the right inciting incident is a seductive one. It defies the idea that who we are at any one point in time is the only person we will ever be, and encourages us to dream Continue Reading
Conquering the TBR like a mountaineer: My top 25 books of 2025
(via Shutterstock) I can overstate how much reading means to me. It makes commutes feel fleeting and full of characters and events and excitement it would otherwise meaningfully lack. It fills my stressy moments with such a profound sense of escapist release. And it dials down my anxiety and sense Continue Reading
Merry Christmas in books and movies and on streaming platforms and in song … may all your pop culture festive dreams come true
(courtesy Pinterest (c) Disney) In honour of Winnie the Pooh’s first appearance in a story by A. A. Milne and the 75th anniversary of Peanuts first cartoon, this year’s Christmas greeting centres on these two groups of characters. I have loved both of them ever since I was a child Continue Reading
Festive kids book review: Bah! Humbug! by Michael Rosen
(courtesy Scholastic Children’s Books) It’s a big thing to say, given how thick on the ground A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, are on the ground, but Bah! Humbug! by Michael Rosen is quite simply one of the best retellings of the Christmas classic I have ever come a cross. Continue Reading
Festive book review: The Christmas Market by Linda McEvoy
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) One of the kinds of festive romcoms I love the most are where someone’s life falls apart – no, that’s not the movable; I’m not a sadist, thank you – and they flee back to their hometown in England or Ireland (this happens in U.S. Continue Reading
Festive book review: Ghosted at Christmas by Holly Whitmore
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) On the top ten list of things that would wreck your Christmas, absolutely and completely and without a hint of celebratory salvation, surely having your ex turn up would be very high on the list? That’s certainly the way Mia Robinson feels when, after braving a Continue Reading