(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) Books that subvert expectations are quite possibly the very best kind. When you first pick up The Dead Friend Project by Joanna Wallace, you might be struck by the quirkiness of the titlenand even the taglines on the front cover and atop the back Continue Reading
Books
During Christmas in July, I decorated my tree with 5 new pop culture ornaments
(via Shutterstock) Somewhere around five years ago, with Christmas in July gathering in popularity all the time, I decided that I would use the white tree originally bought to display Easter ornaments, to display some Christmas ornaments during the cold winter months in Australia. The wins were many – we Continue Reading
This Christmas in July … I read Confessions of a Christmasaholic by Joss Wood
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Christmas romantic comedies aren’t generally the time of stories to break the genre mold. And that’s perfectly okay because what you want, I would in fact argue, you need, from these types of tales is that everything that is broken can be fixed, that the Continue Reading
He’s gone too far! Trailer releases for a feisty and fun Cat in the Hat movie
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“Today is going to be THE. BEST. DAY. EVER!” Meet the Cat in the Hat you don’t know! In the whimsical tradition of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat comes to the big screen in his animated theatrical feature film debut, an all-new, epic adventure with Continue Reading
One last roll of the planetary dice … Project Hail Mary releases its first gripping trailer
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAstronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakens with no memory of himself or his mission. He deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system in search of a solution to a catastrophic event on Earth. In his search for answers, Grace must Continue Reading
Book review: Rise and Shine by Kimberley Allsopp
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) There’s a popularly-held very binary dynamic at work when it comes to love stories. You’re either falling wildly and hopelessly in love with nothing but wine and roses and sunshine through dew drop eyes ahead of you … OR … you have reached the end Continue Reading
This just ain’t his story. It’s our story.” Washington Black makes the leap from book to screen
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFollows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When an incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges & Continue Reading
Book review: Thoroughly Disenchanted by Alexandra Almond
(Harper Collins Publishers Australia) What great longing rests in the depths of our seemingly endless hearts and soul? For most of us, it’s really no more than a guess though if pressed we could likely name a few wished and longed-for things that we would like to see manifest like Continue Reading
Book review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
(courtesy Penguins Books Australia) Delving deep into someone’s life over a long period of time is something rarely afforded to us unless they are a family member or close friend. We might know people well and converse, laugh and cry with them over all sorts of life events but really Continue Reading
Book review: Salvage by Jennifer Mills
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) What would happen if the world “ended” in slow motion? In other words, rather than the big bang and boom of the usual fall of civilisation that we have seen documented in all kinds of apocalyptic storytelling, what if the cataclysmic hell of the end of Continue Reading