(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) All of us, to some extent or another, come to appreciate through the course of our lives just how the present owes to the past. It’s not simply that one leads to the other though that is very much a part of what takes place Continue Reading
Books
Christmas in July book review: Snowed in for Christmas by Claire Sandy
(courtesy Pan Macmillan) Every year I read a lot of Christmas rom-coms and every year I’m mostly glad I did. There’s something comforting about reading about people’s lives taking a definitive turn for the better, especially when everything says there is no real hope of any kind of meaningful redemption, Continue Reading
Festive book read: A Special Cornish Christmas by Phillipa Ashley
(Harper Collins Publishers Australia) If ever there’s a time for redemption, it has to be Christmas, right? Not simply because the entire festival is centred around that idea in its Biblical roots; beyond that, it’s developed into a time of year when the world is not as moored to its Continue Reading
Book review: Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave by Elle Cosimano
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Jumping without looking into a reasonably long-running series of books does not always end well. If the author is skilled and accomplished, they will do a marvellously good job of folding you into an already established world, getting you up to speed with who the main character/s Continue Reading
Book review: The Mimicking of Known Successes (Mossa & Pleiti book #1) by Malka Older
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) While doomscrolling through social media is generally a compulsive activity with few, if any, productive outcomes, it can sometimes, algorithms be damned, offer up some real gems. Such as coming across a fellow book lover on Bluesky who is waxing lyrical about the books of Malka Continue Reading
Book review: Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Any good book worth its narrative, world-building salt should be able to hold immersively entranced through every page and exciting twist-and-turn. But some books are created more equal than others in this regard, and Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear, the first book in her White Space series, Continue Reading
Book review: The Dead Friend Project by Joanna Wallace
(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
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