(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTHannah Marks’ new film Turtles All the Way Down tackles anxiety through its 17-year-old protagonist, Aza Holmes (Isabela Merced). It’s not easy being Aza, but she’s trying… trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, and a good student, all while navigating an endless barrage of Continue Reading
Books
Book review: The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Living up to hype, any hype, can be a crippling burden for any novel. It might well be every bit as good as the buzz feverishly declares it to be, full of characters you will love, themes you will embrace and a story that will draw you Continue Reading
Book review: The Opposite of Success by Eleanor Elliott Thomas
(courtesy Text Publishing) Pretty much everyone on the planet sets out on this somewhat strange journey called life aiming for and expecting the best. After all, who wants to aim lower than that? It’s a one-shot deal and you’re hardly going to launch yourself into the fray hoping and planning Continue Reading
Easter kids’ book fun: Easter Eggstravaganza, Bugs Bunny at the Easter Party and Dear Easter Bunny
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Easter Eggstravaganza by Roald Dahl (illustrated by Quentin Blake) Can you have Easter eggs all year through? Supermarkets and chocolate retailers seem to think you can; for no sooner has Christmas tinseled off into the distance than Easter eggs (and hot cross buns for that matter) Continue Reading
Book review: Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life by Helen Fisher
(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) Stepping out of comfort zones is easier for some people more than others. But the truth is that no matter our willingness to push those envelopes and test those boundaries, all of us have well-mapped and comfortably known places that we prefer to inhabit over Continue Reading
Book review: Cool Water by Myfanwy Jones
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Is it possible to forge a meaningful and fulfilling present from a past laced with great sadness, fear, abuse, pain and loss? That’s a metric ton of existential hellishness to craft something currently good from and as Cool Water by Myfanway Jones opens, Frank Herbert has more Continue Reading
Movie review: Dune – Part Two
(courtesy IMP Awards) There is something about science fiction that lends itself to big epic storytelling. Maybe it’s the sprawling, limitless imagination that fuels its endlessly expansive narratives, the big ideas that find a ready home in a genre ready made for high-impact messaging, or simply the fact that you Continue Reading
Book review: Frank & Red by Matt Coyne
(courtesy Hachette Australia) One of the many ways we cope with grief is to fall in on ourselves. Collapsing into some sort of dark, emotional blackhole feels less demanding, less stressful than continuing to engage with a world which has taken so much from us and which will never, can Continue Reading
Book review: The Single Mums’ Book Club by Victoria Cooke
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) One of the loveliest side effects or consequences of reading and loving books is that more often than you might expect that a solitary pursuit – mostly though not always; reading out loud to someone incapable of doing it themselves, anyone? – becomes a group activity, Continue Reading
Book review: Tipping Point by Dinuka McKenzie
(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) The greatest accomplishment for any writer, and this is from a humble blogger (my own time) and content writer (day job), is to get someone who would not ordinarily read a particular genre to pick a book clearly belonging to it and to spend valuable reading Continue Reading