Books

(courtesy Little Brown) People have long debated whether it’s nature or nurture that shapes us and turns out into the human beings we grow to become; but what about robots? Can they ever really change? After all, aren’t they simply programmed Os and 1s working in algorithmic succession according to Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) This one is. This phrase, which distills into three short but carefully chosen words a centred approach to life that forces, in the best way, to only think and concentrate on the present, repeats over and over in the imaginative joy that is The Last Gifts Continue Reading

(courtesy Allen & Unwin Book Publishers) If you have read any novels featuring a “Chosen One” hero, you will be quite familiar with the idea that someone of great talent and abilities but no real awareness of them will be plucked from anonymity and obscurity to become the saviour of Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) There’s something about a plucky, funny protagonist who won’t take no for an answer that absolutely reels you in. While society as a whole, and indeed their own family, are happy to tow whatever the agreed line of mainstream behaviour has been deemed to be Continue Reading

(courtesy Affirm Press) When you pick up the superlative gem that is The Hitwoman’s Guide to Reducing Household Debt by Mark Mupotsa-Russell, you first think that here is a quirky, whimsical read of a ex-hitwoman, now happily and cosily domiciled in suburban life in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne, who Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Valley releases 10 September in Australia via Penguin Books. (ARC provided by NetGalley) When you’re reached the end of a gripping fantasy trilogy, where the stakes are high and the fate of multiple characters and narrative arcs hang precariously but meaningfully in the balance, sticking the Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster UK) In his atmospherically-titled novel, The Betrayal Of Thomas True, A. J. West manages a rare and enthrallingly intense double feat. He delivers up a epically tense mystery, a race of one man to uncover the spy who has betrayed the “mollies” of 1715 London, often Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) One of my reading happy places, and as an eclectic reader there are many, is when a writer combines books and love in one beautifully realised package. There’s something about the idea of a rom-com which is all about books and writing that sets the pulse racing Continue Reading