Books

(courtesy Hachette Australia) We all crave somewhere to belong. Somewhere where people know us, really know us, where we’re valued, our presence welcome and out absence sadly noted, and where, yes U.S. sitcom of legendary fame, everyone does indeed know our name. That’s why we join clubs, churches, volunteer at Continue Reading

(courtesy Text Publishing) Books that absolutely defy expectations are a gloriously good treat indeed. You read the back blurb in the bookshop, decide that sounds enticing, grab the book and then after a suitable time on the TBR pile, open it up expecting it to dance to a particular narrative Continue Reading

(courtesy Angry Robot Books) Coming up with a truly original idea in any genre or medium of storytelling is always a big ask. No matter how brilliantly one-of-a-kind your creatively epiphanic moment might be, it’s tricky not to sound like a thousand other great narrative ideas that have gone before; Continue Reading

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Much as we love things as they were written originally, there’s also a great deal of fun to be had, and in this postmodern world of ours we love to indulge it, subverting and playing with all kinds of storytelling forms. While the purists will insist Continue Reading

(courtesy Gizmodo (c) Orbit) SNAPSHOTHow humanity came to the planet called Anjiin is lost in the fog of history, but that history is about to end. The Carryx—part empire, part hive—have waged wars of conquest for centuries, destroying or enslaving species across the galaxy. Now, they are facing a great Continue Reading

(courtesy Allen & Unwin) Making sense of life can often take everything we’ve got. While many events are ostensibly straight forward such as births, deaths and marriages, they never occur in a vacuum and are tangled, rather ferociously and labyrinthinely, in a whole host of grievances, hurts, family dynamics and Continue Reading

(courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing) Bookshops are, for book buyers at least, innately warm and comforting places. Quite apart from the fact that they offer a wealth of possible storytelling possibilities, they also feel like a step away from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life which to greater or lesser extents Continue Reading

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) We live in a perilously binary world, one that separates everything into stark Os or 1s and refused to entertain the idea of halves, gradients or places in-between. Armed with that dangerously blinkered mindset, people then begin to assign worth and blame to those that either Continue Reading

Humanity loves its motherhood statements. There’s something comforting about referring to brotherhood, mercy and justice because they sound full of virtue and goodness and the assumption is made, somewhat erroneously, that everyone knows exactly what’s meant by them. But, like the word “love” itself, there’s often little examination of what Continue Reading