(courtesy IMP Awards) How powerful are the stories we tell ourselves, individually and as a society? Pretty damn powerful if Interior Chinatown is to be believed, a streaming show based on Charles Yu’s book of the same name that takes meta (the idea, not the company, thank you) to a Continue Reading
Books
Book review: Death Valley by Melissa Broder
(courtesy Bloomsbury.com) One of the qualities most lauded among people under stress is the ability to go on face of incalculable and often heavily wearing odds. And while resilience in any form is to be admired, what is frequently missed when we are admiringly placing people under great duress on Continue Reading
Book review: Never Ever Forever by Karina May
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Falling in love is really quite delightful. Stating the obvious there I know, but sometimes when you dive into a rom-com that’s not exactly humming along on all rose-petal fueled cylinders, you could be forgiven for wondering if it’s worth all of the misassumptions, toing-and-froing and Continue Reading
Book review: Extinction by Bradley Somer
(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) How far would you go to protect something you truly and deeply love? It’s an academic question for most of us, but for Ben, the protagonist of Bradley Somer’s Extinction, it’s a real and pressing question that could him relationships, friendships, any sense of wellbeing left Continue Reading
Book review: Life Hacks for a Little Alien by Alice Franklin
(courtesy Hachette Australia) If you are someone who grew up never quite fitting into the mainstream and feeling distinctly out of place in a world you couldn’t quite figure out, then Alice Franklin’s delightfully thoughtful, Life Hacks for a Little Alien, might be just the read for you. The story Continue Reading
UPCOMING READS … Are you ready for the Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain
(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) SNAPSHOTSummer is in full swing when Daisy drives back into Wynmouth in her almost-clapped-out car, having left both her most recent job and the man her parents thought she was going to marry. Coming home could be just what she needs to move her life Continue Reading
Book review: Diving, Falling by Kylie Mirmohamadi
(courtesy Scribe Publications) Reaching a crossroads point in your life is both liberating and hugely disquieting at the same time. In a Hollywood movie, of course, this pivotal moment of existential decision-making would be rendered as an easily demarcated and simply resolved black-and-white inflection point, but real life rarely comes Continue Reading
Book review: The Great When (A Long London novel) by Alan Moore
(courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing) Let’s be honest – when it’s not being sensationalist or downright scary (and there’s a lot of that right now courtesy of one very large North American country’s new ruler), the real world can be more a little boring. We get on trains when commuting, we get Continue Reading
Book review: The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C. L. Miller
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Quirky crime all too often gets a bad rap from “serious” crime afficionados. It’s often incorrectly viewed as Crime Lite, and while that might be the case with some of the less well-written members of the sub-genre, the reality is that masterfully written cosy crime, of Continue Reading
Valentine’s Day book review: The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Not all romantic comedies (rom-coms) are created equal. Yes, they all share certain near-inviolable tropes and tick a certain set of boxes that guarantee love will win the day no matter what comes against it, but it’s the deployment of these expected elements that influences whether the Continue Reading