(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) If you have even a modicum of self awareness and personal integrity, the idea of pretending to be something you’re not often doesn’t sit well with you. The only way you can live with a fake persona and your real self sitting cheek-by-jowl is to Continue Reading
Books
There’s something magical about the creation of upcoming stop-motion wonder, Wildwood
(courtesy official LAIKA Studios YouTube channel) SNAPSHOTStep inside Laika’s Wildwood, where a powerful golden eagle commands the skies and magic takes flight. Wildwood – based on Colin Meloy’s illustrated book series – will see Prue McKeel leave behind her home of Portland, Oregon, venturing into Wildwood on a dark quest to save Continue Reading
From fossicking for fossils to a champion for life on Earth: Sir David Attenborough at 100 (curated article) #Happy100thDA
(courtesy The Conversation / BBC, CC BY-NC-ND) Article by Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University (via The Conversation) Sir David Attenborough turns 100 this week. Very few people have the good fortune to live for a century. Fewer still achieve Continue Reading
A lifetime of service to the natural world – and those who love it: Happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough! #Happy100thDA
One of the great and much-loved constants of my life has been the presence of Sir David Attenborough in many of the natural world documentaries I have watched and have come to love. A man who clearly loves, champions and advocates for his very precious subject matter, who possesses a Continue Reading
New releases May book review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
As a reviewer who knows a metric ton of books in a year, I have come across a few “second chances” books in my time, stories which ask what might happen if socially isolated or broken people burdened by past mistakes were given the opportunity to remake their lives (deliberately Continue Reading
Book (ish) review: Star Wars: The Perfect Weapon (short story) #StarWars #Maythe4thBeWithYou
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) One of the more enjoyable pop culture trends of recent years has been the willingness to give less iconic characters a little more time in the storytelling sun. Concomitant with this, has been an appetite for imbuing these characters, good and bad, with more humanity and Continue Reading
UPCOMING READ: As We Fall Through Time by Claire North
(courtesy Hachette Australia) SNAPSHOTFrom the multi-award-winning Claire North comes an extraordinary and epic tale of time travel, betrayal and a love that echoes through the centuries. In the beginning, the world will end. This is the story of what happens next. When Cal meets a soldier of the French Revolution, Continue Reading
Fantasy April book review: A Pirate’s Life For Tea (Tomes & Tea #2) by Rebecca Thorne
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) “Cosy” is one those words that suggests contentment, peace, of being right with the world and nothing terrible coming to trouble those wrapped happily in its blissful cocoon. And while all of that is true, it doesn’t fully describe what happens in the delightfully titled sub-genre Continue Reading
Fantasy April book review: The Dark Lord’s Guide to Dating (and Other War Crimes) (Guides to Villainy and Love #1) by Tiffany Hunt
(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) One of the most sacred axioms of book buying, assuming you pay attention to such things and honestly this reviewer rarely does, is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (but of course we all do so sorry, not sorry). Probably up there Continue Reading
Fantasy April book review: Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett
(courtesy Hachette Australia) As deaths in murder mysteries go, the one that that graphically kicks off all the fantastical sleuthing in The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is hard to beat. That doesn’t escape the two people assigned by nervous local authorities – idiosyncratic, fiercely intelligent and socially awkward Continue Reading