Books

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Retellings of classic tales are often quite illuminating, revealing aspects of the original story that simply didn’t register because of the familiarity attached to their ubiquitous status. We become so used to the beats and tropes of the story, to the well-known elements that define it, Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Imagination is the power source behind any great fantasy novel but as anyone who has read many books in the genre will attest, not all imaginative minds are created equal. Having just finished the gloriously clever storytelling that is Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan, it is well and Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Hiding away from the world, even if it’s in plain sight, is something that anyone who has undergone trauma is very adept at doing. You may long for happy-ever-afters and a community to call your own and a life that’s buoyant and free but the truth of Continue Reading

(courtesy official Freya North site) Identity is a powerful driver for every person alive. Not all of us may acknowledge it outright, but whether we emphatically embrace the dogma of a religion, the fervency of fandom of a football team or we live and breathe artistic expression in all its Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) If you have ever met someone possessed of singular, unwavering ambition, you will be well acquainted with how consuming that kind of focus can be. Nothing else matters to that person beyond seeing their vision realised, their life goals realised and all of the hope and Continue Reading

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Heading off on holidays, all we really want is to get away from the insistent stresses and strains of everyday life. Hand us a cocktail, sit us by the pool or in a bush cabin somewhere, banish the internet to a simpler, more analogue time and Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) When my parents died less than four years apart in the mid-to-late 2010s, I was plunged into the kind of grief I had never really known before. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do with it; I expected it to be intense then ebb Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Even though the books of Agatha Christie were my entry way into adult reading, thanks to the insightful thoughtfulness of father, an inveterate reader himself, I spent many years away from the crime genre for reasons I can’t fully explain. My way back to the genre came Continue Reading