(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) One of the loveliest side effects or consequences of reading and loving books is that more often than you might expect that a solitary pursuit – mostly though not always; reading out loud to someone incapable of doing it themselves, anyone? – becomes a group activity, Continue Reading
Books
Book review: Tipping Point by Dinuka McKenzie
(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) The greatest accomplishment for any writer, and this is from a humble blogger (my own time) and content writer (day job), is to get someone who would not ordinarily read a particular genre to pick a book clearly belonging to it and to spend valuable reading Continue Reading
UPCOMING READS: She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor
(courtesy io9 / image (c) DAW Books – illustration by Greg Ruth, design by Jim Tierney) SNAPSHOTWhen there is a call, there is often a response. Najeeba knows. She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call Continue Reading
What a wonderful world … The Wild Robot’s naturally beautiful journey to becoming more than they were programmed to be
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTFrom DreamWorks Animation comes a new adaptation of a literary sensation, Peter Brown’s beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot. The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot—ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must Continue Reading
Book review: Dragging Mason County by Curtis Campbell
(courtesy Annick Press) When you read about some conservative group or another working to ban gay this or bay that in the dubiously-expressed, and wafer-thin justified – let’s be honest, not even that; bigotry seems to thrive on vehement, evidence-free denunciation and little else – it’s often presented as little Continue Reading
Book review: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) One of the things that makes reading such an escapist pleasure is when an author takes a well-worn concept, one that should by rights have no fresh mileage or capacity to surprise left in its tired, narrative-driving bones, and totally and utterly turns it gloriously on Continue Reading
Book review: The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Growing isn’t easy at the best of times, but it becomes even darkly and challengingly problematic when the person doing the growing up is doing in the very late 1970s in northeast England at a time when the Yorkshire Ripper is terrorising a fearful populace with Continue Reading
Book review: The Great Undoing by Sharlene Allsopp
(courtesy Ultimo Press) Diving into any book comes with certain expectations – there will be a beginning and an end, a middle that connects them both in ways that are emotionally fulfilling and intellectually satisfying, and there will be characters you come to care deeply about, people (and not; this Continue Reading
Streaming review: A lot can happen in just One Day
(courtesy IMP Awards) We’re well used to romantic comedies that offer us epic love, sweeping heartstopping moments and happy-ever-after moments in abundance. If real life does intrude, it’s all but tangential and near accidental, and so, as reality swoops relentlessly and often disappointingly ordinary in its scope and effect around Continue Reading
Book review: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Humanity, for all its curiosity and insightfulness, is not that good, by and large, at seeing anything that doesn’t sit well within its established physical frames of reference. Thus, while we happily explore the implications of a multiverse, which has its roots in actual physics, we tend Continue Reading