It has been a long time since I first saw what has been retroactively titled Star Wars: A New Hope, but at the time I saw it in a small one-screen cinema in coastal Ballina, NSW (Australia) was simply good old Star Wars, and you would think by now that Continue Reading
Books
What makes Chewbacca tick? Looper entertainingly explores his backstory this Star Wars Day #Maythe4thBeWithYou
SNAPSHOTWhy is his weapon so different from almost everyone else’s? Why does he talk like that when he clearly understands different languages? Is Chewbacca his actual given name? We took a deep dive into Star Wars lore to find what makes this Wookiee tick. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) Poor Chewie. Continue Reading
Book review: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
On the surface of it, society looks a fairly straightforward set of exchanges. You have ideals, you act them with nobleness of intent and efficacy of action, you witness injustice, you stand up against and hopefully right the wrong, you get to know someone, become their friend and possibly even Continue Reading
Book review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Words are beautiful things. More than just a collection of letters – although some words like “plethora” and “myriad” are cadence-rich in and of themselves – words give us access to stories, to thoughts and ideas and play a critically-important role in shaping the way we see our world and Continue Reading
Book review: Providence by Max Barry
Depending on how whose etymology you believe, many a person has observed and subsequently remarked that the first casualty of war is truth. Truth is twisted or downright ignored during conflict for a variety of reasons – keeping the enemy in the dark, elevating the good spirits of a beleaguered Continue Reading
Book review: Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
If we’re really paying attention to the various stages of our life, and they’re hard to miss if you’re looking for them, it will become glaringly obvious that we change a great deal between the very beginning of things and the (hopefully many years distant) and their end. For some Continue Reading
Book review: American Saint by Sean Gandert
Faith is a curiously complicated thing. On one very obvious level, it’s relatively straightforward – you believe something, act on it and it becomes a central focal point of your life, driving what you do and why. However, dig a little deeper and the issue of faith is a fiendishly Continue Reading
Book review: The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
As highly as we might like to think of ourselves, almost all live cloaked in an eclectic assortment of lies, omissions, half-truths, fabricated portrayals and aspirational representation. It’s not a deliberate intent to deceive that drives us necessarily; rather we are often driven by a need to minimise vulnerability, to Continue Reading
Book review: Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole
For all the mess we have made of things so far, humanity retains a fascinating capacity for believing we will be better in the future. It is perhaps the ultimate coping mechanism or the grandest of mass delusions; whatever it, for all the broken down societies and blue screens of Continue Reading
Book review: Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters
There is a glorious sense of feel good wonder that comes with the very best romantic comedies. It’s that innate sense that, all indications to the contrary, and let’s face it, at the moment COVID-19 is the reigning bestial monarch of those contrary indications, life is marked with transcendent romantic Continue Reading