If you have been an avid reader like this reviewer, you will know deep inside yourself that books are rare and precious things capable of illumination, escapism, companionship and real empathy and warmth. They matter and they speak to us because they are, by and large, created by people who Continue Reading
Books
Book review: The Keepers by Al Campbell
We wield the phrase “the weight of the world on their shoulders” about someone struggling with a great burden in terms both hushed and reverent, and often, sorrowfully pitying. Drawn from the Greek mythological tale about Zeus and Atlas, the latter whom carries the literal world on his enormous but Continue Reading
Book review: The Sleepless by Victor Manibo
ARC courtesy Erewhon Books via NetGalley – The Sleepless releases 2 August 2022. It’s safe to say that in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic people understand all too well how disruptive these kinds of events can be. No longer solely an artefact of post-World War One history, pandemics Continue Reading
Survival is insufficient: Thoughts on Station Eleven
You have to hand it to anyone who adapts a beloved book into a TV series. On the one hand, it’s a sensible move since some of the best storytelling around comes from authors who pour themselves and their stories into immersive, compelling reads; however, many readers, like fandom across Continue Reading
Love in chronological flux: The Time Traveler’s Wife releases an intriguing teaser trailer
SNAPSHOTBased on the 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife – coming to HBO and HBO Max in May – is about exactly that: a woman named Claire (here played by Game of Thrones star Rose Leslie) is married to a man named Henry (here played by Divergent’s Continue Reading
Book review: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan
It is always a welcome thing when a novel completely and utterly subverts expectations. Novels like Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan which, while sporting a back cover blurb that clearly announces there is darkness sitting at the heart of its immersively compelling narrative, gives off the sense Continue Reading
Book review: The Very Last List of Vivian Walker by Megan Albany
It goes without saying, and yet this review by necessity will say it anyway, that there is a searing, jarring finality about death. There are many other things in our life that we can duck and weave around, mould and shape into a size or shape that we like, or Continue Reading
Book review: The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong
Escaping from a dark and terrible situation usually demands one thing, and one thing only – just get the hell away! Whatever comes after that is the subject of improvisation and desperation, and if it’s a good thing, something that changes your life, well that is the luxuriant icing on Continue Reading
Book review: Glow by Tim Jordan
Most apocalyptic fiction rests solely on the basis that the end has come, civilisation has been shown the door and humanity is existing, if it can even be called that, in its smouldering, soon-to-disappear ruins. Granted these types of stories aren’t meant to have much hope or be even remotely Continue Reading
UPCOMING READS: An A-List for Death by Pamela Hart
SNAPSHOTTV researcher Poppy McGowan has never sought the spotlight and is none too happy to be photographed with rock god Nathan Castle. When the photo pops up on celebrity gossip sites, it sparks a media feeding frenzy, forcing Poppy to go to ground, don a wig, and pull some nifty Continue Reading