A winter of content has arrived for the bookish tribe
It's footy season again. Aussie Rules supporters have risen out of their summer hibernation and gathered their sashed or striped…
Fiction blurs the line between good and evil
A disabled child is killed, yet the reader finds themselves sympathising with the murderer. A family is slaughtered, but readers…
When pet names go wrong
Terms of endearment help bring people together. They are a way of displaying affection and familiarity between couples, parents, their…
We need to talk about motherhood
The ideal mother looms large in art and popular culture, from the ubiquitous image of Mary cradling Baby Jesus to…
Books as gifts – to buy or not to buy?
There is a tradition in Iceland of giving loved ones the gift of a book on Christmas Eve. Closer to…
The Lure of Shared Sadness
Sadness is something we shun. We shrink from the grieving as if their condition was contagious, and we implore the depressed…
Why we should read difficult books
There are two types of people in the world: one who loves a challenge, and one who likes nothing less…
A tale of two bookshops
To me, it seemed like the worst of times. A big, bright, multinational bookstore had opened up directly across the road…
Please don’t tell me reading is a waste of time
Conversation at polite dinner parties is constrained by an implicit set of rules. No talking religion, no talking politics and no talking sex…
Don’t judge a book by its cover, but by its reader
It is easy for a reader to deliver a damning verdict on a book. Whether it is a debut novel or the…
