Are manicured nails the new thin?
Visit any suburban shopping centre and you’re likely to find at least one nail bar. According to the Australian Financial…
There’s something on the nose about the new breed of children’s books
There was a time when ‘bloody hell’ was a profanity considered too rude for polite conversation. Now, it is a…
The many faces of friendship in fiction
Mark Twain once claimed, “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” And sometimes, a…
Do you remember when you first fell in love with libraries?
It's hard to pinpoint when my love affair with libraries began. It might have been on my first visit, when…
To inscribe or not to inscribe? A bookish dilemma.
It was written in loose, sweeping lettering, on the inside cover. From Casey and John on your 61st birthday. I…
Look who’s talking – strange narrators in fiction
Not long ago, I read a book that was written from the viewpoint of a foetus. Now, I’ve just finished…
We need to talk about boys (and books)
We are currently experiencing a social revolution in which women are standing up and refusing to tolerate the bad behaviour…
The problem with literature’s fascination with bad mothers
It is nice to laugh at bad mothers on film. In the movie, ‘Bad Moms’, exhausted, fraught and irreverent mothers…
The beauty of a book in which nothing ‘happens’
Most journalism students learn to write a news story as if describing an event to a friend. Start with the…
Forget neutral, my bookcase is going to be big, full and messy
The interior design idea was offered up innocently enough. “Lauren keeps the look neutral by stacking books back to front.”…
