Do you think genetically engineered invasive parasites are scary? How about child kidnapping and mind control? Prehistoric spider swarms? Nefarious tunnels in near-pitch black darkness? Shape shifting murders? Well, I can safely tell you that none of those terrifying topics compare to the content of the Troll Hunter. The book, written by Australian investigative journalist Ginger Gorman, starts by setting the scene. In 2013, and she’s a reporter doing a lighthearted and feel-good story for her local media outlet about a same-sex couple and their […]
King is once more Hip to the Jive
The Institute by Stephen King
Historically, King is at his best building stories with complex worlds, high stakes, many moving parts, and a cast of characters. In many cases, his tales are told through the eyes of a child. The Dark Tower, IT, and The Body are all a testament to King’s uncanny ability to get into the mind of a child and face overwhelming challenges from a tweenager perspective. But, in recent years, I’ve felt that King’s ability to connect with the younger generation is slipping. For a 72 […]
You probably don’t want this, actually.
You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian
Remember ‘Cat Person’? The viral short story published in The New Yorker last year that literally everyone you know sent to you with the message ‘Oh my god, you HAVE to read this!’? Well the author, Kristen Roupenian, has published a collection of short stories with the tempting title ‘You Know You Want This’. I heard about the book via a podcast interview with the author herself. It centered on Roupenian’s shock and amazement at the juggernaut that Cat Person became, and her new book […]
A fitting amuse bouche to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ (in it’s various incarnations)
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
The Testaments is the hotly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, told by Atwood through the voices of three women intimately acquainted with the Gilead regime. It aims to answer the lingering question that many readers had after The Handmaid’s Tale – what brought about the oppressive regime’s collapse? Many words have been written here and all over the internet about this sequel. Was it needed? Is it just a cash-grab? My opinion on the ‘necessity’ of The Testaments is that it is an amuse […]
An ecofeminist tale of endings, beginnings, and inescapable duty.
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
I picked up the wall (second hand, of course) knowing nothing about it, other than it featured a humanity-ending catastrophe and potato propagation. Which in hindsight is an accurate, if not underselling, summary. I’m finding my mind fixated on adaptation lately. The earth is heating, the oceans are rising, the rain is refusing to fall. My environmental preoccupations, which I’ve struggled to push to the back of my mind since first learning of the hole in the ozone layer as a child, are no longer […]
Spring has sprung, time to make some magic
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
It seems like serendipity that I should happen to finish Marie Kondo’s well-known 2014 guide to tidying up at the commencement of Spring here in the southern hemisphere. I’ve been reading Kondo’s book on my bus to work (whenever I’m lucky enough to get a seat, that is), and have found it a delightful way to spend my commute. Almost everything about her book feels tidy, positive, and peaceful. I’m genuinely inspired to start my chattel cleanse. Her method now is extremely well-known – only […]
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