The Contrarian by Max Chafkin Bloomsbury Publishing Max Chafkin, who has spent 15 years reporting on the world of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors, has compiled rigorous research on one of the venture capitalists who has helped develop companies that have largely defined our culture and economy over the last 25 years. Not many […]
Mortals by Rachel E Menzies and Ross G Menzies Allen & Unwin Children become aware of death at between the ages of 4 and 5 and can fear it, even though they only become aware of its inevitability from 7 to 10 years of age. Between the ages of 11 and 12, children can contemplate […]
Pig | Dir: Michael Sarnoski | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Robin (Nicholas Cage) lives a reclusive life in his small wooden shack in the middle of the Oregon wilderness. It’s just him and his truffle-foraging pig, and the occasional visit from the young, arrogant and ambitious Amir (Alex Wolff) who exchanges his truffles for […]
All About Ella by Meredith Appleyard HQ Fiction Cutlers Bay, a small seaside town in the Yorke Peninsula, becomes the accidental meeting place for three homeless people. Although Zach, the solitary local police officer in the town, is technically not homeless as he has a soulless government house that came with his job, but it […]
The Breakup Monologues by Rosie Wilby Bloomsbury Publishing Professional comedian, lesbian and radio presenter Rosie Wilby believes that if you want to know about breakups, you should ask a lesbian. After all, it is well known that many lesbians move in together and get a cat on the second date, and she notes that at […]
Last Shot by Jock Zonfrillo Simon & Schuster MasterChef Australia judge Jock Zonfrillo admits that he has made every mistake a man can make in “the absolute chaotic fucking hurricane that is [his] life”, and comes to the realisation again and again that if it hadn’t been for his obsessive love of food, he would […]
Trouble Is My Business by Lisa Walker Wakefield Press Lisa Walker, who lives, surfs and writes young adult coming-of-age novels on the north coast of New South Wales, introduced Olivia Grace and her detective skills in The Girl with the Gold Bikini. Eighteen year-old Olivia Grace spent a gap year at a friend Rocco’s detective […]
Fanny Lye Deliver’d | Dir: Thomas Clay | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ It is 1657 and Fanny Lye (Maxine Peake) lives on a remote Shropshire farm in a simple thatched cottage with her husband John (Charles Dance) and young son Arthur (Zak Adams). Surrounded by mud and continually shrouded in mist and smoke, the cottage becomes the […]
Shiva Baby | Dir: Emma Seligman | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ The opening scene of this film shows an awkward situation when Danielle (Rachel Sennott) has to remind her sugar daddy Max (Danny Deferrari) to give her money after their sexual encounter where, even though she is bored, she gives a passable sound of […]
Rebel Dykes | Dir: Sian Williams & Harri Shanahan | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ Talking with the fourteen year old in my life, she told me that her best friend was a ‘gay boy’ and two of her female friends were a couple. When I was that age, homosexuality was illegal and it was rumoured that […]
