As the name suggests, this is where you’ll find everything I’ve written about books, publishing, authors, book stores and more. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to some renowned novelists and thinkers including Joe Hill, Jared Diamond, David Brin, Naomi Wolf, Kim Stanley Robinson and Matthew Reilly.
But it’s also been a way of exploring some big ideas facing technology, society and the economy, whether it’s the lack of contact from interstellar civilisations, the role of pornography not just in technology but human communication overall or how graphic design is changing in the web age.
I’ve also turned the spotlight back on the book industry itself, looking at everything from the challenge of keeping boys interested in reading to the latest innovations in distribution to fiction sales’ dirty little secret about the genre that keeps it afloat.
It’s this nostalgia for a movement – that arose from pure consumer economics but which now has a lustre all its own – that movie journalist Tom Roston celebrates in I Lost It At the Video Store. … Continue readingI Lost It At The Video Store
While you can read any number of stories online about how print media is dying, Ghostbusters – The Ultimate Visual History actually represents the future of print publishing, a beautiful
A teenage boy named Rene sits with his identical twin brother Theo in hospital, the latter in a coma he likely won’t awaken from. Rene is taken away and interviewed by psychologist Maggie to determine his emotional suitability for a procedure that’s hinted at but not explained until the big reveal. … Continue readingLullaby
Vitamania is a level headed but urgent look at the marketing, industry, science and disinformation surrounding one of the most common and least understood words in nutrition. … Continue readingVitamania
It’s too late to go back, and few in the Western World would want to now the Internet is as essential as electricity. But The Internet is Not the Answer will remind you not to drink the digital Kool-Aid so readily. … Continue readingThe Internet is Not the Answer
“In a way everything I’ve done is an homage to Michael Crichton,” he says. “Dinosaurs were real and Crichton was brilliant recreating them with DNA. What I’ve done is taken a mythological creature and had even more fun with it. I knew there’d be comparisons but I’m confident my story is completely different.” … Continue readingGreat Monster Mash
Nothing makes us feel quite a superior as reading a blog post or forum comment that’s so badly spelled a semiliterate six-year-old could’ve done better, and jumping down the offender’s throat (albeit virtually) has become a 21st century pastime. … Continue readingNever Lost For Words
Author Joe Hill worked as a writer for nearly a decade before revealing his relationship to legendary horror author Stephen King. (For the uninitiated, Hill is King’s son.) Hill has
some writers have recently begun to wonder if Dawkins’ appraisal of evolution is too simplistic. Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Calcida Jetha in 2010 claimed the human pair bond instinct is a construct of agriculture and private property, suggesting that our ancestors lived in a time of resource and sexual plenty … Continue readingSurvival of the Nicest
More recently we’ve seen darker narratives as varied as Wolf Creek and Toni Collette-starrer Japanese Story (2004), where Australia can be a dangerous place full of monstrous people. … Continue readingNovel Sees Grey Areas of People Smuggling
