Reviews

Reviews

This Great Gaming Series Loses Itself in the Finale

Review: Life is Strange Reunion In 2015, developer Don’t Nod released the first episode of Life is Strange (back then, episodic adventure games were all the rage). Over the course of that five-episode first season, players would grow to love photographer protagonist Max Caulfield and her anarchist friend Chloe Price. The game was filled with […]

James O'Connor · 7 May 2026

Reviews

5000 Years of Civilisation Laid Bare

Review: Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapses, Luke Kemp, Penguin In his book of collapsology, Luke Kemp turns much received wisdom about barbarism and civilisation on its head. It’s the product of an enormous amount of research and contemplation, and it’s a goliath of a book, partly because he tends to repeat […]

Nick Mattiske · 28 April 2026

Reviews

Questioning Christianity Today

Review: Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever, Lamorna Ash, Bloomsbury We hear much about simultaneous decline and revival in Western Christianity but there isn’t another book on contemporary Christianity quite like Lamorna Ash’s. The writer of a previous book on the Cornish fishing industry, in this new book she likewise takes a very personal approach, immersing […]

Nick Mattiske · 22 April 2026

Reviews

The Latest Pokemon Entry Is A Beautiful Game About Community

Review: Pokémon Pokopia The Pokémon series turned 30 recently, and across three decades of games, cartoons, movies and endless merchandise, there have been a lot of different ways to engage with it. But the core appeal of Pokémon has remained the same the whole time – imagining that you have a special, unique bond with […]

James O'Connor · 8 April 2026

Reviews

The Distraction of the AI Induced Apocalypse

Reviews: This is for Everyone, Tim Berners-Lee, Macmillan | The AI Con, Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, Bodley Head It may be hyperbolic to compare Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, to God, but I’m not the first to do so, and hear me out: Berners-Lee created a whole world that was […]

Nick Mattiske · 7 April 2026

Reviews

Relationship Goals Book Inspires New Romantic Comedy Aimed at Broad Audiences

A bestselling relationship book by pastor and author Mike Todd — who founded Transformation Church in Tulsa Oklahoma — has found new life on screen, with the release of Relationship Goals, a romantic comedy that blends faith themes with mainstream rom-com storytelling. Inspired by Todd’s popular book of the same name, the roughly 90-minute film […]

Adrian Drayton · 2 April 2026

Reviews

Anxiety and the Human Condition

Review: Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide, Samir Chopra, Princeton University Press Just like how each generation, as they mature, thinks the youth of today have no respect, it seems that every generation thinks it is a particularly anxious one, though there may be good reason to think that in the current age anxiety is on the […]

Nick Mattiske · 31 March 2026

Reviews

Are We Really Free to Choose?

Review: The Age of Choice, Sophia Rosenfeld, Princeton Five hundred years ago most people didn’t get to choose their education, church, work, where they lived, who they were ruled by, and how many children they had. Choices in food were limited (usually by the seasons), as was the information about the rest of the world. […]

Nick Mattiske · 26 March 2026

Reviews

Taking Stock of the Wreckage Rock Stars Leave in Their Wake

Review: Mixtapes and MTV: Triumphs and Tragedies of 1980s Music, Tony Wellington, Monash University Press In his book about music in the 1970s, Tony Wellington wrote about how the music we listen to in our youth becomes the comparison point for all subsequent music we hear. So, this book on the 1980s is primarily for […]

Nick Mattiske · 18 March 2026

Reviews

Is America a ‘failed experiment’?

Reviews: The Shortest History of the United States, Don Watson, Black Inc. | Greyhound, Joanna Pocock, Fitzcarraldo With the USA descending into fascism and international aggression, and Trump violently suppressing dissent and enriching his own coffers, one of the questions is whether this current iteration is a unique aberration or whether Trump is, as Don […]

Nick Mattiske · 10 March 2026

Reviews

Mario’s Latest Outing Is A Really Good Game Of Tennis

Review: Mario Tennis Fever There have been many Mario sports games over the years, and taken collectively they’re a mixed bag. He’s a strong golfer and his soccer attempts can be fun; he’s less exciting on the basketball court, and many of his other pursuits (including his Olympic dreams alongside Sonic the Hedgehog) have seemingly […]

James O'Connor · 6 March 2026

Reviews

Can Shame Be a Good Thing?

Review: A Philosophy of Shame, Frederic Gros, Verso Frederic Gros suggests that shame is the ‘major emotion of our time’, which may seem odd since contemporary society seems filled with ‘shameless’ individuals, as Barack Obama has just pointed out in relation to Trump’s unapologetic racism. But there is also a push in the opposite direction […]

Nick Mattiske · 2 March 2026

Reviews

A Simple Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

Book Review: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins There’s something refreshing about a self-help concept that doesn’t ask you to overhaul your entire life, wake up at 5am, or manifest your way into emotional stability. Mel Robbins’ The Let Them Theory offers something far simpler and arguably far more powerful: the idea that peace […]

Aditee Vora · 17 February 2026

Reviews

The Pioneer of Probability Theory

Review: Blaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World, Graham Tomlin, Hodder Seventeenth-century polymath Blaise Pascal is now most famous for his thought experiment dubbed ‘the Wager’, whereby he argues that it’s a good bet to have faith in God and potentially avoid eternity in Hell, rather than bet on there being no afterlife. […]

Nick Mattiske · 13 February 2026

Reviews

In Cairn, You Are The Mountain

Review: Cairn There’s a scene midway through Cairn, the mountain-climbing epic from independent developer The Game Bakers, where main character Aava speaks with another climber about what pushes her to keep climbing. In her words, during moments of beauty and solitude, when she stands alone on a peak she has scaled, it’s not just that […]

James O'Connor · 8 February 2026

Reviews

A Stroll Through Sydney’s Layers

Review: Walking Sydney: Fifteen Walks with a City’s Writers, Belinda Castles, Newsouth When we lived in Balmain years ago, my wife and I would walk from Gladstone Park on Darling St, over the hill and along past the container port, winding through streets of terraces and the occasional, larger colonial mansion, up old steps only […]

Nick Mattiske · 5 February 2026