Dim's Write Stuff

I’m known to spend my brief lunch breaks pouring over my latest read, gingerly page turning with one hand. Shoving food down with the other. There are usually accidents thus there is always a sheet of paper towelling or a servette present, as well. Let me tell you; if Love Stories by Trent Dalton is your current lunch date, you’ll need a few extra rolls of paper towelling. Not because the stories within ignite a voracious appetite but because they unbottle a sea of emotions that by the very last pages even the most robust 3 ply paper towel could not possibily absorb. Love Stories is not a wanton sob fest however. It’s more of a two-armed hug. It’s warm and intimate. Compassionate and global. It cleaves your heart open then carefully welds it back together, better than it was before even if you’re a bit like me; someone who has never succumbed to the pull of Valentine’s Day, who regards romance as improbable as a lottery win. Someone who has craved love since she could toddle after...

Five years ago an incredible book emerged about an odd little bird who saved a family ; the Bloom family, who endured a horrific tragedy and learnt to live with pain and disappointment, heartache and renewed love thanks to an angel clothed in black and white. Penguin Bloom (HarperCollins 2016) was an instant success resulting in the production of a major motion picture still showing on the big screen. This Young Readers’ Edition is the movie-tie in and every bit an emotional heart tug as its parent editions. Samantha Bloom was a young energetic vivacious mother of three committed to life and adventure when she had a harrowing near death accident whilst on holiday with her family in Thailand. Her subsequent paralysation left her broken and wheelchair bound and in terrible mental decline. This was not the life she had planned. She was no longer the woman she thought she’d be. Her sons and husband, helpless bystanders in this tragedy felt every bit of her pain and despair but were un...

Regrettably, Gary Paulsen was a bit of an unknown to me until discovering this transcending story about his childhood. A multi-award winning author of young adult fiction, Paulsen reveals how his ability to smith words developed as a consequence of his remarkable upbringing, or more accurately, lack thereof. Paulsen was, not literally an orphan, but he was a lost child. Gone to the Woods begins with one such journey adrift an ocean of salacious events thanks to his mother and her penchant for supplementing her hourly wage at local Chicago clubs. At just five years of age, Paulsen is dumped upon a train bound for a relatives’ farm in north Minnesota not far from the Canadian border. It proves to be his temporary salvation and a place he acquires the art of patience, a deep respect for nature and an appreciation of what genuine kindness tastes like. Edy’s motherly compassion and Sig’s reticent guidance nurture the abandoned boy until a sense of who he is begins to emerge. It’s bone...