Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe


  • What I Ate in One Year (and related thoughts) – Stanley Tucci

    Penguin Australia October 2024 I have loved Stanley in every role in which I’ve seen him from Caesar/Lucky Flickerman (Hunger Games/Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) to Muertes (Undercover Blues), from Nigel (The Devil Wears Prada) to Mr Stringer (The Witches – and everything inbetween. I think the only film I’ve eschewed was The Lovely Bones…

  • Finding My Bella Vita: A story of family, food, fame and working out who you are – Pia Miranda

    Hachette SEP 27, 2023 | 9780733649837 | RRP $34.99 I only quite recently re-watched Looking for Alibrandi, thoroughly enjoying it all over again, so was keen to read and review this memoir, simply on the strength of Pia’s amazing presence as Josie Alibrandi. And I was not disappointed, because her memoir is every bit as fresh, quirky and memorable as…

  • House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries – Alan Bennett

    Profile Books July 2022 ISBN: 9781800811928ISBN-10: 1800811926 RRP: $14.99 It’s a perfect little gem of a book – a mere fifty pages – but they are just packed with Bennett’s trademark ascerbic wit, pithy obervations on social circumstances made all the more absurd at times by the whole Covid complication. Now in his 80s, in fact almost…

  • Top End Girl – Miranda Tapsell

    Hachette Australia APR 28, 2020 | 9780733642432 | RRP $32.99 A deadly memoir about being bold, black and brave in work, life and love As Reconciliation Week closes for another year how timely is it that I can share this impressive and inspirational memoir from the pint-sized dynamo Miranda Tapsell. Many will know her from The Sapphires and more…