REVIEWS LAUREN NOVAK, SAMELA HARRIS, KATHARINE ENGLAND

Memoir I AM, I AM, I AM Maggie O’Farrell Tinder Press, $29.99 Maggie O’Farrell has dodged death more times than most. The Ireland-born author’s memoir chronicles 17 “near-death experiences” over her four-plus decades of life. There are life-and-death moments — almost drowning, nosediving in a plane. Others are near misses — escaping a dangerous stranger, just avoiding a speeding vehicle. You may relate to her catching of dysentery or emergency Csection. Some chapters are more abstract (like receiving a merciful negative test result) or happen, not to her, but to her children. Presented as a collection of short stories, they’re told not chronologically, but divided into chapters based on the body parts affected by the story. It’s an engaging way to frame a memoir, as O’Farrell weaves in other memories to also tell travel tales, love stories and family histories. It will leave you grateful to be alive. Rating: êêêêk Speculative fiction BROADCAST Liam Brown Bantam $29.99 Social media has produced an epidemic of vapid self-fascination including the phenomenon of vloggers uploading videos of their lives onto YouTube and Snapchat. Dave Callow has achieved such a massive following as a superstar vlogger that he draws the attention of a cyber entrepreneur to accept a prototype brain implant which delivers a 24-hour-a-day direct broadcast of his thoughts. Thereafter, with the world avidly watching on phones and everyone wanting a slice of the action, the vlogger’s vanity is usurped by the need to control the nature of thought. Big Brother is also watching and Callow discovers things are not what they seem. The book is rich in lively turns of phrase, and an interesting speculative ride through the perilous possibilities of new media. Rating: êêêê Picturebook THE NAUGHTIEST REINDEER TAKES A BOW Nicki Greenberg Allen & Unwin $19.99 This year’s Christmas themed books for young children have seemed oddly melancholy, but nothing can stem the exuberance of Greenberg’s Ruby the Reindeer in her third misadventure, not even accidentally hijacking the sleigh and leaving Santa panting on a bicycle. It’s all done with the best of intentions, of course: Ruby plans to get a head start on the deliveries and save all that last minute panic, but the sleigh proves far too heavy for one small reindeer and she crashes again, sleigh, presents and all, into the everyday lives of George and Amelia and thus into the school Christmas play where she appropriates a stateful of little human reindeers. An entertaining read full of movement and colour. Rating: êêêê