Latest fromBook Reviews
Writers Festival: Where the duck goes, he goes
David Larsen discovers the intriguing backstory behind cartoonist Michael Leunig’s whimsical birds
Book review: Idiopathy
Many contemporary male novelists, particularly comic ones, are incapable of depicting an unsympathetic female character.
Book review: & Son
Hyperbole often surrounds big novels, especially big novels from New York about New York and by New Yorkers, but in Gilbert's case it is all justified.
Gary Shteyngart: Crying with laughter
American novelist Gary Shteyngart tells Alexander Bisley why he likes to combine hilarity, sadness and introspection.
Two scribes go to war
Could Britain have avoided World War I? Historians Max Hastings and Niall Ferguson have presented rival views on the BBC.
Legends of literature in line-up
Linda Herrick surveys the wealth of names coming to Auckland’s Writers Festival in May.
Swords and jandals
An Arabic scene of dunes and camels was the backdrop for a diverse literary event, writes Linda Herrick.
The dark beneath the light
British-based writer Tom Rob Smith tells Stephen Jewell how real life drama inspired his new novel in a way that disturbed him far more than he expected.
Book review: The Last Word
Consider being commissioned and hard-pressed to write the biography of an old, famous, living author.
Ben Atkins: One night out sleuthing
Fledgling Auckland writer Ben Atkins talks to Craig Sisterson about the crime novel he has been working on since he was 15.
Book review: Terms & Conditions
Extensive footnotes make this hard to follow, as Nicky Pellegrino discovers.
Book review: A Beautiful Truth
Walt and Judy, of 1970s small-town Vermont, can't conceive a child. For all their mutual tenderness, life has become just "a collection of gestures and habits". So they adopt.
Toying with times past
Miranda Carter read history while at Oxford and came to writing after a career in journalism.
School of hard knocks
Hope and hopelessness make a funny yet thoughtful combination, writes Rebecca Barry Hill.
Armistead Maupin: Willing to be honest
Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City have delighted readers for four decades and brought gay life into the mainstream. Now the ninth book brings the series to an end. Hermione Hoby reports.