Hope and hopelessness make a funny yet thoughtful combination, writes Rebecca Barry Hill.

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.

While the summer holiday season is still going strong, there's nothing better than whiling away the hours with a good travel book. Linda Herrick reviews a selection of the latest.

New Zealand's top publishers offer their picks for this year's best summer reading.

Alex Robertson reviews two Lonely Planet titles aimed at the younger members of the family.

British writer Tom Cox has attracted an avid following through his blogs and books about living in the Norfolk countryside with a gang of cats. He talks to Linda Herrick

Like one of Field Marshal Haig's family whiskies, Max Hastings is a dram that steadily improves with age.

What a character arc Jean Batten's life offers.

It's almost a tradition for birders to complain about their field guides: a particular variation of plumage.

As we age from children into adults, the sheer power of our imagination ebbs away.

When Elizabeth Knox started writing her new novel, Wake, she wanted to take on the challenge of inspiring fear. But, she writes, that evolved into confronting the real-life things that terrified her.

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood tells Stephen Jewell how one novel became three.

Australian crime writer Garry Disher tells Linda Herrick why he likes to make his readers wait.