Johno Ryan is doomed, it seems. He's barely out of short pants when his father and his grandfather sit him down and explain that their family are criminals: that's what they do.

A family’s story can be far more tumultuous than any blockbuster, as Linda Herrick discovers in a conversation with author Lloyd Jones.

People who read a lot of novels develop certain discriminations.

Unless you're a gazillionaire signed up for one of those trips into space, your next holiday is somewhere inside these pages.

Well-pitched tale took 15 years to tell, writes Nicky Pellegrino.

It seems strange, in the age of information overload, that we should still be swamped by the fear of the unknown.

The halls of government prove to be an enthralling setting for courtroom drama, writes Stephen Jewell.

Every now and then you get to read a novel that elevates you far beyond the bric-a-brac of everyday routine, takes you apart, reassembles you, and leaves you feeling as though you have been on holiday with a genius.

There are no prizes for guessing what this book is about. This House is Haunted is about a haunted house and, if you like spooky ghost stories, John Boyne’s latest novel does the trick.

Kiwi crime fiction is top class, writes Nicky Pellegrino.

When did the amusement park coming-of-age story become a thing? Did I miss the memo?

This well-told story won the American National Book Award last year.

Carl Hiaasen needn’t look far for a story on which to base a novel. It’s all right outside his door in Miami, he tells Stephen Jewell.

Rudy’s 43rd year is not a good one. He’s on bad terms with his wife and daughters; his parents (living or dead); his assertive younger fellow-architects. He’s falling off the booze wagon and he’s just fallen off his Vespa.

Filmed 30 years ago, out-of-print for quarter of a century, The Odd Angry Shot is a savage and mordantly funny novel that follows a group of Aussie SAS troopers in South Vietnam during the ugly, unjustified war of the 1960s.

A violin's journey invokes smiles and tears, writes Nicky Pellegrino.

Long-time Hollywood director Chris Columbus wants his latest success story to stay on the page — for now, anyway, writes Stephen Jewell.

The materially successful but spiritually bereft Janine Harding finds herself, in her early 40s, living in a “do-up” on an island in the Hauraki Gulf, where time on her hands sets her to thinking about her family history.

Stories told of the mostly unknown women behind US astronauts.

In this book full of striking images, it's the first that seems to best capture the essence of potter Barry Brickell - a 1971 portrait of the artist bent double to work inside a huge ceramic jar, his trunk vanishing ostrich-like into its clay mouth.