Latest fromBook Reviews
Book review: Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travelist
You can't beat a good list - and a good bit of travel bragging. Lonely Planet knows it, and this is their contribution to the debate, writes Winston Aldworth.
Book review: The Fish Ladder, Katharine Norbury
Fish ladders are structures that Britons began building in the 19th century when they started damming and blocking waterways.
Book review: The Whispering Swarm, Michael Moorcock
There are too many Michael Moorcocks. I don't mean the books - although there are a bewildering number of those, there could never be too many for his admirers.
Book review: James Cook's Lost World, Graeme Lay
In this final volume of Graeme Lay's fictional trilogy on the life of James Cook, we confront a very different man to the legend or, for that matter, the first two books in the series.
Book review: Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
Like every other book of Stephenson's, this one uses formal language to position itself a small, strategic distance from its readers, like a speaker standing behind a lectern.
Book review: Love + Hate, Hanif Kureishi
A grinding, persuasive power binds this collection of short fiction and essays, many of which have been published elsewhere in the past two or three years.
Book review: The Pale North, Hamish Clayton
It begins near the end of the 20th century. The Big One has finally hit; on a strangely warm July afternoon, the Wellington Fault tears asunder, and New Zealand's capital is wrecked.
Book review: Skyfaring - A Journey with a Pilot
In an age of low-cost carriers, DVT and crappy movies on crappy little screens, we often lose sight of the old-fashioned wonder of flight, writes Winston Aldworth.
Book review: Sweet Caress, William Boyd
British novelist William Boyd's latest book, Sweet Caress, tells the story of a young female photographer. It is published at the end of the August.
Book review: Terrain, Geoff Chapple
When he founded Te Araroa - the national walkway - Geoff Chapple encouraged us to go out and see the extraordinary beauty of this land of the long white cloud.
Book review: The Interior Circuit
In Say Her Name, Francisco Goldman wrote cleavingly of his new wife's death in a surfing accident. Four years on, he lauds and laments another love - Mexico City's Distrito Federal.
Book review: Zero Zero Zero
Saviano made his name with Gomorrah, documenting the reach of the Neapolitan Camorra. It reaped awards, death threats and permanent police protection, an accolade shared with author Salman Rushdie.
Why Italian author Roberto Saviano lives in hiding
Roberto Saviano's exposé of the Mafia earned him an armed guard. Now he's taken on the cocaine trade. Ian Thomson meets him.
First-class writer with space to roam
If only commercial realities allowed New Zealanders to enjoy long-form journalism.
Spook on an English mission
Stephen Jewell talks to Daniel Silva about the latest outing for his Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon.
Books: Recent releases July 19
Without intense focus, triple narrative strands can trip readers.
Chilled to the core
Rosamund Lupton’s new novel explores a deaf child’s world in a thriller about a desperate struggle to find a missing husband in an icy wilderness, she tells Stephen Jewell.