Latest from Books

Read all about it
For the past two years, former editor David Hastings has been poring over original pages of Auckland's first newspapers at the Auckland Museum as part of research for his new book.

Here's what's in store for the next Bond book
The next James Bond novel has the world's most famous secret agent living in London's Chelsea section at the age of 45.

Book Review: Reading words about writers
If its subject were less illustrious, this memoir would probably receive little attention.

Bookworms: murder or sex?
Kiwi bookworms prefer homicide to hanky panky, figures from libraries reveal.

Book Review: Turn Right At Machu Picchu
This is very good, with an unusual proviso; this narrative has more routine everyday mountain climbing than anything I've read.

New James Bond book hitting shelves soon
A new James Bond novel, written by British novelist William Boyd, will be released on September 26, publishers Jonathan Cape have announced.

Book Review: Truth Like the Sun
The 19th century novels I still like give a strong sense of demanding to be read aloud to an audience. But by 1950, I would say, that lingering expectation of how a novel delivers had changed, in most languages and even most genres.

Book Review: Blasphemy
All sorts of unexpected, unsettling things happen in these 30 short stories. In Phoenix, Arizona, jobless Victor heads south with his nation's worst-ever storyteller to reclaim parental remains.

Behind the secrets of Scientology
Jenna Miscavige Hill was a third-generation Church of Scientologist. She escaped the secretive society and told her story to Nicky Park.

A look behind the secret world of Scientology
Ex-Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill has revealed the harsh reality of growing up in the Church. Read her story here.

Book Review: Return Of A King
Compare these two statements. "If the foreign forces are ready to leave our country ... then we can help them. But if they insist on continuing the war, we don't have any other way than fighting." An Afghan warlord, speaking in 2009.

Health risks over chick lit
Self-scrutinising fictional heroines could be bad for your health.

Whitney's daughter slams grandma's tell all book
Whitney Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown has slammed her grandma's tell-all book about her late mother and vowed never to read the tome.

Amazing feats of forgotten hero of the ice
American author David Roberts is seeking to resurrect the achievements of a much lesser known explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson.

Book Review: New Finnish Grammar
The premise of New Finnish Grammar is inspired: a wounded soldier is found by a German crew on the quay at Trieste in September, 1943. He has no identification on him, no memory whatsoever and, crucially, no language.