Alex Miller was watching the squirrels from a bench in London's Holland Park when he first heard the opening words to his latest novel.

Some of New Zealand’s leading fiction writers have been trawling the history books for inspiration lately.

Prolific young adult author and television screenplay writer Anthony Horowitz talks to Stephen Jewell about penning the next escapades of the world’s most famous detective.

Best-selling crime writer Ian Rankin is the author of The Impossible Dead (Orion, $37.99).

Tapestry of dark and light are skilfully woven, writes Nicky Pellegrino.

Germany's biggest Catholic-owned publishing house has been rocked by disclosures that it has been selling thousands of pornographic novels.

A stack of promising new novels has thudded onto the Fiction Addiction desk.

Reading Airini Beautrais' new collection, Western Line, fills me with joy - through what words can do and through the avenues poetry makes available.

Suzanne McFadden talks to Kiwi romance queen Michelle Holman about issues and critics.

This guide has information about the main grounds and teams in the top 18 rugby-playing nations.

Towards the end of his rambling diary of a road trip through his native country, Garth Cartwright engages in a sly piece of critic-proofing sophistry.

Queenstown and Southern Lakes has been named one of Lonely Planet's top 10 regions to visit next year.

British novelist Tasmina Perry is the author of Private Lives (Headline, $34.99).

Martina Cole’s crime novels explore the extremes of relationship dysfunction. She talks to Stephen Jewell about her fascination with the darker, and tougher, side of human nature.

Viva's Zoe Walker explores how characters described in fiction have influenced her through the years.

The blurb on the back of Breton Dukes’ debut short-story collection, Bird North And Other Stories, adds him to an esteemed line of New Zealand exponents of the genre: Frank Sargeson, Maurice Duggan and Owen Marshall.

Reading this very long book is deep immersion in the horrors of the Holocaust, and after a prolonged session readers may have to lift themselves from a state of depression about the human condition.

The Sense of an Ending is the kind of novel you might need to ponder for a few days before coming to any conclusions.

If I describe this memoir of life on the Kaipara as “charming”, it instantly sounds as if I’m sending it down the Damn-With-Faint-Praise chute. I’m not.

Ex-pat Geoffrey Wilson’s ironic imaginings are fuelled by his youth in South Africa and New Zealand, writes Stephen Jewell.