Through coincidence rather than design, there's a strong American influence in this month's Fiction Fix hotlist of new novels.

Only in Ireland could a half-forgotten route be named the Way of St Declan or the way of St Patrick's Cow.

The thing about the movies that we've never got over is that they move. In doing so, they evoke a facsimile of life better than life itself. Even the "fractured flickers" of the early cinema commanded an instant suspension of disbelief.

Australian writer Arnold Zable talls Graham Reid about giving voice to people in his work and his good fortune in post-revolution China.

The force behind Soul Bar, Judith Tabron, marks its 10 year anniversary with the release of a new cookbook.

Nicky Pellegrino speaks to a man who sees a bright future for felony.

Theresa Healey is an Auckland-based actress who is in Auckland Theatre Company's production of Calendar Girls at The Civic.

Ian Wedde's new novel portrays a troubled food critic who creates a crisis.

If somebody locks himself in a stranger's spare room for months, is he escaping the world or facing up to it?

Giant George may be the world’s tallest dog — 1.5m tall and 2m long — but his owner, Dave Nasser, says he’s a big softie.

Joyce Carol Oates, a prolific and award-winning writer, has assembled and revised a collection of essays and reviews that originally appeared in places such as the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.

The most important skill a photographer can have is learning to see: the beautiful in the bland and the interesting in the immaterial.

Nifty title. Nifty concept. Stories about work - manual work; skilled work; responsible, itinerant, above-board or undercover work. Nifty aim, also: all proceeds go to fund youth literacy programmes across the United States.

Best-selling Kiwi crime writer Ben Sanders talks to Craig Sisterson about balancing study and writing, and evoking Auckland in his thrillers.

We still know little for sure about the prospects for intelligent fiction in a digital age. Yet most observers agree that the status of the professional "career novelist" may shift from that of a rare species to a deeply endangered one.

This outstanding transcription of extraordinary events carries a telling subtitle: "A Novel of a Life".

Lady Gaga's forthcoming pictorial book will include images of her in the shower.