Latest from Books

Book Review: In Rough Country
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.

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

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

Book Review: Wish You Were Here
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.

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

Grace Coddington's brand new chapter
Model, film star, now writer: Grace Coddington is set to tell all in her memoirs.

Tim Radford: Celebrating displaced souls
New Zealand writer Tim Radford tells Stephen Jewell why his new book about roots defies genre and how reading Moby Dick can affect one’s sense of place.

Book Review: Rome
Had Robert Hughes continued with his original aim of being an artist rather than becoming possibly the best-known art critic in the world it is a safe bet he would not have been a miniaturist.

Book Review: Greetings From Route 66
When, in 1946, Bobby Troup wrote what became his classic song, Route 66, he could hardly have anticipated how popular it would become.

Fiction Addiction: Introducing 'Caleb's Crossing'
Geraldine Brooks very nearly missed the inspiration for her latest novel, this month's feature book Caleb's Crossing.

Book lover: Tim Carlsen
Tim Carlsen is an Auckland actor who is performing in Silo Theatre's I Love You Bro, now playing at the Herald Theatre.

Aravind Adiga: Mischief in Mumbai
Aravind Adiga turns a mirror on Indian society, writes Nicky Pellegrino.

Travel book: <i>The Official Rugby World Cup 2011 Travel Guide</i>
If you haven't already heard quite enough about Rugby World Cup 2011 then this is for you.

Poetry Reviews: Breathing on the page
Vivienne Plumb's new collection of poetry - beautifully designed by poet and publisher Helen Rickerby - reminds me that poetry books can feel so good in the hand. Plumb's poems have a chance to breathe on the page.

New stars of Nordic noir
Why, asks Barry Forshaw, are Scandinavian writers winning worldwide acclaim for their crime?

Fiction Addiction: Four hot new novels
We had the world's politest fight over who got first dibs on the most promising of the new novels on our Fiction Fix hot list this month...

Book Review: Goodbye Sarajevo
Sarajevo, in Bosnia, was the perfect city for a siege. Nestled in a valley surrounded by hills, the people below became easy targets.

Book Review: We Are Soldiers
Award-winning Sunday Times columnist Danny Danziger made the inspired decision not to write a book about British soldiers, but to let the soldiers tell their own stories.

Jeffery Deaver: Wrestling with the morality of spying
Jeffery Deaver tells Stephen Jewell why the new Bond carries an iPhone.