Family treasures helped create a stunning, unique cookbook with nostalgic appeal.

Personal time is too precious to waste on rotten reads. That's why our new book club, Fiction Addiction, will only be road-testing the most promising new novels.

There are memoirs that are about a personal life lived, and then there are memoirs about a specific subject on which an author wishes to ruminate at length. Annie Proulx's non-fiction Bird Cloud very much falls into the latter.

This author's début is less than the sum of its brilliant parts.

Tanya Moir is a Southland writer who recently published her début novel La Rochelle's Road (Random House, $39.99).

Don't mention the Cup - or more accurately the fact we haven't won the World Cup since 1987.

It is a tale of two cities and two sisters. Atka and Hana were parted as girls in war-torn Sarajevo but then reunited as young women.

If you've been put off making a curry because it seems too involved, veteran cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey proves that it needn't be the case.

Amy Chua is unashamedly a 'Tiger Mother'. Her daughters were never allowed to go to sleepovers, have playmates, be in a school play, watch television or play computer games.

A British actress' first novel reveals her comedic talent.

Nervous readers need not fear, Jason Webster's new Spanish detective, Max Camara of Valencia, hates bullfights.

The latest book in the Day Walks series covers the amazing routes which can be walked in parts of Canterbury like Kaikoura and the Mackenzie Country.

Elizabeth Smither is an acclaimed New Plymouth-based poet, novelist and short story writer. She has recently released The Commonplace Book (AUP, $34.99), a collection of thoughts about writing and the writer's life.

On May 27, 1942, two Czech parachutists ambushed and wounded SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich near Prague. Heydrich was not seriously wounded but a ricochet bullet had carried cloth, wire and wool into the wound.

Not a picture book, not a graphic novel, not anything easily pigeon-holed, Chris Slane and Matt Elliott's study-cum-evocation of life in World War I is a great resource and a great read.

The recent flurry of gosh-how-shocking stories about female consumption of pornography is emblematic.

Madhur Jaffrey's latest cookbook simplifies Indian cooking while staying true to the spirit of her homeland.

David Larsen talks to Australian writer Margo Lanagan about Twitter and fantasy novels.

The small, superb story has become a talisman in the author's Italy. Since its publication there 15 years ago, it's won plaudits and prizes and been made into a Mastroianni film.

Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Hours, was in debt to both life and literature. His new novel, By Nightfall, also displays a strong allegiance to both.

Mixing reality and fantasy with little help given to the reader makes an odd book - but it's no lemon.

It would be very easy in these economically grim times to write novels casting bankers in the harshest of lights - simple moustache-twisting pantomime villains.

Charlotte Randall is a Christchurch-based author whose latest novel, Hokitika Town (Penguin, $30), is on the best-seller list.

The best baking recipes by Maud Basham - aka Aunt Daisy- have been collated in a new cookbook.