Confession time: I'd never read anything by Anne Rice before this. For a while, I thought she was another name for Stephenie Meyer. She's not (of course), but she could be.

I began this book when a William Lobb rose was in its first flowering in my garden. Every time I went out to get the mail the perfume hung in the air and I breathed it in and felt good about being alive.

It's been six months since the last Joyce Carol Oates, so it's not surprising to find she has another book out. Her productivity is astonishing, she's Barbara Cartland in black instead of pink.

Between books, TV shows and travel, it's a wonder this chef still gets time to bake.

A new cookbook written by two old friends exploring their culinary heritage should reignite your zest for Italian food.

They are small, yellow and designed to endure nothing more stressful than a quick journey around a bathtub.

Lynch fans will delight in her latest offering of love and heartache in the Italian hills. Sarah-Kate Lynch even helped smooth the reviewer's own path to love.

David Larsen talks to career film buff David Thomson about his revised classic.

One of the many funny lines in the profanity-strewn satirical film In The Loop came from the character Jamie Macdonald, the senior press officer in 10 Downing St and the "angriest man in Scotland".

It may be boring for parents - but reading the same book over and over again to children is the best way to develop their vocabulary.

A group of Californian surfers have discovered a new wave: off an iceberg in the Antarctic.

If it followed the pattern of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, Eva Gabrielsson's book might be called "The girl who was cheated of millions".

Sure, books are one of life's pleasures, but who said every kid has to love reading?

Having led a lonely childhood, Lesley Pearse knows what it is to seek a better life. Now she is helping women to help others. She tells Stephen Jewell how.

Here's a story about how to become middle-aged and middle-class - without noticing it.

Dan Shanan is a trustee of the Documentary Edge Festival.

Craig Cliff's first collection of stories heralds the arrival of an electrifying new voice on the New Zealand writing scene. These stories are standalone gems, but the collection also brings together satisfying harmonies as a whole.

Kiwi crime queen Vanda Symon talks to Craig Sisterson about accidental heroines and playing with swords.

There's the boy who kills sheep and gouges out their eyes. There's the young man who wishes literally to eat his girlfriend but who angrily denies he is a Hannibal Lecter figure.

John Irving is the king of the long, multilayered novel. In the tradition of Dickens, he cleverly weaves together the intricate threads of cross-generational storylines.

Paul Torday produces an intriguing page-turner that won't fail to surprise.

This work of speculative fiction arrives on New Zealand shelves with the degree of hype usually reserved for angst-ridden teen vamps or boy wizards.