The German Pontiff's favourite recipes are a suicidal mix of fried, buttery and carnivorous pleasures.

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo by Julia Stuart
Fig Tree, $26.99

This book does contain all the practical information you'd need to walk the tracks but really it's more a source of inspiration

It's hard to pin down Jane Smiley's style as each new book is so different from the last.

Plenty of buzz in the publishing world surrounds this sprawling, post-apocalyptic novel that's being heralded as one of the year's big releases.

The good news for Stieg Larsson addicts: two unpublished manuscripts have been unearthed in his native Sweden.

Trail riding is increasing in popularity in New Zealand.

A vivid portrait of a time and a place, I can see exactly why UK author Amanda Craig's sixth novel was longlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize.

Whitcoulls has entered the e-book fray with a new reader, as Amazon continues to ignore New Zealand with its popular Kindle.

To lose one personal fortune might be considered bad luck; to lose two looks distinctly careless.

I thought the first of these books put out under the auspices of the AA, 101 Must-Dos for Kiwis, was great.

Florence and her younger brother Giles live in a largely abandoned homestead in 1891 New England.

There's something buttoned up and restrained about Charlotte Grimshaw's writing, something as middle class as the characters whose stories she tells and, I imagine, as the people who tend to read them.