An NZ woman has been crowned Australia's fastest reader after becoming one of the first people to read Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol.

Growing up in a conservative Indian town in the 1980s, Aravind Adiga devoured literature, most of it English.

Patricia Wright sings the role of Madam Larina in the opera Eugene Onegin

It's hardly surprising that this book has zoomed up the New Zealand bestseller lists. Combining costume drama and crime with a spirited heroine and a dash of feminism, it is frightfully good, as they might have said back in 1924

Henry Porter brings his civil liberties crusade to his latest novel.

Philippa Gregory turns to the Plantagenets and a secret bride in her latest historical novel.

An outspoken victim of con man Bernard Madoff has written a book disclosing she once had an extramarital affair with him.