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Books: Suggested sports reading for the stocking
If you're not sure what to get Dad this Christmas, Andrew Alderson has a few ideas of the literary kind.
Book review: Gilliamesque, Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam is the odd man out of the Python squad, the warm and loose American among uptight Englishmen. Yet he may be the team's secret weapon.
Book review: Public Library and other stories, Ali Smith
T.S. Eliot once wrote that the critic's job was to "exhibit the relations of literature - not to 'life', as something contrasted to literature, but to all the other activities, which, together with literature, are the components of life".
First look at The BFG
Disney has released the first teaser trailer for the upcoming film The BFG.
Book review: Beatlebone, Kevin Barry
Author Kevin Barry's latest novel Beatlebone delves into the mind of John Lennon as he seeks the solitude of a tiny Irish island that he bought for 1700 pounds in 1968.
Children can lose reading ability over summer
The summer holidays are for swimming and playing in the sun but parents should add another activity to their kids' agenda - reading.
Herald on Sunday editorial: Give kids a reading habit these holidays
Parents, we report, are being urged to read to their kids over the holidays, or ensure they keep reading, to maintain their mental development.
Wellingtonians bring quidditch to life
It's not every day you see people running around a field with a broomstick between their legs.
Mein Kampf returns to German shelves after 70-year ban
With the copyright due to expire at the end of this month, the long-banned Nazi bible will soon be revived.
Twelve Questions: Peter Wells
It sounds incredible now that it took so long, but it was well received and won the Best First Book award.
New Hulk comic smashes all you thought you knew about the character
Marvel comics is about to obliterate everything you've come to know about The Hulk.
JK Rowling steps in to explain why Harry Potter named his son after Snape
JK Rowling explains Harry Potter named his middle child Albus Severus out of "forgiveness and respect" to Severus Snape.
Most popular books in prisons revealed
Heroic fantasy books, Jack Reacher novels and crime thrillers top the reading list inside our prisons.
Book review: Vivid - The Paul Hartigan Story
Although Paul Hartigan's art has roamed from pop-art painting and posters, to Polaroids and beyond, his neon work is the most familiar.
Twelve Questions: Emma Wright
Waiheke artist Emma Wright became a best-selling author after blogging about her art, her life and her battle with bulimia.
Catton and Mouse in top 10
The Fault in Our Stars, which debuted at No 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's chapter books, had been borrowed 3006 times by this week.
Book review: The Best New Writing On ... Arrival, John Freeman
John Freeman shot to international fame with his contentious 2009 book Shrinking the World: The 4000-Year Story Of How Email Came To Rule Our Lives.
Book review: Going South, Colin Hogg
There's no easy way to find out that an old mate has terminal cancer but reading a book about it has got to be one of the most moving.
Book review: Pacific - The Once and Future Ocean, Simon Winchester
Will the Pacific save us? In his biography of an ocean, Simon Winchester finds an optimistic note among all the doom we humans trail in our wake.
Book review: Undermajordomo Minor, Patrick DeWitt
The style of the narrative can best be described as a darkly comic fairy tale. All the familiar tropes are there; jilted hero, beautiful damsel, dark castle,mysterious forest and a collection of untrustworthy characters who mean our hero no good.
Carter fever runs high at book signing
There's only one person who can reduce Kiwi men to starstruck school girls clamouring for a peep of their idol.
Book review: Submission by Michel Houellebecq
You'll go a long way to find a more complex character than French writer Michel Houellebecq. He has attracted (and courted) controversy throughout his literary career.
Book Review: Revenge, a dish best served cold
Bill Manhire's new collection of stories includes a powerful essay on growing up with a father who liked a drink.
Best-selling crime author: 'I grew up with fear'
Patricia Cornwell's best-selling crime novels are based on obsessive detail and gory research. But the author's own back story is one of the most frightening of all.