Cliff Curtis’ turn as a bipolar chess champ may be his greatest role yet. He talks to Russell Baillie about piling on weight, confronting his past, and being a family man.

New season, new colours. Take a foolhardy approach to this season’s bright fun things.

Cliff Curtis has been on our screens for more than 20 years, ranging from pivotal roles in New Zealand films like Once Were Warriors and Whale Rider to becoming a chameleonic character actor in Hollywood. Here's a visual look back at his career so far.

We’d peered behind the papered-up windows, anxiously wondering what the new owners were changing on this popular corner spot, so the first chance we could we were queuing at the door.

The many facets of England meet in the pages of Graham Swift’s new book, writes Stephen Jewell.

Whether you believe in Creation or evolution or intelligent design or not-so-intelligent design or whatever, the male scrotum surely has to be a mistake in all of them.

Colour blocking is trickling its way into spring/summer collections and, while winter focused on mixing block pastels and brilliant hues with subdued tones, now its about embracing brights with gusto. After all, who said minimalism was restricted to neutrals?

No need for opening acts with rock stars like these.

The Botanist does more than brunch, or even lunch or dinner.

In his New book, The Kitchen Magpie, James Steen presents a veritable host of household hints. Here are some of our favourite.

Martine Bailey puts a dark twist on food in her ‘culinary gothic’ novel that features real, historic family recipes, writes Stephen Jewell.

Reconsidering moments that changed everything is an old chestnut in fiction, but Linda Grant manages it with verve in this excellent novel.

Fred Robbins is an enigma, even to the person closest to him in the world, his sister Ava.

It was reported recently that North Korea, the gift that keeps on giving, had declared war on Seth Rogen and James Franco.

Elle Macpherson says she was an ‘insecure dork’ at the height of her model stardom. Now, at 50, she reckons she looks better than ever — but don’t ask her about skinny models, writes Matthew Stadlen.

Pump up the volume with these clean-cut and relaxed separates.

A popular dining strip has a newcomer, which scores top marks for its attention to details — and its coffee.

Tina Shaw talks to Rebecca Barry Hill about her connection to provincial New Zealand and why she is drawn to dark crime.

It’s full of dazzling prose, it’s ingeniously put together, it’s so long it’s a drag to lug around.

Where the hell did kale come from? Seriously, how did the cauliflower’s ugly cousin go from this thing no one outside a few food/health freaks had ever heard of to suddenly being the single most important vegetable none of us can possibly live without?

A new report bragging about how cool and grown-up the ‘new’ Auckland is doesn’t even come close to imagining how great this city could be, writes Greg Dixon.

Pump up the volume with these clean-cut and relaxed separates.

In his second novel, Craig Sherborne presents a family of transients, “last of their kind”, who drift along, squatting in abandoned properties dotted across Victoria’s wheat belt.

Loop, with its white walls, tables and chairs plus a rather magnificent curved bar, is a refreshing change in Kingsland.

You’ve been warned. These highbrow prints have an artistic temperament.