LifestyleBooks: Patience brings its rewardsBack in the familiar rural midwest of her previous novels, Moo, Horse Heaven and A Thousand Acres, Pulitzer prize-winner Jane Smiley presents us with the first volume of a projected trilogy.06 Feb 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Revelation and disintegrationA novel is a place where past and present versions of one person can co-exist, and in his fifth novel Andrew O'Hagan movingly explores the way the "flotsam" of a life can rise to the surface as old age and memory go about their strange and poignant work.06 Feb 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Expert guided tour through rich historyTo modern eyes, the little wagon in a Berlin museum looks like a model of an old horse-drawn cart. Solidly made, about as big as a baby's cot, it is in fact a handcart, to be pulled by people, not animals.06 Feb 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Unsettling presence in everyday lifePlaudits to the publisher for their tactile, trim presentation of this small-is-beautiful novella. And to the Australian author herself for a rewarding — and riddling — little read.06 Feb 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Love and how to forgiveWhat is normal? And what if you don't fit in with society's idea of it? Those are the issues raised by US author Amy Hatvany's thoughtful and compelling new novel31 Jan 02:46 AM
LifestylePaul Cleave: Murders He WroteChristchurch crime writer Paul Cleave, whose books have sold more than half a million copies, has no qualms killing people on the page. But now online piracy is killing him, he tells Linda Herrick.30 Jan 06:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: The river runs wildLucy Wood’s first novel is a magic realist ghost story set in Devon. Lucy Popescu went there to meet her.30 Jan 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Embracing the hard stuff"Tell you what", write the editors of this excellent collection, is a phrase that promises "a revelation, a shift, a new truth".23 Jan 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Warning: horrors lie aheadI can see it plainly now. Stephen King has been playing me. The old Stephen King, the real one. I'd forgotten about him. That was his plan all along.23 Jan 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: A love letter to New YorkPorochista Khakpour's new novel is a magical realist take on 9/11.23 Jan 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: 'I hate men who waltz in and write about love'Jodi Picoult has written 23 novels, eight of them No 1 bestsellers. Just don’t call her work ‘women’s fiction’, says Bryony Gordon.17 Jan 01:00 AM
LifestyleBooks: The truth is out there, somewhereWhen a computer virus hacks into the Australian prison system in 2010, it also infects the American corporations that licensed the software.16 Jan 05:00 PM
TravelTravel book review: <i>Gallipoli</i>The quintessential guide book for the scene of New Zealand's most significant war effort covers everything you need to know about the Gallipoli Peninsula.15 Jan 04:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Food journeysLinda Herrick delves into four new cookbooks that transport the palate around the globe.09 Jan 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Monster munchMussolini hated pasta and Hitler, famously a vegetarian, liked to eat baby pigeons. A new book tells us what tyrants liked for tea. John Walsh reports.09 Jan 05:00 PM
TravelTravel book review - <I>Air New Zealand: Celebrating 75 Years</I>With the national carrier entering its 75th year, here's a wee stocking-filler for the sky-gawping plane nerd in your life.18 Dec 04:30 PM
LifestyleBooks: Against the ebbing tide"Short stories don't sell," is the current mantra of publishers everywhere, as a way of refusing to look at proffered manuscripts in case they love them and are sorely tempted.12 Dec 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: 'It better be big. It better be good. It better be worth it'With a new novel out, and a potential film finally on the horizon, Patricia Cornwell tells Judith Woods how Dr Kay Scarpetta was held hostage by Hollywood.12 Dec 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: When Snow White met Sleeping BeautyNeil Gaiman’s latest fantasy is an attempt to restore to fairy tales some of the danger the Grimm brothers removed. Gaby Wood reports.12 Dec 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Riding highSome Luck is the first volume of Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley’s trilogy set in the Iowa badlands. Boyd Tonkin reports.12 Dec 05:00 PM
LifestyleBooks: Court and conflict make gripping dramaChanging fortunes in Tudor times have ring of reality.29 Nov 05:00 PM
LifestyleThe best books of the yearINTERACTIVE: Our annual guide to the best books to give and receive this Christmas. Guess which ones made the list.28 Nov 06:00 PM