Lenny is "a perfectly unremarkable 20-year old who just happens to be in a wheelchair". He's there because of a rugby accident and he doesn't want to live any more. So he kills himself, in front of a parish priest.

If you were to write a story set in Bombay, as the poet Jeet Thayil prefers to call the city now known as Mumbai in his outstanding debut novel, you don't have to work too hard.

Tumbling tresses, midnight-pool eyes, alabaster brow. None of these features in the debut novelist's publicity photo should be held against her.

Those who are nervous about speaking in public usually have the perfect way out. They simply don't do it.

The person who is not religious reading this former believer's journey to a lack of faith can be tempted to ask: "What took you so long?"

The memoir can be a difficult genre to deal with, for author and reader alike.

There are some 500 items in this fascinating selection of Frank Sargeson’s letters — a number that nevertheless represents only about a quarter of the more than 6000 which survive.

At first sight, Lysander Rief, standing on the corner of the Augustiner Strasse in 1913 Vienna, looks like a hero.

To judge by online reviews, Californian arthouse film-maker Miranda July's movies are something you either love or hate. And it seems her writing is much the same.

Sales pitch: 'I want to write a book that is a sort of summary of a wilfully ambiguous science fiction movie made by a Russian director more than 30 years ago.'

Recently, while sitting in the airport lounge in Sydney waiting for a flight home, I glanced up from my hardcover book and surveyed the other travellers in my immediate vicinity.

What an odd book this is.

The Year Of The Hare, originally published in 1975, has gone on to sell millions of copies in 18 languages and as two feature films.