The city of Auckland was named after "a dud ex-colonial mediocrity who stuffed up on a quite spectacular scale", says British historian William Dalrymple.

Dan Brown sees the world a little differently than the average person.

Former Apple chief evangelist and now entrepreneur and author Guy Kawasaki says he wants to help New Zealand be even more enchanting on his upcoming visit here on Wednesday.

Nicky Pellegrino is captivated by a 'how-to' with a plot.

Graham Reid talks to Australian writer Wayne Macauley about food porn and creativity.

Tired? Stressed? Unhappy and pressed for time? Well broadcaster Wallace Chapman has some words of advice for you, writes Greg Dixon.

Far from becoming irrelevant in the digital age, libraries are adapting to become more like youth clubs, finds Danielle Wright.

Danielle Wright finds a busy kids' book club in Mangere Bridge that's about a lot more than reading and writing.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon tells Stephen Jewell why he likes visiting bookstores and supermarkets.

Sherry Turkle shows up begging for a latte. She's left her wallet in her hotel room. She's exhausted, she says, and could do with a coffee.

Dominic Corry went behind the scenes on Baz Luhrmann's extravagant film adaptation of classic novel The Great Gatsby.

New Zealand nature expert Gerard Hutching has pulled together some of the quirkiest Kiwi questions in his new book, Why can't Kiwis fly? Here's five of our favourite head-scratchers:

The 25-year-old former porn superstar has reinvented herself as a novelist, and her first book, The Juliette Society, revolves around a woman's introduction to a highly secretive sex club.

Nicky Pellegrino delves into a harrowing tale of survival that's also a story about love.

Peter Hayden - nature history filmmaker and author, and actor.

People write - or want to write - for many reasons. For some, it is a compulsion, an itch that must be scratched. For others, it has more to do with the narcissistic conviction that the world wants to know what they're thinking and feeling.

For those readers eagerly anticipating the next effort from Sarah Waters, the queen of historical revisionism, look no further than Kate Worsley's debut novel.

A few years ago I visited the charming English port town of Whitby and was intrigued to discover its crucial role in the lives of two very different men whose names continue to echo down the centuries: Count Dracula and Captain James Cook.

The master of historical sagas, Edward Rutherfurd, talks to David Larsen about the symmetry of his writing.

If the adage "you are what you eat" rings true then I'm some sort of pickled mollusc given my penchant for clams, mussels, oysters and a crisp chardonnay. But I suspect "you are what you read" is more to the point.

Meet just-turned-105-years-old romance novelist Ida Pollock, the world's oldest producer of bodice rippers.

Nicky Pellegrino bones up on the damage fast food does.

Stephen Jewell talks to esteemed British author Max Hastings about battles won and lost.

A previously unpublished novel by Janet Frame, In the Memorial Room was written in 1974 and comes out of her experience as a Katherine Mansfield Fellow in Menton, France.

“Houses have their own ways of dying,” wrote E.M. Forster, “some with a tragic roar, some quietly.” Ashenden Park, the honey-stoned Palladian villa at the heart of Elizabeth Wilhide’s debut novel.

Gus van Sant is reported to have shot a steamy sex scene featuring Alex Pettyfer a bid to direct the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey.