It could be a scene from a cheesy Hollywood movie. An aspiring writer receives a cardboard box containing $6000, and a note: "No Strings Attached".

Those TV cooking shows may be inspiring a new generation of Kiwi chefs. By Gill South.

The compensation for reading a disappointing book is that it makes you better appreciate a satisfying one, writes Bronwyn Sell.

As with many of his generation, American president Franklin D. Roosevelt had been taken by the idea of "Shangri-La". Writer Mitchell Zuckoff shares this fascination in his new tale about a collision of cultures during the early war era.

Hedda Hopper was a remarkable woman. Not necessarily likeable, but her influence and reach as Hollywood's premier gossip columnist through the middle of last century is without dispute, as this enlightening book makes clear.

Sarah Quigley is a novelist, poet and critic whose latest book, The Conductor (Vintage, $39.99) is on the NZ fiction bestseller list.

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series gained massive success in the shadow of Harry Potter. Expansion into the tricky adult fiction market is the next mission, writes Susie Mesure.

When I have a spare half hour to browse in my local independent bookshop, it's usually a combination of the cover and the title that tempts me to pick up something new.

Read extracts from the new book by Lesley Elliott, detailing the life and death of daughter Sophie, killed in a frenzied attack...

With a new cookbook out, one half of Two Fat Ladies, Clarissa Dickson Wright, is happy.

Despite the glowing book-jacket recommendations from writers much loftier than me, I started out disliking Elizabeth Day's début novel, Scissors Paper Stone.

Geraldine Brooks ‘talks’ to the ghosts of the past. Bron Sibree reports.

A delightful and insightful account of the people and places in a fascinating part of the world.

One of the most interesting things about reading a historical novel is working out what period detailing preoccupies the novelist and is used as a means of anchoring it to its era.

David Hartnell has recently released his autobiography, Memoirs Of A Gossip Columnist (Penguin, $45).

There seems to be a trend for long titles with meanings that remain obscure until you've read a decent chunk of the book.

Commonplace books are literary scrapbooks - "salads of many herbs" as one compiler put it. They are eclectic, idiosyncratic repositories of bits and pieces that have taken a person's fancy.

Edna O'Brien turned 80 last year. The energy and immediacy of these 11 stories makes that hard to believe.

H.G. Wells? Wasn’t he the guy who wrote that Tom Cruise movie?

Britain-based Anna Hansen's star is on the rise, with a new cookbook out and plans for a new London cafe.

Filming began in Bougainville today for Mr Pip, the movie based on the novel by New Zealander Lloyd Jones.