Latest fromArts & Literature

Here comes Rocketman - the Elton John musical
Sir Elton John is moving forward with plans to turn his life story into a major movie musical.

Bazaar requests
Glenda Bailey has transformed America's Harper's Bazaar by persuading A-list celebrities to take part in outrageous photo shoots.

Book Review: The Quality Of Mercy
What kind of historical novelist is Barry Unsworth? Despite his practised ear for the idioms of the mid-18th century drawing-room, and weather eye for the contents of the era's wardrobe, he is not a pasticheur.

Travel book: 100 Places To Remember Before They Disappear
More an exercise in global warming propaganda than anything else, really, though the photos of endangered beauty spots are certainly stunning.

Pip Ballantine: A full head of steam punk
Stephen Jewell talks to New Zealand writer Pip Ballantine about why she went to the United States and the good manners of sci-fi followers.

Book Review: Good Living Street
A family history. Also a social and intellectual history, and a different take on the Australian Dream.

Exhibition seen in a foreign light
An exhibition celebrates the work of photographer Frank Hofmann, who fled the Nazis and found sanctuary in Auckland. Adam Gifford reports

Fiction Addiction: Rachel Simon Q & A
Rachel Simon was browsing through a book stall at a conference in Itasca, Illinois, when she found herself drawn to a short book with an arresting title: God Knows His Name: The True Story of John Doe No. 24, by Dave Bakke.

Fiction Addiction: Inspiring Rules of Civility
I'm sure the person who coined the phrase "a picture paints a thousand words" thought a thousand words sounded like a lot. But a single picture can paint - or at least inspire - far more words than that.

Hari Kunzru: Embracing structural strangeness
British writer Hari Kunzru tells Stephen Jewell why he has adopted America as his base and why sci-fi readers are more open to the unusual.

Michael Ondaatje: A divided man
Writer Michael Ondaatje, who won the Booker prize for The English Patient, draws on his own extraordinary life to conjure up evocative tales of displacement. Robert McCrum asks how much reality there is in his fiction.

Anita Shreve: Tragic heart of success
Call Anita Shreve's books chick lit at your peril, warns Nicky Pellegrino.

Book lover: Barbara Ewing
Barbara Ewing is a UK-based Kiwi actress and writer whose most recent novel is The Circus of Ghosts.

Deborah Hill Cone: Crouch, touch, disengage
I think everyone could learn a thing or two from New Zealand's Next Top Model.

Book Review: My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You
Louisa Young's enthralling novel begins in the gorgeous, leafy light of upper-class Edwardian England where wealthy, bohemian-ish families plan lives filled with art and beauty, and ends in a darkened world transformed by the violence and pain of World Wa

Tess Gerritsen: Breaking out her writing instincts
Doctor-turned-suspense novelist Tess Gerritsen talks to Craig Sisterson about embracing her heritage and seeing her heroines come alive onscreen.

Book Review: The Absolutist
John Boyne, author of The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, has published a new novel with links to World War I. The Absolutist traces the experiences of a young serviceman through a deft weave of past and present.

Anne Sebba: The worst of all worlds
Books editor Linda Herrick talks to historian Anne Sebba about her new biography of the woman the royal family — and Britain — loved to hate.

Book Review: Griffith Review 33: Such Is Life
In this volume the Griffith writers look inward and backwards to gain some fresh insight into not only their own lives but the lives of us all.

Travel book: <i>New Tales of the South Pacific</i>
This thoughtful little tome of short stories is perceptive and entertaining.

Molly Birnbaum: Gimme back my smell
Can we relearn a sense? A chef apparently did, finds Nicky Pellegrino.

Book lover: Mike Ashma
Mike Ashma is the director of the NBR New Zealand Opera's production of the double-bill Cav & Pag opening in Auckland on September 15.

A shining new showcase for New Zealand art
As Auckland Art Gallery reopens its doors today, Linda Herrick walks through its marvellous collection of New Zealand art.