As guest speaker at the International Writer's Block Festival, I was apprehensive that I might give the anguished attendees too much encouragement.

Sarah Quigley - or should I say Dr Sarah Quigley, for she has a doctorate in English literature from Oxford, no less - has long been recognised as one of New Zealand's finest writers.

We ask the author of more than 60 books what he loves as a bookworm.

Michael Robotham's wife keeps him grounded, finds Nicky Pellegrino.

It's a pop-up world of panama hats and outdoor reading (when it's sunny), scarves and cups of coffee (when it's not), and an erudite audience.

Save dishes, save time, save money and eat well. Clarissa Dickson Wright shows us how in her new cookbook.

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".

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

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.

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.

Glee star Chris Colfer has signed a book deal.

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.

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

Taxpayers are helping Kiwi musicians to take to the stage at this month's Glastonbury Music Festival in Britain.

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.

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.

It's hard to think of a recent debut novel as original and ambitious in its premise - or as successful in its execution - as S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep.

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