With the 2010 Bad Sex Awards announced last week by the Literary Review, Arifa Akbar looks at the criteria for consideration and the judging process.

With Christmas nearly upon us, the Canvas book reviewing team takes the hassle out of gift-shopping with ideas for all ages and tastes.

Actor-turned-writer David Walliams talks to Stephen Jewell about his third children’s book and the truth behind his anarchic tales for kids.

The Arrival was the big winner at the Chapman Tripp Wellington Theatre Awards which were handed out last night.

A mystery wrapped in an enigma is the very apt winner of the inaugural New Zealand crime-writing award.

Auckland stand-up comedian Ben Hurley gives insight into his reading preferences.

Gagarin Way is about current political apathy; nonetheless it expects its audience to have a wee bit of political awareness, particularly vis-a-vis 20th century British history.

The mysterious emergence of 271 previously unknown works by Picasso could trigger a lengthy legal battle.

Stephen Jewell talks to director-turned-writer Guillermo Del Toro about his life post Middle-earth and the newly released second part of his spine-chilling vampire trilogy.

A retired French electrician and his wife have come forward with 271 undocumented, never-before-seen works by Pablo Picasso estimated to be worth at least €60m (NZ$105m).

Jonathan Franzen, Tony Blair and Ken Follett are all guilty of crimes against brevity, writes Robert McCrum.

Set in Mumbai, Saraswati Park is a vivid portrait of intergenerational family dynamics in an ever-changing, modern day India.

This is the first full biography written since the publication of the two-volume edition of Mansfield's Notebooks (2002), transcribed by Margaret Scott, and the final (fifth) volume in 2008 of her Collected Letters.

Theme-based anthologies serve several purposes. They explore and represent particular subjects from a thousand vantage points and they assemble diverse voices, both familiar and unfamiliar.

Maeve Binchy does it again. After more than 20 novels, novellas and short story collections, and at an age when some writers have trouble staying current, Binchy has pulled off yet another thoughtful yet undemanding story that will delight.

Alison Jones and Kuni Jenkins have been researching early engagement between Maori and Pakeha - and have turned up real gems.