One of the more startling observations in a book filled with acute and startling observations is that Africans only really come to consider they are “black” when they go to the United States.

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

Steven Eldred-Grigg is a well-known and respected popular historian and novelist. Bangs is the fourth book in a series of novels that began with the much loved Oracles and Miracles, published in 1987.

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

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.

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.

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.

Nicky Pellegrino bones up on the damage fast food does.

A previously unpublished novel by Janet Frame, In the Memorial Room was written in 1974 and comes out of her experience as a Katherine Mansfield Fellow in Menton, France.

Stephen Jewell talks to American writer Hugh Howey about why his post-apocalyptic tale is more grounded than its contemporaries.

As the number of living New Zealanders who have actually fought in a war declines, attendance at Anzac Day ceremonies continues to rise and ever more books about military history are published. Jim Eagles looks at the latest offerings.

Oldies reveal a rich, ripe vein of charm for Nicky Pellegrino.

The secret to putting together a really satisfying literary journal is to make sure you have an editor with catholic tastes at the helm.

My fairly positive "experience" with this book was abruptly, even rudely, spoiled by the very last item, a contribution by John Key, former merchant banker and Prime Minister of this country.

London-based American writer Patrick Ness tells David Larsen how a childhood accident inspired his new novel.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's complex other half remains a mystery, writes Nicky Pellegrino.

A new novel imagines the shimmering yet ill-fated life of Zelda Fitzgerald, writes Rebecca Barry Hill.

Despite moments of beauty, no one escapes the horror in Nadeem Aslam’s fourth novel.

Famines, disasters, turmoil and poverty have driven millions of Chinese people from their homes to foreign lands for centuries. Now the grand-daughters and grandsons of the original “sons of the yellow emperor” are returning home; history has turned full

It can be a struggle to find a book that's truly uplifting.

In the shadowed and sepulchral Florence of the 1690s, with the Medici dynasty in steep decline and the city cowed by the puritanical regime of Cosimo III, a sculptor in wax receives a commission from the Grand Duke himself.

The premise of Richard C. Morais' Buddhaland Brooklyn is that an apparent fish-out-of-water can eventually find, and adjust to, its new pond. Morais takes rather a long time to get there, but he makes it.

Nicky Pellegrino finds the tale of a diary washed ashore intriguing and compelling.

C.K. Stead’s remarkable new collection of poems, The Yellow Buoy: Poems 2007-2012, was completed in his 80th year.

Crime writer Harlan Coben still enjoys confusing his readers, writes Stephen Jewell

The thing I love most about Maggie O’Farrell’s writing is the way she colours in her characters.