Danielle Wright visits independent children's booksellers before the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards' Festival, starting on Monday.

The world watched in horror as, in 2010, Haiti's main city Port au Prince collapsed under a shocking earthquake, its buildings crashing down and killing around a quarter of a million people.

Emily Perkins' sumptuous new book, The Forrests, is a novel to savour slowly: line by line, character by character, revelation by revelation.

While the Kennett brothers' annually updated Classic New Zealand Mountain Bike Rides remains the Bible for the country's trails, this and its South Island predecessor are the hymnbooks.

Author A.D. Miller’s debut novel defies the traditional crime thriller genre as it explores the Russian capital’s underbelly. Stephen Jewell writes.

Auckland library readers might have to shelve plans to borrow a copy of The Hunger Games - there are more than 2000 people in the queue to borrow it.

Nicky Pellegrino finds the intricacies of a French novel a touch far-fetched.

New Zealand writer David Hill tells Linda Herrick how a song triggered his latest picture book and how he called upon his own uncles’ memories.

Gordon McLauchlan is a journalist and writer who has recently published The Passionless People Revisited (David Bateman, $29.99).

April 25 may be a public holiday on both sides of the Tasman, but a batch of new picture books and novels will ensure its meaning is not forgotten for another generation of young readers.

Spooky events in an English manor house entertain Nicky Pellegrino.

Where does an erotic novelist get their inspiration? NZ author Leigh Marsden spills the secrets of sexy writing.

Sadie Jones’ highly entertaining third novel seems perfectly conceived to appeal to two popular tastes — fascination with the Edwardian country house and the revival of the English ghost story.

Georgina Harding's Painter of Silence is set in Dumbraveni in Romania, and spans the period from the onset of World War II, through the war's ongoing impact, to the imposition of Communism.

British writer Geoff Dyer tells Stephen Jewell how a book about tennis became something very different.

We're stuck in the past this month, or so it would seem from our selection of hot new novels.

Nick Duerden’s daughters are hooked on Enid Blyton. But, 70 years on, why is the writing of the Noddy and Famous Five author still so compelling?