An appeal for $95,913 to restore Roald Dahl's garden shed has proved a plot twist too fantastical for the writer's fans.

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.

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.

Call Anita Shreve's books chick lit at your peril, warns Nicky Pellegrino.

Brother, they want me to write you a review but I’m not going to do it. Another book is out. Your collected works.

Cute titles. How do I feel about cute titles? I feel that the authors have to work a couple of degrees harder to justify them. New Zealand-born, Britain-based Connell works very hard indeed in her second romp - and with reasonable success.

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

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.

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

Travelling with the original Lonely Planet as a guide, writer Brian Thacker finds what's changed in 35 years.

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

It's a gutsy first-time novelist who writes a book about New York society in the early 20th century.

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.

This thoughtful little tome of short stories is perceptive and entertaining.

Can we relearn a sense? A chef apparently did, finds Nicky Pellegrino.

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.

I was in two minds when it came to choosing The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon for my September feature read.

A terrible thing happened, that day, up at Blackwoods' place, in The Secret River, the first of Grenville's historical novels set in the penal colony of New South Wales.

Every city can lay claim to its fair share of eccentrics. This book is about one of Melbourne's: Edward William Cole.

This book might more accurately have been titled In Love With Dante. It is a wholehearted piece of advocacy for the 14th century writer, of whom Wilson says it "could be argued that he was the greatest of all European poets, of any time or place".

Stephen Jewell talks to New Zealand actress-turned-writer Barbara Ewing about why she’s mesmerised by researching times gone by.

His books sell abroad, but not here. Paul Cleave tells Nicky Pellegrino why.

Why are we so enthralled by the pronouncements of the latter-day gurus of self-help, asks Alex Clark.