Emma Neale is a poet, novelist, teacher and anthologist living in Dunedin. Her latest novel, Fosterling, is the sort of book that can only come from multiple roles and experiences.

Breakfast in bed is all very well, but how about making mum something cool, sweet and quirky for Mother's Day instead - or as well?

Family treasures helped create a stunning, unique cookbook with nostalgic appeal.

Personal time is too precious to waste on rotten reads. That's why our new book club, Fiction Addiction, will only be road-testing the most promising new novels.

There are memoirs that are about a personal life lived, and then there are memoirs about a specific subject on which an author wishes to ruminate at length. Annie Proulx's non-fiction Bird Cloud very much falls into the latter.

Tanya Moir is a Southland writer who recently published her début novel La Rochelle's Road (Random House, $39.99).

This author's début is less than the sum of its brilliant parts.

Don't mention the Cup - or more accurately the fact we haven't won the World Cup since 1987.

Amy Chua is unashamedly a 'Tiger Mother'. Her daughters were never allowed to go to sleepovers, have playmates, be in a school play, watch television or play computer games.

A British actress' first novel reveals her comedic talent.

Nervous readers need not fear, Jason Webster's new Spanish detective, Max Camara of Valencia, hates bullfights.

The latest book in the Day Walks series covers the amazing routes which can be walked in parts of Canterbury like Kaikoura and the Mackenzie Country.

Elizabeth Smither is an acclaimed New Plymouth-based poet, novelist and short story writer. She has recently released The Commonplace Book (AUP, $34.99), a collection of thoughts about writing and the writer's life.

Anyone looking at New Zealand's military participation in the 20th century would see us as a bellicose little nation. For decades, we eagerly went where Britain (and later the US) went.

The history of New Zealand at war is largely one of ordinary people called upon in extraordinary times - men and women who left their day jobs when their country called them. In Kiwi Battlefields, Ron Palenski tells how one such man

The recent flurry of gosh-how-shocking stories about female consumption of pornography is emblematic.

Madhur Jaffrey's latest cookbook simplifies Indian cooking while staying true to the spirit of her homeland.

David Larsen talks to Australian writer Margo Lanagan about Twitter and fantasy novels.

The small, superb story has become a talisman in the author's Italy. Since its publication there 15 years ago, it's won plaudits and prizes and been made into a Mastroianni film.

Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Hours, was in debt to both life and literature. His new novel, By Nightfall, also displays a strong allegiance to both.

It would be very easy in these economically grim times to write novels casting bankers in the harshest of lights - simple moustache-twisting pantomime villains.