First, because it has to be done, let's get our definitions sorted. The cover of this slim volume bills it as a graphic novel.

Ten well-known Kiwis have written a Christmas book to promote a ChildFund programme which lets New Zealanders give animals to families in developing countries.

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.

Graham Reid goes to a Sydney institution and meets new old friends.

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.

The striking photos of geothermal activity and scenery in this 64-page booklet certainly make you want to go to Rotorua.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Way back in the 1980s I was addicted to Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City novels.

Jock McLean is sticking to his claim that his late father - sportswriter Sir Terry McLean - had an affair with a South African MP.

Making teachers' lives easier is the mantra for Invercargill company.

Chat-show supremo Sir Michael Parkinson pays tribute to guests but despairs at TV's descent into mediocrity.