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.

John Grisham clearly felt deeply about this book - perhaps because he's recently become concerned about wrongful convictions, and the treatment of that theme here has a very passionate edge.

A mystery wrapped in an enigma is the very apt winner of the inaugural New Zealand crime-writing award.

The proliferation of household focused magazines has brought housekeeping professionalism to the fore.

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.

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

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

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

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

Celebrity chef Gino D'Acampo shares his recipes of Italian food like Mama used to make in his new book.

New Zealander Henry Hargreaves is an ex-model making a name for himself in the Big Apple with a book celebrating breasts.

The hype over the publication of a royal wedding biography nearly matches the fervour accompanying the event itself.

Nicki Greenberg loves Shakespeare, she "gets" Shakespeare, and she has done something wondrous with him, a thing I have never seen done before.

The most ambitious history project of the year — the British Museum’s A History of the World in 100 Objects — is now a book. Boyd Tonkin talks to its creator and author and finds out that how the world looks depends on where you stand.