Jackie Collins has died aged 77 after a long battle with breast cancer.

They're the colours of contentment, apparently.

Dressed in her black stiletto boots and long elegant locks, Gilda Kirkpatrick is not your stereotypical image of a comic book artist.

The Man Booker Prize short list of six top novels was released last night - but this year the prestigious award does not have a New Zealander among the top picks.

Ted Dawe is the multi-award-winning author of several young adult novels including Into the River, which is currently banned.

We're going to share the rudest sample from Ted Dawe's Into the River so we can properly assess whether this book should be temporarily censored.

Forgotten for nearly 500 years, the sheet music owned by Henry VIII's second wife could shed new light on her life - and loves, says Ivan Hewett.

Fears that young people are influenced by popular culture should not be the basis for arbitrary banning of award-winning books.

Forgive the pessimism, but I don't think that banning one book is going to help.

"I've counted the number of times that offensive words appear in Into The River. It's got the c-word nine times, the f-word 17 times and s-h-i-t 16 times."

Socialite Gilda Kirkpatrick has teamed up with local astrophysicists to write a new children's book.

Comic book giant Marvel has added a Native American and a Korean-American teenager to its list of superheroes, pushing forth with its bid to diversify and smash racial boundaries.

There's been an exponential increase in the umber of people searching for controversial young adult novel 'Into the River' online.

Glenn Colquhoun is a GP and writer. The first poet to win the Reader's Choice Montana Book Awards for his bestselling book Playing God, he headlines this weekend's Going West book festival

This is the age when youth shades into adulthood, writes James Meffan. Much literature that really engages people at this stage in life deals with transition and change.

After finally including non-white leads in the forthcoming 'The Force Awakens', it's been announced a new novel will include the franchise's first openly gay lead.

Publishers Penguin Random House has expressed its disappointment over the ban of Into The River saying "young people benefit from having access to coming of age books".

The prohibition of any work carries serious consequences for free speech, writes Dominic Sheehan. It acts as a chill wind to future endeavor, a warning not to push boundaries.

Attorney-General Chris Finlayson says the Government should review the law on the classification of books after the interim ban on Ted Dawe's teenage novel.

With a shirtless Richard Madden and a breathless Holliday Grainger playing the leads, the latest adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover was expected to leave the nation hot under the collar.

What this ban highlights, is that far from being the 'poor sister' to fact, fiction can be seen by some, to be just as dangerous, writes Dana Wensley.

The head of the Christian lobby group Family First said he never demanded the award-winning book Into the River be banned.