Back in the familiar rural midwest of her previous novels, Moo, Horse Heaven and A Thousand Acres, Pulitzer prize-winner Jane Smiley presents us with the first volume of a projected trilogy.

A novel is a place where past and present versions of one person can co-exist, and in his fifth novel Andrew O'Hagan movingly explores the way the "flotsam" of a life can rise to the surface as old age and memory go about their strange and poignant work.

To modern eyes, the little wagon in a Berlin museum looks like a model of an old horse-drawn cart. Solidly made, about as big as a baby's cot, it is in fact a handcart, to be pulled by people, not animals.

Plaudits to the publisher for their tactile, trim presentation of this small-is-beautiful novella. And to the Australian author herself for a rewarding — and riddling — little read.

Now that the dust has settled, it is possibly a good time for me to step back and think about all the things I learnt from the Eleanor Catton interlude.

Colourful, cheap and cheerful, chinoiserie ticks the boxes.

Midlife crisis? What crisis? Suzanne McFadden meets three women in their 40s reinventing their lives.

Get back to the grind with help from some high-powered accessories.

Christchurch crime writer Paul Cleave, whose books have sold more than half a million copies, has no qualms killing people on the page. But now online piracy is killing him, he tells Linda Herrick.

Lucy Wood’s first novel is a magic realist ghost story set in Devon. Lucy Popescu went there to meet her.

New Zealand is simply a much better place to live on days you don't have to go to work. This is why we need many more legally sanctioned holidays. And this is why I am here to suggest a few.

Dylan Cleaver conquers his fears and discovers a new outlook over Sydney.

In the aftermath of a reckless Christmas/New Year/summer holiday spend-up, and faced with a credit card account spinning out of control — here are some great, inexpensive buys.

Cafe Hanoi deserves its fashionable reputation.

You can leave your hat on.

As the film of their life is released, Jane Hawking recalls how she fell in love with the legendary physicist against the haunting backdrop of his developing motor neurone disease.

Being world famous in New Zealand is all very well, but a new, fresh-faced wave of New Zealand actors is choosing to be world famous in Australia.

"Tell you what", write the editors of this excellent collection, is a phrase that promises "a revelation, a shift, a new truth".

I can see it plainly now. Stephen King has been playing me. The old Stephen King, the real one. I'd forgotten about him. That was his plan all along.

Porochista Khakpour's new novel is a magical realist take on 9/11.

I went to a funeral today. This is not an ideal way to kick off the year, a funeral in January.

Break a sweat (or maybe not) in workout clothes that work overtime.

Jodi Picoult has written 23 novels, eight of them No 1 bestsellers. Just don’t call her work ‘women’s fiction’, says Bryony Gordon.

Apart from Euro, Apero is the only wine bar we've tried that takes the food side of the experience seriously.

Nearly 40 years after the first IVF birth, scientists are still unsure of the long-term effects of their laboratory Beginnings. Helen Massy-Beresford reports.