An online game that began in a New Lynn bedroom now has fans around the world. Alan Perrott meets the gamers who used their mouse — and won.

No need for opening acts with rock stars like these.

The Botanist does more than brunch, or even lunch or dinner.

In his New book, The Kitchen Magpie, James Steen presents a veritable host of household hints. Here are some of our favourite.

Martine Bailey puts a dark twist on food in her ‘culinary gothic’ novel that features real, historic family recipes, writes Stephen Jewell.

Fred Robbins is an enigma, even to the person closest to him in the world, his sister Ava.

Reconsidering moments that changed everything is an old chestnut in fiction, but Linda Grant manages it with verve in this excellent novel.

Red sails in the Auckland sunset are all very well, and I’ve enjoyed them as an eating backdrop many times, but for me seeing a working port in action beats yachts every time.

Alan Perrott talks to the men who keep guard at Auckland’s hottest nightclubs and bars and finds out it’s not just physical danger they have to contend with.

Pump up the volume with these clean-cut and relaxed separates.

A popular dining strip has a newcomer, which scores top marks for its attention to details — and its coffee.

Tina Shaw talks to Rebecca Barry Hill about her connection to provincial New Zealand and why she is drawn to dark crime.

It’s full of dazzling prose, it’s ingeniously put together, it’s so long it’s a drag to lug around.

Where the hell did kale come from? Seriously, how did the cauliflower’s ugly cousin go from this thing no one outside a few food/health freaks had ever heard of to suddenly being the single most important vegetable none of us can possibly live without?

A new report bragging about how cool and grown-up the ‘new’ Auckland is doesn’t even come close to imagining how great this city could be, writes Greg Dixon.

Loop, with its white walls, tables and chairs plus a rather magnificent curved bar, is a refreshing change in Kingsland.

You’ve been warned. These highbrow prints have an artistic temperament.

Any old rented tux won’t do anymore. Guys do give a damn about what they get hitched in. A lot, says well-dressed husband Alan Perrott.

Breton Dukes has an interesting bio. He has shifted from north to south — from Whangarei to Dunedin.

Publishers are wary of short stories. They don’t sell as easily or pleasingly as novels.

A couple of weeks ago, while she was visiting Northern Ireland, the Queen popped on to the set of Game of Thrones to cast a professional eye over the Iron Throne to see if it was cooler than her throne.

Not even the winter cold can take the heat out of the inner city’s temperature, as Paul Lewis discovers during a three-venue dinner around watching a luncheon play.

The stars and the quieter achievers of the sporting world alike step it up for the challenge of the Commonwealth Games. Suzanne McFadden meets six of our top athletes heading to Glasgow.