Books

Harry Broad reviews A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin, published by Hachette Audio

A Dunedin teenager has taken out the top spot of the Sargeson secondary schools short story competition - for the second year running. Shima Jack talks to Jesse about her award-winning writing. Audio

In his book The Clarence: People and Places of Waiau Toa, rural journalist Tim Fulton explores more than 200 kilometres of mountains, rivers and valleys bordering Canterbury and Marlborough. Tim tells… Audio, Gallery

Chris Tse reviews People Person by Joanna Cho, published by Te Herenga Waka University Press Audio

Pulitzer Prize winning American author Annie Proulx talks to Kathryn about her latest book, Fen, Bog and Swamp. The 87 year old writes about the history of wetland destruction and the role it plays in… Audio

Carole Beu of the Women's Bookshop in Ponsonby reviews Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, published by Faber. Audio

Lockdown made Auckland comedian Chris Parker an Instagram sensation. He talks to Kim Hill about his recent wedding and new book Here For a Good Time: Organised Thoughts From A Disorganised Mind. Video, Audio

It reads like a western and it's based on the Maungatapu Murders of 1866, when the notorious Burgess Gang killed five men in a crime that shocked the young colony. In his novel The Physician's Gun… Audio, Gallery

Ruth Bayley is a history graduate who's woven what she's read in second world war soldiers' diaries and telegrams into her first novel, Barefoot. It's set between Wellington and the battlefields of… Audio

In a remarkable literary feat Catherine Chidgey's seventh novel The Axeman's Carnival is told entirely from the perspective of a magpie on a high country farm. T Audio

In the age of shrinking attention spans, one Palmerston North teenager has just opened a second-hand bookstore. After months of preparation, 15-year-old Pari Rao opened Olive Books in time for the… Audio

Ralph McAllister reviews Undoctored by Adam Kay, published by Hachette. Audio

In 1966 Robert 'Skip' Gardner hopped the Tasman and brought a small group of grifters with him to run a company that was looking distributors to sell its cosmetics through dairies and milk-bars. The… Audio

Sonja de Friez reviews The Crown in Vogue by Robin Muir and Josephine Ross, published by Hachette Audio

He's been the face of, and driving force behind, kids' television in New Zealand for decades. But Jason Gunn is turning over a new leaf - literally - with the release of a book he's co-written with… Audio

Stella Chrysostomou of Volume Books in Nelson reviews Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie, published by Penguin Random House. Audio

Journalist-turned-author Jane Harper's first novel The Dry was published in 2016 and quickly snapped up and turned into a movie starring Eric Bana. Her second novel Force of Nature, a sequel to The… Audio