Books & Authors

We talk to Matt Garrick, Yothu Yindi's authorised biographer about Writing in the Sand, the epic story of one of Australia's most original bands and how 'Treaty' - released 30 years ago - gave voice… Audio

Georgia Pritchett's memoir is called My Mess Is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety. Audio

Curling up with a book is many people's idea of "me time", and it seems more people have been doing it during lockdown, especially in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Auckland Library has just loaned its three… Audio

Dire Straits are one of the biggest bands in rock history, having sold more than 100 million records, having won four Grammy Awards, and having embarked on some of the biggest tours the industry has… Audio

It's taken a while but finally Wellington joins New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Paul Cleave's Christchurch as a cool crime novel city. As Anne Harre described it: "Dig a little deeper and the… Audio

When Covid struck and put a halt on touring, rockers Jane and Jimmy Barnes (as the Jane Barnes Band) launched a series of online performances, which attracted millions of views from around the world… Audio, Gallery

Otaki-based playwright Renée has many feathers in her cap, having written numerous plays and nine fiction novels - the latest being her first venture into crime writing, The Wild Card, which she… Audio

Rafia Zakaria's latest book of essays Against White Feminism bills itself as a counter-manifesto to "white feminism's global, long-standing affinity with colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist… Audio

Writer Danyl McLauchlan returns to tackle life's big questions, ideas and thinkers. This week: in the 2010s readers devoured the four-book series known as the Neapolitan Novels, written under the… Audio

In the near future, the climate emergency has forced the wealthy to seek refuge in Aotearoa. Water is rationed, and things like coffee and beer are now luxury items - prohibitively expensive for most… Audio

Jenna Todd of Time Out Bookstore reviews Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki, published by Penguin. Audio

Today's music feature guest is the author and musician Sam George-Allen. She'll be Zooming into Verb Readers & Writers Festival from Tasmania this week to talk about her book Witches: What Women Do… Audio

Mary Wadsworth of Dorothy Butler Children's Bookshop Auckland reviews Pony by R J Palacio, published by Penguin Random House. Audio

Pioneering British psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Gwen Adshead has spent more than spent 30 years working inside prisons and with offenders at Broadmoor Hospital - this is where some of the UK's… Audio

Red Roulette is a gripping personal account of power and greed among China's "red aristocracy".

Melanie O'Loughlin from Lamplight Books in Auckland reviews A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba, published by Granta. Audio

At just eight years old, an aggressive bone cancer threatened Jess Quinn's life. When endless rounds of chemotherapy failed to shrink the tumour, she was put forward for rotationplasty, a pioneering… Audio

For almost a decade writer Whiti Hereaka has been fleshing out the mythical story of a monster bird woman. The novel is called Kurangaituku - a name and story Whiti's known since childhood. But that… Audio

What happens when there are questions that only your father can answer, and you have no idea who he is? That's Tom's predicament in The Other Side of the World, a novel by Jenni Francis, whose family… Audio