Dunedin writer Maxine Alterio has recently released her second novel Lives We Leave Behind (Penguin).
The book I love most is ... always changing. This year I relished Monsieur Linh And His Child by Philippe Claudel, and enjoyed Sarah Bakewell's biography of Montaigne, How To Live, and Andrew Miller's Pure.
The book I'm reading right now is ... The Island by Victoria Hislop.
The books I plan to read next is ... Edna O'Brien's memoir The Country Girls, the short story collection The China Factory by Mary Costello, Alison Moore's The Lighthouse, The Forrests by Emily Perkins and Stephanie Johnson's The Open World.
My favourite bookshop is ... University Bookshop in Dunedin.
The book that changed me is ... no single book but the accumulation of reading thought-provoking writing. During childhood I treasured Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.
The book I wish I'd never read ... it doesn't exist.