Latest from Arts & Literature

Book review: <i>The Night Book</i>, by Charlotte Grimshaw

There's something buttoned up and restrained about Charlotte Grimshaw's writing, something as middle class as the characters whose stories she tells and, I imagine, as the people who tend to read them.

Love story at heart

Angels and the supernatural aside, Singh's books are each a unique emotional journey.

<i>Review:</i> William Dalrymple at the Writers & Readers Festival

Dalrymple, a towering figure who spoke with the brio of a great orator, used imagery of paintings and photos to reinforce his compelling tale of the last Mughal.

Personal insights make Lord of the Flies' author human

Finding a path in a world full of email

<i>Review:</i> Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

<i>Poets of their Age</i> presented three first-generation Romantic composers coming to terms with the expressive potential of the symphony orchestra.

Review: <i>Avenue Q</i> at The Civic

Opening with the eternal question - 'what do you do with a BA in English?' - <i>Avenue Q</i> dispenses a bright and breezy antidote to the pressures of life in the big city.

The bigger picture

The complicated and sensitive world of artists is explored in Sarah Thornton's new book. She talks to Stephen Jewell.

Writer gets two-minute meeting with his hero

Israel and Iraq questions provide double whammy

<i>Comedy Fest Review:</i> Jarred Fell, Pani & Pani

Fell, a 2010 Billy T. Award Nominee, is rude, suggestive and sex-crazed, asking the many audience members he uses during the show about their sex lives.

<i>Comedy Fest Review:</i> Tarun Mohanbhai, The Comediettes

There are fewer Indian jokes this year, even though they are clearly what the audience is after - the thick accents Mohanbhai did pull out had the room roaring.

Getting to grips with grief

Elizabeth Smither is a prolific and award-winning writer with 17 volumes of poetry, six novels and a number of short story collections published.

Using alchemy of prose to let off steam

Charlotte Grimshaw once described her last novel, <i>Foreign City</i>, as a kind of "layer cake" of fiction, reality and fictionalised reality.

Art of glass

Four glass artists tell us why they chose the medium and what inspires their unique creations.

Shocking cost of living longer

Writer Lionel Shriver tells Stephen Jewell how a friend's illness inspired her to take on the injustices of the healthcare system.

Tom Keneally: Humanising history

Australian author Tom Keneally talks to Graham Reid about how criminals and the rich were thrown together when the country was founded.

<i>Review:</i> Charles Lloyd New Quartet at Bruce Mason Centre

At its most pure and best, jazz is a live art where musicians disassemble, explore, then reconstruct melodies and rhythms right before your ears.