On Saturdays, Hobart's Salamanca Place hosts a market visited by thousands of locals and tourists.

The Big New Yorker Book Of Dogs is big all right: 21cm x 28cm and 395 pages, with a generous smattering of those gloriously sly and sardonic New Yorker cartoons. The content is generally serious in tone.

Peter, the 14-year-old narrator, plus elder brother Hans, the handsome horse-tickler, and sister Tilte, the obsessive reader of other people's diaries, realise their parents have vanished. Ostensibly, Mum and Dad are on holiday in the Canaries.

Basing its final concert for the year on Sunday around the theme of a German Christmas was a shrewd move for Bach Musica.

Books editor Linda Herrick and her reviewers select the best for all ages and interests

At 2kg, the Anthology of New Zealand Literature is a contender for the heavyweight publication of the year.

The grave of a leading New Zealand poet is at risk from a highway.

A Kiwi performance artist is perplexing tourists by holding yoga poses in front of well known European monuments.

He is an artist best known for wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin and for siting thousands of coloured umbrellas across valleys in Japan and America.

A wistful biography of Escoffier leaves Nicky Pellegrino hungry and sad.

The Royal NZ Ballet's season of Giselle is wowing audiences with its revitalised version of the classic story of love, betrayal and revenge. Raewyn Whyte reports.