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A culinary love story: Tony Astle remembers Antoine’s and wife Beth

Top 10 best-selling NZ books: September 28

There's a new number one NZ book.

How learning more about anxiety led Lance Burdett to an ADHD diagnosis

Understanding Anxiety: Lance Burdett shares insights from a transformative journey

Booker-shortlisted debut novel delivers thrilling and unexpected historical tale

Yael van der Wouden is a great discovery and candidate for this year’s Booker Prize.

We are amused: A droll new biography of Elizabeth II released

Weighty book fair races along helped by keen eye for the sheer weirdness of royal life.

Shades of Le Carré pepper pages of William Boyd’s energetic Cold War-era novel

Gabriel's Moon twists, leaps, ducks around and ahead with eager energy.

Unfinished business: Author Becky Manawatu on her Auē sequel

Becky Manawatu's debut novel made her one of NZ's most successful writers. now she's back.

Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo reviewed: New novel confirms she is one of the major talents of our times

Liam McIlvanney on Intermezzo: You finish with a deepened feeling for the wonder of life.

Richard Osman’s latest is a very silly book - but that’s what makes it good

Osman is as English as Enid Blyton but with jokes and without casual racism.

Sleuths and lies: Best new crime books

Second helpings and a return to roots for new crime novels.

A new look at history: The power of Aotearoa’s founding documents

What historian Paul Moon learned about our history from going behind the pages.

Top 10 best-selling New Zealand books: September 21

We love our cook books, as this week's best-selling book proves.

Virtuoso novel traverses life from ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day London

British Turkish novelist Elif Shafak's twelfth novel is already a bestseller.

The Instrumentalist is revisionist history, but it’s evocative, gripping and plausible

After reading Harriet Constable’s debut, listening to The Four Seasons will never be same.

Overlooked by history? William Dalrymple on the forgotten might of ancient India

Acclaimed UK author on why ancient India was the equal of China.

Shit You Should Care About: Inside the rise of millennial and Gen Z NZ media phenomenon

NZ-gone-global media behemoth SYSCA brings out a book to make it make sense.

Robert Harris weaves scandal and strategy into latest fact-meets-fiction thriller

“They were all at it,” states lover of Britain’s WWI prime minister in Harris’s new book.

Graham Norton releases sixth novel - our reviewer’s verdict

Norton's sixth novel confirms his skill in writing about small-town Ireland.

Olive Kitteridge and Pulitzer Prize echoes in Elizabeth Strout’s new novel

Strout's Tell Me Everything gives just enough disquiet to hint and unsettle.

The private lives of opera chorus singers: We’re not just ‘singing wallpaper’ but vocal athletes

Book takes: First-hand account of what it takes to survive as a member of an opera chorus.

Top 10 best-selling NZ books: September 14

Lisa Carrington in pole position on local best-sellers list.

Short cuts: Liane Moriarty is back - books to check out this weekend

A slice of New Zealand history, a page-turner and a sequel.

Essays from the past canvass various ways of imagining a better world

David Runciman describes how historical ideas might be applied in modern society.

Why have Chinese youth lost their mojo?

Peter Hessler on how China's blessed generation is now consumed by fear and hopelessness.

There’s humour and heart in Airana Ngarewa’s Pātea Boys

Ngarewa follows up his acclaimed debut novel with short stories about young men.

Italian feasts: How food became a star in Nicky Pellegrino’s novels

As she publishes her 15th book, best-selling author shares some signature dishes.

Harrowing tales of migrants trying to enter US highlight political failure

Behind the scary headlines are a million human stories.

Book shopping for pre-teens? These titles tick all the boxes

Ann Packer surveys the best new books for pre-teens.

Top 10 best-selling New Zealand books: September 7

Call it the Father's Day bump, but books by blokes dominate the top 10.

Why NZ’s Living Wage Movement is bigger than you think

Unions don’t have a monopoly in caring about poverty wages.

Short cuts: Books to check out this weekend

From a charming history of Auckland's villages to a look into Alexei Navalny's life.

Catherine Lea’s fast-paced thriller sees DI Bradshaw return with a bang

DI Bradshaw's troubles mount in gritty Far North-set sequel.

History of maths adds up to more than the sum of its parts

Robyn Arianrhod provides a history of maths, along with its fundamental principles.

Loyalties of lifelong comrades tested in Malcolm Knox’s brilliant satire

Knox has written a satire so caustic it is hair’s breadth from reality.

Horsepower: How our equine friends transformed human history

Timothy C Winegard’s The Horse is an epic tale of one animal's global impact.

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The Mermaid Chronicles by Megan Dunn

Urban Aotearoa ed. David Batchelor and Bill McKay

The Survivors by Steve Braunias

Sight lines: women and art in aotearoa by kirsty baker.

A House Built on Sand by Tina Shaw

The girls in the red house are singing by Tracey Slaughter

Rēwena and Rabbit Stew: the Rural Kitchen in Aotearoa, 1800-1940 by Katie Cooper

The Mires by Tina Makereti

Bad Archive by Flora Feltham

All That We Know by Shilo Kino

Performance by David Coventry

The raven’s eye runaways by claire mabey.

Still Is by Vincent O’Sullivan

Meantime by Majella Cullinane

At the grand glacier hotel by laurence fearnley.

Te Ata o Tū / The Shadow of Tūmatauenga by Matiu Baker, Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald and Rebecca Rice

Ans Westra: A Life in Photography by Paul Moon

First Things: A Memoir by Harry Ricketts

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Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books

The Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books publishes long-form reviews of local fiction, nonfiction and poetry. We’re a platform for in-depth discussions of contemporary literature, society and culture, featuring established and emerging reviewers from the South Pacific.

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From nine to noon every weekday, Kathryn Ryan talks to the people driving the news - in New Zealand and around the world. Delve beneath the headlines to find out the real story, listen to Nine to Noon's expert commentators and reviewers and catch up with the latest lifestyle trends on this award-winning programme.

The week that was

We have a few laughs with comedians Pinky Agnew and Irene Pink.

Sports commentator Dana Johannsen

The All Blacks have called in the coaching reinforcements as they attempt to shake their final quarter woes that have plagued them this season.

New music with Jeremy Taylor

The first new music from The The in 25 years, plus new releases on the Ninja Tunes label from Nilufer Yanya and Floating Points.

Around the motu: Jean Edwards in Christchurch

RNZ's South Island bureau cheif Jean Edwards brings us up to date with news from Canterbury.

Book review: Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino

Louise Ward of Wardini Bookstore reviews Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino published by Hachette.

Canterbury student composer's work premieres with Chch Symphony

Alexandra Hope Watson, the Canterbury University maths and music whiz who's transformed Lewis Carroll's nonsensical poems into a musical for the Christchuch Symphony Orchestra.

Asia correspondent Elizabeth Beattie

Tokyo based journalist Elizabeth Beattie with news from Asia.

Cutting down hospitality food waste

A growing hospitality initiative helping cafes pocket a little bit of cash for their surplus food, rather than seeing it go to landfill at the end of the day.

Ratings & Reviews

Excellent journalist.

Kathryn is a great Radio journalist. She is intelligent, knowledgeable and get the best out of the people she interviews. Most of all, she is not one of those prima Donna “radio/TV” personalities who always put himself/herself above the interview. Too many of them in NZ’s media industry Kathryn, keep it up and thank you.

Amazing host

GreatGogin the morning

Katheryn is such an impressive host who manages to combine intellectual interviews on an amazingly wide range of deep and/or sensitive topics. Head and shoulders above most others. I compare her to a wonderful host for the BBC who managed to “drop a word in the ear of the nation”. Kathryn does the same here for NZ with grace and intelligence. She gets my vote.

Could be better

Great topics covered and interviewees, but the host doesn’t give them enough time to speak (and spends each interview commenting on the time remaining).

Kathryn Ryan

often seems like the interviewee here, talking over her guests with her sanctimonious sludge. Hard. Very hard to listen to.

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• Years Active 2006 - 2024
• Episodes 295
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Book review - Best of 2020 - New Zealand books

Hannah August shares her favourite reads from 2020, three New Zealand books: Sprigs  by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence & Gibson, $35),  Rat King Landlord  by Murdoch Stephens (Lawrence & Gibson, $20),  Fake Baby  by Amy McDaid (Penguin Books, $36).

Photo: Hannah August

• Hannah August

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Recent stories from Nine To Noon

• The week that was
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• New music with Jeremy Taylor
• Around the motu: Jean Edwards in Christchurch
• Book review: Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino

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