Nicky's best read



By now you've probably caught up with the news that another New Zealand author has been longlisted for the Booker Prize and if you're wondering whether Anna Smaill's The Chimes (Hachette) is worth reading then the answer is absolutely. It's a literary fantasy that plays with the idea of memory and when I reviewed it back in February I called it "dazzling" and "brilliantly imagined".

Book lover


New Zealand author Bianca Zander has recently released her second novel, The Predictions (Hachette)

The book I love the most is ... I adore Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, about a bunch of writers behaving badly.
The book I'm reading right now is ... Most likely the board book Dear Zoo (I have a 1-year-old and a 6-year-old).
The book I'd like to read next is ... Janis Freegard's The Year of Falling.
My favourite bookshop is ... The Women's Bookshop in Ponsonby.
The book that changed me is ... Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, a memoir about surviving Auschwitz.
The book I wish I'd never read is ... A Gate At The Stairs by Lorrie Moore. Absorbing, amusing prose, then a terrible thing happens to a small boy and I wish I could unread it.