Books

Jenna Todd of Time Out Bookstore with her favourite books of 2019: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman (Text Publishing) and Childhood by Tove Ditlevesen (Penguin). Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport is… Audio

The only parenting advice parents will ever need goes like this: you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be present. Audio

Elisabeth Easther with her top picks from last year: Pathway of the Birds by Andrew Crowe (David Bateman Ltd), The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Hachette), and a round-up of Ann Patchett books. Audio

Under a pile of old clothes, in the barracks of the most notorious of all of Hitler's concentration camps, Dr Eddy de Wind hid a notebook with an account of his life as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Audio

Sonja de Friez with her best magical realism reads:The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (Penguin,$38), and Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters and The Changeover (both published by Hachette). Audio

Writer Scarlett Thomas has referenced some of her own miserable memories of being at boarding school in her latest and 10th novel Oligarchy. Audio

Jessie Bray Sharpin reviews her top picks of 2019: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold and Gun Love by Jennifer Clement (both published by Penguin). Audio

The Spinoff Books Editor, Catherine Woulfe, is calling for a creative non-fiction category in book awards so that literary brilliance in the genre can be recognised. Audio

Louise Ward of Wardini Books with her top picks from 2019: Running With Sherman by Christopher McDougall (Allen & Unwin), The History Speech by Mark Sweet (Huia), and The Good Thieves by Katherine… Audio

Louise O'Brien with her favourite books from 2019: The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press), To Calais, in Ordinary Time by James Meek (Allen and Unwin) and Big Sky by Kate… Audio

Ralph McAllister with his picks for the best books of 2019: Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner (Hachette NZ), Find Me by André Aciman (Faber), The Offing by Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury). Audio

Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb of University Book Shop, Dunedin, with her favourite books from last year: The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape), The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate… Audio

Oxford English Professor Bart Van Es went in search of a reason for a decades-long rift in his Dutch family between his grandparents and their Jewish foster daughter, Lien. They took Lien in during… Audio

Poet and writer Kate Camp returns for the latest instalment of Kate's Klassics. This week she reviews Elizabeth Bowen's 1948 novel, The Heat of the Day. Audio

Tilly Lloyd of Unity Books with her top picks of the year: Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree (Picador); This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by… Audio

David Hill reviews his favourite books of the year: Night Fishing by Vicki Hastrich (Allen and Unwin), Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson (Text Publishing), Wildlife of Aotearoa by Gavin Bishop… Audio

Many western women born between the late '60s and the mid-80s (aka Generation X) were raised to believe they can do it all and have it all. But that's a hell of a lot of pressure – especially when… Audio