Books

'Borrowed' from Brooklyn Public Library in New York shares the stories happening between the shelves that hold the more than 4 million books in its collection. Like any good library it has reading… Audio

Melanie O'Loughlin of Unity Books reviews On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, published by Penguin Press. A stunning novel in the form of a letter; Vuong paints an authentic picture of… Audio

Authors and publishers fear a bill that makes it easier for disabled people to access their work will mean they won't get paid for it. The Marrakesh Treaty, which New Zealand agreed to sign in 2017… Audio

David Hill reviews Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself: The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945 by Florian Huber, which is published by Text Publishing. Audio

Pip has been thinking about books and war, after she saw bill-boards for a new television adaptation of Catch 22. She reviews Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019) by Ocean… Audio

Sonja deFriez reviews The Parisian by Isabella Hammad, which is published by Jonathan Cape. Audio

Leading educator and journalist in the US Esther Wojcicki believes parents need to empower their children by giving them responsibilities at a young age. It’s how she raised her own children and… Audio

Harry Broad reviews Leading the Way: 100 Years of the Tararua Tramping Club by Shaun Barnett and Chris Maclean. Telling the story of New Zealand's first tramping club, the book is published by the… Audio

Author and reviewer Kate Camp talks about James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, the story of young black couple in Harlem in the 1970s whose lives are torn apart by a false criminal accusation… Audio

Indian author Arundhati Roy is a vocal critic of Hindu-nationalism and recently re-elected prime minister Narendra Modi, who she says was re-elected after an "orgy of nationalism." Roy who catapulted… Audio

Jane Westaway reviews Chanel's Riviera by Anne de Courcy, which is published by Hachette NZ. Audio

Sally Wenley reviews Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh, which is published by Hachette NZ. Audio

One of the authors of Hit & Run, the book that criticised an SAS raid in Afghanistan, has retracted one of the key claims.

Jon Stephenson says he now believes armed insurgents were in a village… Audio

Louise O'Brien, from quarterly review periodical New Zealand Review of Books Pukapuka Aotearoa, reviews West Island: Five Twentieth-Century New Zealanders in Australia by Stephanie Johnson. This book… Audio

Our feature guest this morning is neuroscientist Dr Guy Leschziner who's written a fascinating book about what we do while we're sleeping - it's called the Nocturnal Brain, and covers everything from… Audio

Silence is powerful. But it's often lost in the white noise of emails and texts and constant connection. Too much noise is deafening but silence can be dangerous too. Audio