There are plenty of strange tales, odd people, weird and sometimes very nasty behaviour, and a lot of vivid flora and fauna in The Winterlings.

While some readers may be getting tired of novels that make up stories about real people, this is one of the better ones.

The Forbes list of the world's top-earning authors for the 2015-16 tax year includes 14 people who between them earned $US269 million before tax.

Reading to his two sons opened the door to Richard Roxburgh's next creative venture.

A fifth book in the successful Da Vinci Code series will be released in 2017.

Tim Winton has been around long enough to accumulate a body of non-fiction work that is beautiful, brilliant, provocative and revealing.

Zoe Morrison uses music as a force to be reckoned with - a sign of both liberation and entrapment for her central character, Alice.

Mark Baker's life of Phillip Schuler, one of Australia's pioneering war correspondents, is well constructed and brilliantly illustrated.

Michel Faber's prose fiction transfers seamlessly into verse written about the horror of watching a loved one die, painfully, terribly. There is love and warmth in abundance, too

Literary news and events in Canberra.

The appearance of his wife's old boyfriend inspired Graeme Simsion's third novel.

Palindromes have been on my radar lately, those two-way creations like sexes, or "Do geese see God?"

Ralph Lauren is putting collared T-shirts and cable-knits with polo pony motifs to one side to set to work on his autobiography.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 24 - The ashes of writer Truman Capote have sold at auction for nearly $A60,000 - 10 times the amount they were expected to fetch.

Melina Marchetta wants to be known as more than the writer of good stories about ''Italian girls in the suburbs''.

Here's a question that separates a real Harry Potter fan from the rest of the muggles who think this is all just a bunch of wizarding gibberish: Is your Patronus a Siberian cat, a heron or a basset hound?

Dr John F. Knight is a well-known TV doctor and medical advice columnist under his pseudonym, Dr James Wright.

Krys Lee's debut novel is a brave and eye-opening look at the world's strangest rogue state.

Mal Peet's Beck is a major achievement: a historical picaresque that doesn't skimp on horror or romance.

Maria Semple has outrageous and endearing comedic gifts, and fans of her previous work will be delighted.

Pirates and cannibals, storms and schemes await as the children in this brisk and easy-to-read adventure.

Two recently published books map the state of Australian Indigenous history.

Dave O'Neil's light, thoroughly suburban tale is a lot of fun, transporting you back to the clear blue skies of summers past, to that foreign country where we did things differently.

Nick Richardson emphasises the convergence of sport and politics, and the extraordinary pressure put on elite players to enlist for World War I.

Swifty is a descriptive record of the public life of a revered, formidable figure with the consistent theme being that of a life defined by "giving".