Edge of reality: it's a fuzzy boundary between fact and fiction

REALITY HUNGER: A MANIFESTO David Shields Hamish Hamilton, 219pp, $29.95

IN SHORT

LIFE STORIES By David Attenborough Collins, 224pp, $39.99

IN SHORT

Gregory Maguire has made his name and created his niche with the contemporary rewriting of classic fairy tales and fables. He is the author of Wicked, originally a novel and now a hit musical, which is a quirky re-reading of The Wizard of Oz.

Burning issues in a quest for truth

A South African-born journalist has turned successfully to crime and the Australian landscape.

Courage under fire

Diaries from WWII's final days tell of resilience to brutality in A Woman In Berlin, writes Elissa Blake.

Letters

There's no place for the politics of personality

Everything You Need To Know About . . . Literature

JUST to cheer people up, this year will have lots of books on the economic crisis with titles using "crisis", "depression" and "crash". Look out for The Depression Crash Crisis.

Books

Chocolate could halve your chance of dying of a heart attack. Eating it while pregnant could make for a happier baby. It could even help combat a persistent cough. This is some of the happy news in Why It's Good For You, by Emma Young (Fairfax Books, $18.95), a mini encyclopedia with more than 100 entries, from adzuki beans to yoghurt. The book is based on a column in the Herald and while it features all the usual healthy suspects - including brussels sprouts, carrots and broccoli - there are a ...

Heckler

Narelle Hillman always finds papering books a sticky situation.

Smart Shopper

1 Study Mate exercise books, from