Everyone loves a good explainer - and one author has taken it upon herself to investigate some of life's greatest mysteries in a new book.

In Why Do People Queue for Brunch?, National Explainer editor Felicity Lewis explores some of life's curliest questions - including undiscovered ocean treasures and who can claim the moon.

She says she hoped to take readers on a literary journey - and the books is packed with stories as well as explanations.

"We thought it would be a really good service to readers to provide some context and some background."

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Kiwi actress Luciana Buchanan began her acting career as a teenager in Auckland - before going on to star in one of Netflix's top streaming shows.

She turned heads in local series Filthy Rich before going on to appear in the likes of The New Legends of Monkey, Mr Corman and Sweet Tooth.

In 2023, Luciane made a global name for herself in her breakout role as Rose Larkin, one of the lead roles in The Night Agent, which is one of Netflix’s most watched shows of all time.

She says it was a 'crazy' experience arriving in Vancouver for filming - and receiving accolades from Netflix was a surreal moment.

"I don't think it really hit til I was in Vancouver and I was meeting everyone... and I was getting flowers from Netflix and all this stuff. I was like - oh my gosh, we're doing this."

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Home Seeking by Karissa Chen. This is one of those big, epic sweeping stories which starts in one place and finishes up a long way away. Suchi and Haiwen are good friends and then teenage lovers in Shanghai during the Civil War. When Haiwen volunteers to go and do National Service (a gesture he makes so that his brother won’t have to) they lose track of each other. Life and the years then intervene so that it’s sixty years before they recognise each other in Los Angeles and slowly start to re-establish their connection. There’s a lot to this book – about identity, families, finding a place in the world and what one might have to sacrifice in order to do that.

Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow. In 1987 Scott Turow wrote Presumed Innocent, which knocked my socks off at the time – it was so, so good. Some years later he wrote a second book, Innocent, but here’s the one I’ve been waiting for which captures the essence of that first one all these (38!!) years later. Rusty Sabin is now older. Over the course of his career he’s been a prosecuting attorney, a judge, and even a defendant and convicted felon. Now he’s essentially retired, living in a small town and settled in a great relationship when suddenly all that is threatened when the son of his partner is accused of murder and Rusty steps up to help out. Great family and courtroom drama – the first in this series predated John Grisham by 4 years. Scott Turow really was a trailblazer and he’s still going strong.

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