Celine Song has generated plenty of interest and acclaim off her directing debut Past Lives - and her new romantic drama Materialists has attracted attention from film fans.

Materialists stars Dakota Johnson as a successful match-maker for New York's elite singles who's torn between two potential suitors of her own.

Celine Song says she used her own experiences as a matchmaker to help craft the film.

"The reason why I quit - the job was too fun. My day job ended up being too fun. It's so fascinating because all these strangers of all kinds just tell you what's in their heart."

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A tell-all expose from within our health system was released this week - and it's attracting plenty of interest.

Written by Auckland-based ICU doctor, Dr Ivor Popovich, the book shares his journey from med school through the public health system.

He talks of bullying, funding and staffing shortfalls through to the inequities between private and public healthcare

Popovich says he wasn't sure how his colleagues or employers would react to the book - but he was committed to getting his experience out there.

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Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, who is well known for terrific books like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and Daisy Jones and The Six. In 1980, Joan Goodwin becomes one of the first women scientists accepted by NASA for the space shuttle programme where she’s part of a close team who work and play together. Vanessa Ford is a brilliant, practical aeronautical engineer and they discover possibilities in their friendship they never knew existed - so when Vanessa’s mission goes badly wrong and Joan, in charge of astronaut communications is responsible for bringing her safely back to earth, the tension and emotion is off the chart. As were mine.

Inside the Wire by Rhonda Hapi – Smith. Rhonda spent almost 20 years as a prison officer in a number of men’s prisons around the country. She’s a tough, physically strong woman - she also worked on the Riot Squad - with a hefty dose of compassion who always understood that in order to get the best out of the people in her care she needed to build relationships but take no nonsense. The book is an insight into life inside the prison walls, both for the incarcerated men and for the staff, and it comes from a career of which she is justifiably proud.

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