What's your favourite New Zealand book, and why? An interesting article in The Spinoff by one of the leading lights of the New Zealand literary scene, Lloyd Jones. Jones, who's written more than a dozen novels including the Booker Prize-shortlisted Mr Pip, argues that our literary culture is being slowly eroded and that established authors, like him, are partly to blame. New Zealand's underwhelming performance in an international education report has raised some eyebrows around the country. The Programme for International Student Achievement report, or PISA, is a triennial study of 15 year-old students which measures aptitude in science, maths, reading. While New Zealand is doing relatively well academically our scores have been steadily slipping over the years.