This month our history page features The Crusades, in particular recommending books by the specialist Christopher Tyerman. Also this month in history Queen Elizabeth I and Karl Marx died, the Free milk in school scheme began and Cyclone Bola struck.

Have hire purchase agreements got you in knots? Who can do what with your personal information? Is family law more tangled than your family? How does parole work?
Find out at “Law for Lunch”, a series of lunchtime talks at Wellington Central Library. Specialists will demystify the law around these issues and you can ask your own questions: Thursdays noon-1pm, 8-29 March. (more)

Our craft recent picks bring you Russian punch needle embroidery (igolochkoy), a patchwork tortoise, medallion quilts, screen printing, patterns for experienced knitters, applique and Japanese paper-folding and more.

A young Spanish militant, an inveterate womanizer, secret passion in East Africa, a darts groupie and a bizarre hospital are features of our latest contemporary fiction. Plus there’s Norman Mailer’s take on young Adolf Hitler.

Shed your reliance on Microsoft, create fur in Maya, try Ubuntu (’Linux for human beings’, they claim), style with CSS, explore Wi-fi at home. Check out our computer recent picks for these subjects and more, including the indecipherable xmlrpclip, bz2 and optparse.

Thousand-foot cliffs, cappuccino makers, Tibetan pilgrimages, pirate infested waters and holidays with dogs are featured in our recent travel picks. The very funny British music journo Stuart Maconie is horrified to realise he is becoming a Southerner, and goes in search of his Northern soul.

For the best exciting raucous rock, lo-fi experimentation, lush harmonies, jazz standards, sugary summery sounding songs, and quirky folk, see our picks for the best music of 2006.

1 in 5 New Zealanders have to cope with some form of mental illness at some point in their lives – that equates to nearly half a million people. This month our health page features some mental illness resources.

Soccer chicks, evil gangs, the crusades, a princess who prefers to play with frogs and a massive beast of unimaginable strength and rage. See our teen hype page.

Arsonists, young renegades, highland castles, scandals and the torments of affluenza are sprinkled among our latest bestsellers. Some of the books are so new that they haven’t reached your local library yet – look out for them later this week.