My husband and I are planning to celebrate his retirement with a trip to New Zealand.  We have over a year to plan and I would love to hear from anyone who has been.  Does anyone know of good New Zealand fiction, either historical or current?  Any advice or tips would be appreciated!

Haven't been there myself, but I many friends who have been.  There's a TON to do and see in NZ...  I wouldn't even know where to begin for recommendations.  However, one thing in particular that I heard about that I'd really like to do myself is visit Waitomo Caves on the north island to see the glow worms:

  http://www.waitomo.com/waitomo-glowworm-caves.aspx

Janet Frame is an absolutely wonderful NZ writer - her autobiography is truly one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.  But be warned that it is quite grim.

OMG, it's been a while since I came in here....

We went to New Zealand for a month. It was the best ever; I would live there if I could. It's beyond beautiful. We were in Auckland, and then at the south end in and around Queensland, and the north end-, along the coast and islands. --not much time in the middle.

If I were doing it over, I would skip Auckland, except to recover from the 12-hour flight from LA, and head straight out. Aukland was kind of ordinary, although the people are extremely nice.

The rest of the country is just so much more spectacular.

Kiwi Tracks by Andrew Stevenson is a travel memoir about New Zealand.

Aunt Dimity Down Under by Nancy Atherton is mostly set in New Zealand.

My partner and I went for about a month. We hiked the NZ Great Walks. We visited Queenstown, which is a must. We then took a bus to Te Anau, which is a nice, quiet town. From there we went to Milford Sound. All this is on the South Island. We would have gone to Franz Josef if we had been there longer. I've also heard Stewarts Island is nice.

Enjoy!