Three senior writers from the New Yorker, who were guests at last weekend’s Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, have been raving about New Zealand in blogs on the magazine’s website. Chief political commentator Hendrik Hertzberg, who posted a blog yesterday from “Middle-earth” (Queenstown), where he is visiting with colleagues Judith Thurman and Rhonda Sherman, said although he was no fan of the Lord of the Rings books, “we find ourselves in a Hobbity paradise”. American writers revel in Lord of the Rings scenery