A beginner’s guide to dying in India

Levi’s house burns down, his fiancé dumps him for the nun­nery and he gets fired from his job – all in quick suc­ces­sion. When his long lost brother requests that he join him in India post-haste, he does so with­out hes­i­ta­tion – he doesn’t have a lot going for him back home and the adventure […]

Bendable Learnings: The Wisdom of Modern Management

A worth­while read this Christ­mas is Don Watson’s book, BENDABLE LEARNINGS: THE WISDOM OF MODERN MANAGEMENT. ‘Wat­son returns to his study of man­age­ment lan­guage: the non-language that began in man­age­ment the­ory and spread like an inerad­i­ca­ble weed into pol­i­tics, the civil ser­vice, hos­pi­tals and class­rooms.’ If you’re accus­tomed to man­age­ment lan­guage or oper­ate in the […]

Aussie, actually now available in South Africa

www.aussieactually.co.za South African born, Lois Nicholls and her daugh­ter Lara, have pro­duced a book on the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of emi­grat­ing to Aus­tralia from South Africa. Called Aussie, actu­ally, the book is an hon­est and humor­ous account of life as new Aus­tralians. “My inten­tion was to relay our 12-year sojourn through a series of thoughts […]

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

It is 1946. Lon­don writer and war-time colum­nist, Juliet Ash­ton is search­ing in vain for her next project when per chance she receives a let­ter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey. In the let­ter, he tells her he has a copy of a book she once owned by Charles Lamb and wishes to know how he […]

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

If there’s one book you read this year, make sure it’s this one. It took me a month of Sun­days to fin­ish on account of the detailed con­tent, (and read­ing another book in between) but wow, was it worth it! I came away inspired, informed and far more aware of the adage, ‘you are what you eat’. […]

A couple’s journey into parenthood

Cape Town writer Lisa Lazarus doesn’t mince her words when explain­ing why she wrote The Book of Jacob—her joint mem­oir of a couple’s jour­ney into par­ent­hood. ”I wrote it because I was cross, in truth I was furious—the book really burst out of me,” she said at the recent launch of the book, which was […]

The Last Chinese Chef

‘A story of food, heal­ing and love’ reads the blurb. It’s that … and more. Food writer, Mag­gie goes on a quest to Bei­jing, China, to dis­cover the truth behind her late husband’s infi­delity and sub­se­quent pater­nity suit. The search coin­cides with the oppor­tu­nity to inter­view ris­ing culi­nary star, Sam Liang for a mag­a­zine. The story […]

Pomegranate Soup

Three sis­ters flee Iraq in the midst of polit­i­cal and per­sonal tur­moil and set­tle in a quaint lit­tle Irish town called Bal­li­nacroagh. Rem­i­nis­cent of Joanne Harris’s Choco­lat, the sis­ters open The Baby­lon Café serv­ing exquis­itely cre­ated Iran­ian fare that tran­scends the bland local offering. Gradually, they win over the jolly Father Fer­ber Mahoney and a number […]

Breath

Aus­tralian author, Tim Winton’s gift of writ­ing with clar­ity and sim­plic­ity imme­di­ately sweeps his reader into the story.

In Breath, even the brood­ing dark cover of boy in dusk surf aptly dic­tates the dark­ness that seems to per­me­ate through the entire novel. Nar­rated by ‘Pikelet’ – a young surfer, it tells the story of his some­times tor­tured life story – of the peaks and troughs that come with adolescence.

The Red Tent

An imag­i­na­tive, com­pelling story set in ancient Mesopotamia, Canaan and Egypt, offers read­ers a rare insight into life as a bib­li­cal woman—in par­tic­u­lar, Dinah, only daugh­ter of Jacob. While the author, Anita Dia­mant main­tains her inter­pre­ta­tion is purely fic­tional (food sounded delec­table), she has clearly researched her topic with great detail and there are fas­ci­nat­ing and […]