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People Like Us – Louise Fine

As a child who grew up during the apartheid regime in South Africa in the ’60s and ’70s, I was thoroughly brainwashed by what I was...

Three books you will want to add to your reading list

In the last month I have read three books published in 2020 by South African writers that have all made deep impressions on me and which...

Rain Runner by Carl Richardson

I recently listened to Rain Runner written by Carl Richardson and narrated by Malcolm Gooding via the exciting new audio platform...

Confessions of a Voice Artist by Malcolm Gooding, with Angus Douglas & Tim Sandham

If you grew up in South Africa in the ’60s or ’70s and listened to Squad Cars on Springbok Radio, or if you were a fan of the popular...

CHARAIVETI (Keep Moving) by Quinne Brown Huffman

There has been a remarkable upswing in the popularity of poetry recently and, although I won’t profess to be knowledgeable of the genre...

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

If you, like me, are a logophile, which is to say a lover of words, and also find great joy in the endless possibilities that words...

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrrell

He was the greatest playwright of all time and a substantial contributor of words to the English vocabulary we use today. Yet Shakespeare...

A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman

A Year of Marvellous Ways is such a unique and different read that I still find myself thinking about it and contemplating the power of...

Garden of the Plagues ‒ Russel Brownlee

A fascinating tale set at the Cape in 1685 in the time of Simon van der Stel and the Dutch settlement, Garden of the Plagues boasts an...

The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy

I’m in a book club (I know, who would’ve guessed, right?), and we tend to keep many of the club’s books at my house. I grabbed an armful...

Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachel Joyce

I give this one a rare 10 out of 10. In Miss Benson’s Beetle, Rachel Joyce gives her readers the full bouquet – a unique story, a small...

The Olive Readers – Christine Aziz

My husband and I are olive farmers, and our passion for olives inevitably means that any book title that refers to olives, in any shape...

Circe by Madeline Miller

I must admit to ignorance when it comes to mythology. Except for the obvious and oft-quoted fables, I’m very much in the dark. I suppose,...

The Queen of Paris by Pamela Binnings Ewen

Like many of my peers, I grew up with my mother smelling of Chanel No.5 perfume. It was her favourite fragrance, and she had something of...

This Tender Land – William Kent Krueger

I loved this book so much that I want to convince as many people as possible to read it immediately. Not only because I believe it to be...

The Labyrinth of the Spirits by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There are occasions when I finish a book with my mind and soul saturated, often so overwhelmed that I am simply unable to talk about it....

Have you seen Luis Velez? by Catherine Ryan Hyde

I am often astounded at how synchronicity plays out when we are meant to hear or learn something or find solace. You know what I am...

The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd

It is astounding to learn that it was a sixteen-year-old teenage girl – Eliza Lucas – who was the first farmer in South Carolina in the...

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

Let me start with a disclaimer: I’m a massive fan of Allende’s. Along with at least 75 million other readers in many different languages,...

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek – Kim Michele Richardson

I think what I like best about this novel is the confirmation of my long-held belief about the power of reading and how the written word...

Book Chats with Salomé