Blog | Book chats

Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church – Megan Phelps-Roper

Megan Phelps-Roper was born and raised in the warmth of a loving tribe made up of grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and...

My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman

Reading My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises made we wish that I were my grandchildren’s super hero and their best friend in...

So many books, so little time

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the endless list of books you’d still like to read? I certainly have. But then I look back at the...

Grensgeval - Marita van der Vyver

Marita van der Vyfer se Grensgeval is ‘n storie wat tot my en my tydgenote spreek. Veral van betekenis vir ons wat in die sewentigs...

Stormkind deur Riana Scheepers

Dit is my eerste kennismaking met Riana Scheepers se werk. En nou kan ek nie wag vir my kleinkinders om tieners te word, sodat ek vir...

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

One cannot help but love Harold Fry: a dour, recently retired salesman who lives in a small English village with his wife Maureen. Their...

The Auschwitz Escape by Joel C. Rosenberg

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have a mild obsession with books on the Holocaust and WWII. A glance at my bookshelf might...

An Unquiet Place – Clare Houston

As regular readers of this blog will know, I’ve read countless historical novels and memoires about the Nazi concentration camps during...

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn

I’m a bit of a World War II fanatic, and rarely do I find myself as engrossed in literature on other wars. Recently, though, I dived into...

Killing Karoline – Sara-Jayne King

I often contemplate the sins of our fathers and the ruthlessness of a society’s collective consciousness when I read, hear or learn about...

The Gold Diggers – Sue Nyathi

In writing The Gold Diggers Sue Nyathi affords us a rare insight into the dark underbelly of Johannesburg that confronts hopeful – and...

Before We Were Yours – Lisa Wingate

The afterword in this novel is what really got to me. It reads like a horror in itself and I am glad I only read that after I finished...

Die verevrou – Jan van Tonder

Ek lees ook Afrikaanse boeke. Dis ‘n voorreg om boeke in Engels en in Afrikaans te kan lees, veral siende dat Engelse lesers uitmis op...

Early One Morning by Virginia Baily

When I started my blog Book Chats with Salomé I decided to only ever write about the books that had a positive impact on me in some way...

How I became Putin’s No 1 enemy

Red Notice by Bill Browder I wasn’t going to chat about Red Notice by Bill Browder, as so much has already been written about it. But...

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Someone asked me a question the other day and I had to check the calendar that it is, in fact, 2019. They asked me if this is ‘a book for...

All that I Am by Anna Funder

All that I Am is not an easy read. Many professional reviewers were also quite critical about Anne Funder’s historical novel, which she...

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

I don’t understand why so many regarded this book as ‘not for them’, or simply tried and then apparently lost interest and put it down....

The Storyteller’s Secret: A Novel by Sejal Badani

If you happen to like stories and believe in the power of storytelling, you will love Sejal Bedani’s The Storyteller’s Secret about Jaya,...

The Universe versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

The most wonderful thing about reading novels is the many new discoveries one makes. And so it proved again with Gavin Extence’s debut...