"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
~ Douglas Adams
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
~ Dr. Suess
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
~ Anton Chekhov
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Ghana Must Go Taiye Selasi Penguin Books, January 2014 Online Price: R189 He stares at the glittering, arrested by beauty, and knows what he knew all those winters ago: that when faced with a thing that is fragile in a world that is ugly and crushing and cruel the correct […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 When Rain Clouds Gather Bessie Head Little Brown, August 2010 (originally published 1968) Online Price: R180 Bessie Head is one of southern Africa’s hidden gems. Like most people I was introduced to her because her books were part of my school’s syllabus – and since then I have long […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Harper Collins, January 2005 Online Price: R200 When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head. – Aunty Ifeoma Purple Hibiscus is a story told in the first person by Kambili Achike, a 15-year-old girl who is […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 What We Lose Zinzi Clemmons Harper Collins, July 2017 Online Price: R246.00 I waited with bated breath for this book. The USA cover art drew me in and the tweets raving about how good it is only served to heighten my curiosity. Critics were quick to call it the […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Queen Sugar Natalie Baszile Penguin Putnam Inc, January 2015 Online Price: R257.00 Sometimes, you go looking for adventure, all you find is disaster – Queen Sugar I was introduced to Queen Sugar through the hit series on the OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) channel but reading the book I got more […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Ayana Mathis Cornerstone, August 2013 Online Price: R185.00 I can’t remember when I read anything that moved me quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison. – Oprah Winfrey This book was a gift from a friend, who told me how he adores […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 The Reactive Masande Ntshanga Umuzi, September 2014 Online Price: R185 Ten years ago, I helped a handful of men take my little brother’s life. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I told Luthando where to find them. Masande Ntshanga’s debut novel grabs you from the get go. Our […]
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 4th Estate, March 2017 Online Price: R226.00 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was recently in the news for comments she made on transgender women and I myself joined the critics. I thought, How dare she? The episode made me realise that […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 What Sunny Saw in the Flames Nnedi Okorafor Cassava Republic Press/Pan Macmillan, September 2016 Online Price: R190.00 What Sunny Saw in the Flames will take the reader on an imagination roller coaster ride, into a world where nothing seems to be quite the same – and has not yet been […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 We Need New Names NoViolet Bulawayo Vintage Publishing, February 2014 Online Price: R165 Leaving your country is like dying, and when you come back you are like a ghost returning to earth, roaming around with a missing gaze in your eyes In We Need New Names we meet ten year old […]
