"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
~ Anton Chekhov
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
~ Dr. Suess
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
~ Douglas Adams
It’s now so long ago it hardly happened: the Christmas summer holiday break. Never has any country so embraced dropping everything and just being. I suspect, though, that many of us, exhausted by the year, find difficulty ‘just being’. One of the avenues of discussion I find difficult to understand is doing nothing. My idea […]
Wherever you look there are books. Marvellous books on groaning shelves. And the pity of this end of year literary orgy is that you can’t buy everything. What an extraordinary year of fact and fiction there has been. Until three months ago, it seemed that it would be a year of stellar fiction. I still […]
Thank goodness. It’s enough with the book awards for 2017. It’s also enough with the book festivals for 2017. We need a break now that the Booker Prize 2017 has come and gone. Now it’s time for whatever peace we can find as we run down the steep slope towards the end of a turbulent […]
Twenty years ago a distinguished and influential South African publisher rubbed his hands together and said: “Now that we have our freedom I’m looking forward to the great South African novel.” Our Gone With the Wind, our To Kill a Mockingbird, is yet to be written. But what is happening in our vital local book […]
A little over a month ago I interviewed Exclusive Books’ CEO Benjamin Trisk. He’s an amusing lunch and dinner partner and sniffs out good wines like a hungry terrier. But it wasn’t the wines or the food that interested me on this occasion. It was literature. Specifically, it was a conversation I’ve been waiting to […]
Jenny Crwys-Williams and Exclusive Books have partnered to bring South Africa’s reading public a new books show just in time for the gifting season, in the form of a series of festive popup podcasts. The seven-podcast series kicks off this week, and features authors and special guests from around the world chatting about the […]
The first annual Lowveld Book Festival will take place from 5 to 7 August in White River, Mpumalanga. A balanced programme is promised, with the inclusion of poetry, folklore, workshops, storytelling and story-time for youngsters, panel discussions, historical Lowveld literature, interviews with authors, YA literature, performing art, a book fair and book valuations. We’ve picked […]
THURSDAY 28 JULY 2016 The Bloody Crime Quiz with Quiz Master Larry Benjamin We test your knowledge of all things criminal. Crime cases, crime books, crime writers and of course, Jack Reacher! And Sally Andrews, author of Recipes for Love and Murder. Come have some fun. WHERE: Stanley Beer Yard, 44 Stanley, Milpark TIME: 18.30 […]
Fanatics! Click on the banner above to stand a chance to win tickets to one of the stunning Author Breakfasts! Africa’s only crime book festival is celebrating its fifth year with super stars Peter James, Deon Meyer and many others jetting into Joburg to celebrate one of the hottest book genres around between 6-9th August. […]
Bloody Book Week was created by Jenny Crwys-Williams in order to celebrate the art of crime writing. The first Bloody Book Week took place last year and was a massive success, and this year’s events look to be just as wildly popular! For more information about the Bloody Book Week and all of the events […]
