"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
~ Anton Chekhov
"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
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 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: ★★★★★ 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 […]
She walks in to the room full of Black women from all walks of life, young and old, all gathered at the UNISA Conference Centre in Ormonde to listen to the soft-spoken author of Nervous Conditions – filmmaker, playwright, poet and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga, who was hosted in the country by the Thabo Mbeki African […]
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: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Swing Time Zadie Smith Hamish Hamilton, November 2016 Online Price: R313.00 I have recently discovered Zadie Smith and I have to say — Why didn’t anyone put me on to her sooner? This has not been an easy read, however: Swing Time does a difficult dance. It doesn’t quite mesh […]
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives Lola Shoneyin Serpent’s Tail, January 2011 Online Price: R209 Lola Shoneyin evokes an extraordinary Nigerian family in splashes of vibrant colour. — from the blurb of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives I have never read such an odd book in my […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 The Book of Memory Petina Gappah Faber & Faber, September 2015 Online Price: R302 The Book of Memory is the second work of fiction by Petina Gappah, a work that underscores why she won the Guardian First Book Award for her first, the short story collection An Elegy for Easterly. This […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Homegoing Yaa Gyasi Penguin Random House, June 2016 Online Price: R313 You can learn anything when you have to learn it. You could learn to fly if it meant you would live another day. Homegoing is a fresh new voice in African literature – one that it is imperative you […]
