Absorbing reads for the weekend
Tell Me Your Story By Ruda Landman Tafelberg
Landman is one of our most respected and admired journalists. Known for her interviewing skills, she co-anchored Carte Blanche for 19 years, hosted Veranderinge on KYKNET and Talking Change on Brightrock’s website.
This is a selection of some of the inspiring stories she has been told.
Landman spoke to a diverse range of people from artists and business people, celebrities and athletes, to high-flung professionals and unsung heroes.
During these interviews she was reminded how widely divergent our experience of the country often is and this is a heart-warming book offering stories of hope, strength and courage.
Within these pages, you’ll find actor John Kani, musician Arno Carstens, racing driver, sportsman and businessman Gugu Zulu (who tragically died while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in 2016) Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro), Marc Lottering, Pieter-dirk
Uys and Katlego Maboe – the impersonation of the South African dream, carving a star-studded career as a TV presenter and performer; among others.
Steal a Few Cents By Rupert Smith Roundfire Books
Mpho Mamela is a young accountant at a coal mine in the Middelburg coalfields. He dies one night when he gets caught in the rollers of a conveyor belt, mangled beyond recognition.
An official state enquiry into his death is to be conducted by the Inspectorate of Mining.
But when Stephen Wakefield, the in-house lawyer and a director of the company, begins preparing for the investigation, he cannot understand what happened.
It turns out Mamela shouldn’t have been anywhere near the place he was killed.
As he puts the pieces together, Stephen uncovers a web of deception and massive fraud; fraud perpetrated by a person who publicly insists on high standards of morality and honesty.
He finds Mamela had tried to blackmail the guilty party to help his lover, who is in prison for attempting to steal a trifling amount from the mining company.
Chillingly Stephen realises that his own life is in danger when the killer learns his actions are about to be exposed.
The Origin of (Almost) Everything By Graham Lawton New Scientist series John Murray Publishers
How did it all begin? How do stars shine? Why does Earth have land and oceans? Where does the soil come from? When did life begin? Why do we sleep?
If you are interested in these matters, this book gives the answers to all these obvious and rather puzzling questions as well the not so obvious ones.
With the introduction by the late Professor Stephen Hawking, this book is a highly accessible exploration of modern origin stories from the Big Bang, meteorites, to dinosaurs, timekeeping, bellybutton fluff and ... beyond the obvious reasons... why we have sex.
An amazing history of past, present and the future of our universe. – Orielle Berry