Star of the Morning


Pamela Jooste - 2007
    We were colored girls in a white world that didn’t want us."  Born on the wrong side of a racial divide in apartheid-torn Cape Town, young sisters Ruby and Rose exist in a world where they are not welcome. As part of the Cape Colored community, they are considered socially inferior, yet even within their own social group the sisters live in the poor end of town. Their father was killed when they were very small, so when their mother dies after a protracted illness, Ruby and Rose’s fate falls into the hands of Aunt Olive. Ruby knows without being told that their aunt’s home will not be opened up to them – charity does not extend to the poor relations who would cast a smudge on such a respectable house. Aunt Olive condemns her nieces to the local orphanage, relieving her conscience with monthly invitations to Sunday lunch. In the orphanage the girls grow up sheltered from a divided world that they do not yet fully understand, but the day approaches when Ruby and Rose must forge their own paths in life and confront the lessons that apartheid enforces. Like the award-winning Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter, this beautifully observed novel of sisterly love once again displays Pamela Jooste’s poignant understanding of human nature.

Into The Lion's Den


Martin Chimes - 2015
    Ben will stop at nothing to save his son, but what awaits him is an evil, more dangerous and insidious than he could have ever anticipated. Into the Lion’s Den is a fast-paced action thriller, a compelling saga of the love of family and the indomitable will to survive in the face of an implacable malevolence.

The Young Lions


Tony Maxwell - 2013
    Her long dark auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders and her pale, attractive face, wide set eyes and full sensuous lips took his breath away. Robert could not help staring at her in frank amazement. He found it difficult to equate this alluring woman with the tall, awkward girl he vaguely remembered while a young boy at Fairlee Manor in Scotland.* * *Action, adventure and erotic entanglements loom large in young Robert Hamilton’s future as he seeks to make his fortune in the rough and tumble world of the Johannesburg goldfields in the closing years of the nineteenth century.Robert’s business interests and adventures in the wilds of South Africa, bring him into close contact with the Boer peoples of the Transvaal Republic. As the threat of a British invasion looms large over the country, his support for the Boer cause finds him on the opposing side to his fellow uitlanders – foreigners. He is dismayed to discover that both of his brothers have enlisted in Canadian regiments ready to fight on the side of Britain in the Anglo-Boer War.

Gangster State: Unravelling Ace Magashule's Web of Capture


Pieter-Louis Myburgh - 2019
    At the centre of the old guard’s fightback efforts is Ace Magashule, a man viewed by some as South Africa’s most dangerous politician. In this explosive book, investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh ventures deeper than ever before into Magashule’s murky dealings, from his time as a struggle activist in the 1980s to his powerful rule as premier of the Free State province for nearly a decade, and his rise to one of the ANC’s most influential positions. Sifting through heaps of records, documents and exclusive source interviews, Myburgh explores Magashule’s relationship with the notorious Gupta family and other tender moguls; investigates government projects costing billions that enriched his friends and family but failed the poor; reveals how he was about to be arrested by the Scorpions before their disbandment in the late 2000s; and exposes the methods used to keep him in power in the Free State and to secure him the post of ANC secretary-general.Most tellingly, Myburgh pieces together a pack of leaked emails and documents to reveal shocking new details on a massive Free State government contract and Magashule’s dealings with a businessman who was gunned down in Sandton in 2017. These files seem to lay bare the methods of a man who usually operated without leaving a trace. Gangster State is an unflinching examination of the ANC’s top leadership in the post–Jacob Zuma era, one that should lead readers to a disconcerting conclusion: When it comes to the forces of capture, South Africa is still far from safe.

Reggie and Me


James Hendry - 2020
    But for a one small boy in the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg ... his beloved housekeeper is serving fish fingers for lunch.This is the tale of Hamish Charles Sutherland Fraser – chorister, horse rider, schoolboy actor and, in his dreams, 1st XV rugby star and young ladies’ delight. A boy who climbs trees in the spring and who loves a girl named Reggie.An odd child growing up in a conflicted, scary, beautiful society.A young South African who hasn’t learnt the rules.

The Canadian Manifesto


Conrad Black - 2019
    It is our turn," writes Conrad Black in this scintillating manifesto for how Canada can achieve an exalted role in world affairs. For over 400 years we have toiled in the shadows of our potential and achieved an indifferent recognition among other nations. Chipper, patient, and courteous, we have pursued an improbable destiny as a splendid nation in the northern section of the new world, a demi-continent of relatively good and ably self-governing people, but most would agree we have neither developed a vivid national personality nor realized our true potential. Our main chance, writes Black, is now before us and it is not in the usual realms of military or economic dominance. With the rest of the West engaged in a sterile and platitudinous left-right tug of war, Canada has the opportunity to lead the advanced world to its next stage of development in the arts of government. By transforming itself into a controlled and sensible public policy laboratory, it can forge new solutions to the tiresome problems besetting welfare, education, health care, foreign policy, and other governmental sectors the world over, and make an enormous contribution to the welfare of mankind. Canada has no excuse not to lead in this field, argues Black, who offers nineteen visionary policy proposals of his own. "This is the destiny, and the vocation, Canada could have, not in the next century, but in the next five years of imaginative government.

Western Political Thought


O.P. Gauba
    

Tomorrow Is Another Country: The Inside Story of South Africa's Road to Change


Allister Sparks - 1994
    Tomorrow is Another Country retells the story of the behind-the-scenes collaborations that started with a meeting between Kobie Coetsee, then minister of justice, and Nelson Mandela in 1985. By 1986, negotiations involved senior government officials, intelligence agents, and the African National Congress. For the next four years, they assembled in places such as a gamepark lodge, the Palace Hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland, a fishing hideaway, and even in a hospital room. All the while, De Klerk's campaign assured white constituents nothing would change. Sparks shows how the key players, who began with little reason to trust one another, developed friendships which would later play a crucial role in South Africa's struggle to end apartheid."A gripping, fast-paced, authoritative account of the long and mostly secret negotiations that brought South Africa's bitter conflict to its near-miraculous end. Sparks's description of these talks sometimes brings a lump to one's throat. He shows how the participants' deep mutual suspicion was gradually replaced by excitement at the prospect of making a momentous agreement—and also by the dawning realization that the people on the other side were human beings, perhaps even decent human beings."—Adam Hochschild, New York Times Book Review"A splendid and original history. . . . Sparks's skillful weaving of myriad strands—Mandela's secret sessions with the committee, the clandestine talks in England between the African National Congress and the government, the back-channel communications between Mandela and the A.N.C. in exile, the trepidation of Botha and the apparent transformation of his successor, De Klerk—possesses the drama and intrigue of a diplomatic whodunit."—Richard Stengel, Time"Sparks offers many reasons for hope, but the most profound of them is the story this book tells."—Jacob Weisberg, Washington Post"The most riveting of the many [accounts] that have been published about the end of apartheid."—The Economist

THIS is Africa


Mat Dry - 2012
    THIS is Africa is a compilation of stories that defines the maxim "Truth is sometimes stranger, and more wondrous than fiction." From a place known for its continent-wide diversity, notorious for its dramatic turbulence, and beloved for its animals and untamed wildness, Mat Dry, brings his incredible true tales of living and working in Africa as a Safari Guide.

Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century


Carolyn Nordstrom - 2004
    She captures the human face of the front lines, revealing both the visible and the hidden realities of war in the twenty-first century. Shadows of War is grounded in ethnographic research carried out at the epicenters of political violence on several continents. Its pages are populated not only with the perpetrators and victims of war but also with the scoundrels, silent heroes, and average families who live their lives in the midst of explosive violence. War reconfigures our most basic notions of humanity, Nordstrom demonstrates. This book, of crucial importance at the present moment, shows that war is enmeshed in struggles over the very foundations of the sovereign state, the crafting of economic empires both legal and illegal, and innovative searches for peace. Nordstrom describes the multi-trillion-dollar international financial networks that support warfare. She traces the entangled routes by which illegal drugs, precious gems, weapons, basic food supplies, and pharmaceuticals are moved by an international cast of businesspeople, profiteers, and black-market operators. Shadows of War demonstrates how the experiences of both the architects of war and of ordinary people are deleted from media accounts and replaced with stories about soldiers, weapons, and territory. For the first time, this book retrieves from the shadows the faces of those whose stories seldom reach the light of international recognition.

After Mandela: The Struggle for Freedom in Post-Apartheid South Africa


Douglas Foster - 2012
    Recent works have focused primarily on Nelson Mandela's transcendent story. But Douglas Foster, a leading South Africa authority with early, unprecedented access to President Zuma and to the next generation in the Mandela family, traces the nation's entire post-apartheid arc, from its celebrated beginnings under "Madiba" to Thabo Mbeki's tumultuous rule to the ferocious battle between Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Foster tells this story not only from the point of view of the emerging black elite but also, drawing on hundreds of rare interviews over a six-year period, from the perspectives of ordinary citizens, including an HIV-infected teenager living outside Johannesburg and a homeless orphan in Cape Town. This is the long-awaited, revisionist account of a country whose recent history has been not just neglected but largely ignored by the West.

Hazel House


Oby Aligwekwe - 2018
    With Phina’s beauty and the massive fortune she inherited from her father, everything seems to have been handed to her by fate, but her keen mind and business acumen keep Ophinas – her luxury retail company – a cut above the rest. Phina and Patrick lead an enchanting life, and with high-powered friends and everything money can buy, their lives are never short of excitement. When a dead body turns up in a hotel room in Barcelona and a letter exposes a dark secret, some truths about their extraordinary lives begin to unravel. As more people are drawn into the puzzle that Phina’s Private Investigator is piecing together to solve the murder, they soon realize they are dealing with an opponent far more ominous than they ever imagined. Filled with treachery and intrigue and delivered in a thrilling narrative that takes readers from London to Lagos to New York, Hazel House paints a vivid portrait of how the needs of humans collide amidst unimaginable wealth, intense desire and the quest for power.

Kidnapped


Colin Freeman - 2011
    It is a terrifying experience - the gang's hideout is attacked by rival pirates, Freeman is threatened with being handed over to Islamists who wish to execute him and he constantly fears death at the hands of his constantly drug-addled captors. But he survives - thinner, greyer and wiser - to tell the tale of an astonishing adventure in a surprisingly funny and fond way. ‘More than simply a terrific book on the scourge of Somali piracy, Freeman’s wry style and heartfelt candour raises Kidnapped to the highest rank’ – Tim Butcher, author Blood River'He treats these grim experiences with a self-deprecating humour which makes one laugh out loud...' - The Daily Telegraph'A hair-raising account of life as a prisoner of Somalia's 21st century buccaneers. Essential reading for anyone interested in the world's most broken state, and why it became that way' - Oliver Poole, London Evening Standard'One finishes the book admiring the author's wit in adversity and enlightened on one of the least known parts of the world' - Simon Scott Plummer, The Daily TelegraphAbout the author:Colin Freeman is the chief foreign correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph. His first taste of foreign reporting came during the Iraq war in 2003, when he gave up his up job on the London Evening Standard and went to Baghdad to freelance. He lived there for two years, during which time he was shot and injured while covering a Shia militia demonstration in Basrah. Since joining the Sunday Telegraph full time in 2005, he has reported extensively across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He is aged 41 and lives in London. He is also the author of 'Curse of the Al Dulaimi Hotel and other half-truths from Baghdad.

Battle on the Lomba 1987: The Day a South African Armoured Battalion shattered Angola’s Last Mechanized Offensive - A Crew Commander's Account


David Mannall - 2014
    

Hyena Dawn


Christopher Sherlock - 1991
    Hard-headed and impetuous, Rayne Gallagher flees his native South Africa after a tragic accident and joins the Rhodesian Light Infantry. He is embroiled in a war in which he has neither interest or cause when, unable to resist the lure of danger, he is recruited to lead a mission for the CIA in Mozambique. Amassed at the port of Beira is a vast military force led by Russian General Vorotnikov, which is preparing to invade Rhodesia. The general's grand scheme will shatter British plans for a peaceful transition from colony to democracy and create a major political and economic base for the USSR on South Africa's borders. Gallagher and a select group of mercenaries must ensure that the invasion never takes place. Theirs is a fight to the death - with the future of the whole of Southern Africa in the balance.