Book picks similar to
The Dark Side of the Rainbow by Caren Powell
book-club
drama
historical-fiction
nelson-mandela
Omari And The People
Stephen Whitfield - 2014
As the caravan struggles with nature and treachery, Omari must decide between love and the people's survival in this romantic tale of adventure, destiny and desert magic.
Fruit Of A Poisoned Tree: A True Story Of Murder And The Miscarriage Of Justice
Antony Altbeker - 2011
The trial itself was sensational enough to attract the attention of the world’s largest association of professional forensic investigators. At the start, everyone expected a ‘guilty’ verdict. His fingerprints were at the scene, the murder weapon was in his car and a blood stain in the bathroom was matched to one of his shoes. And yet, he was acquitted and is now suing the Minister of Police, saying that the evidence was fabricated. Altbeker witnessed the trial, and looks closely at how the justice system failed both van der Vyver and Lotz.
Everything After
Sharon Pywell - 2006
Months later, though, she hears a different account: that one brother killed the other. Determined to uncover the truth-and to keep her family from being ripped apart-Iris winds up uncovering something shocking about her siblings, her supposedly idyllic family, and herself.
White Lightning
Justin Cartwright - 2002
This is the beginning of an extraordinary novel. It is told over the space of a few months, and in these few months one man's whole life - his failures, his successes, his longing for peace and fulfillment, his loves and his tragedies - are recounted. These memories include his film Suzi Crispin, Night Nurse, and - the darkest moment - the death of his son, which has haunted him. He inherits a small amount of money and buys a rundown farm, where he dreams of creating an Arcadia. On the farm is a captive baboon, Piet, who becomes startlingly involved in his new life. He also has a love affair with a local woman, and becomes hauntingly involved with an African family of squatters. All the while the narrator contemplates his own life back in England and so the novel is also a sharp commentary on what Englishness means. This is a novel about the human enterprise. It is surprising, tender, funny and utterly original.
Last Orders at Harrods
Michael Holman - 2005
While she can handle most challenges, from an erratic supply of Worcestershire sauce, the secret ingredient in her cooking, to the political tensions in East Africa's most notorious slum and a cholera outbreak that follows the freak floods in the state of Ubuntu, some threatening letters from London lawyers are beginning to overwhelm her. Well-meant but inept efforts to foil the lawyers by Edward Furniver, a former fund manager who runs Kibera's co-operative bank, bring Harrods International Bar to the brink of disaster, and Charity close to despair. In the nick of time an accidental riot, triggered by World Bank President Hardwick Hardwicke's visit to the slum, coupled with some quick thinking by Titus Ntoto, the 14-year-old leader of Kibera's toughest gang, the Mboya Boys United Football Club, help Charity - and Harrods - to triumph in the end.
My Sweet Vidalia
Deborah Mantella - 2015
Despite the direst of circumstances, the spirit of the lost child refuses to leave her ill-equipped young mother's side.For as long as she is needed―through troubled pregnancies, through poverty, through spousal abuse and agonizing betrayals―Cieli Mae, the determined spirit child, narrates their journey. Serving as a safe place and sounding board for Vidalia's innermost thoughts and confusions, lending a strength to her momma's emerging voice, Cieli Mae provides her own special brand of comfort and encouragement, all the while honoring the restrictions imposed by her otherworldly status.Vidalia finds further support in such unlikely townsfolk and relations as Doc Feldman, Gamma Gert and her Wild Women of God, and, most particularly, in Ruby Pearl Banks, the kind, courageous church lady, who has suffered her own share of heartache in their small Southern town of yesteryear's prejudices and presumptions.My Sweet Vidalia is wise and witty, outstanding for its use of vibrant, poetic language and understated Southern dialect, as well as Mantella's clear-eyed observations of race relations as human relations, a cast of unforgettable characters, an in-depth exploration of the ties that bind, and its creative perspective. My Sweet Vidalia is a rare, wonderful, and complex look at hope, strength, the unparalleled power of unconditional love, and a young mother's refusal to give up.
Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
John Carlin - 2008
First he earned his freedom and then he won the presidency in the nation's first free election in 1994. But he knew that South Africa was still dangerously divided by almost fifty years of apartheid. If he couldn't unite his country in a visceral, emotional way--and fast--it would collapse into chaos. He would need all the charisma and strategic acumen he had honed during half a century of activism, and he'd need a cause all South Africans could share. Mandela picked one of the more farfetched causes imaginable--the national rugby team, the Springboks, who would host the sport's World Cup in 1995.Against the giants of the sport, the Springboks' chances of victory were remote. But their chances of capturing the hearts of most South Africans seemed remoter still, as they had long been the embodiment of white supremacist rule. During apartheid, the all-white Springboks and their fans had belted out racist fight songs, and blacks would come to Springbok matches to cheer for whatever team was playing against them. Yet Mandela believed that the Springboks could embody--and engage--the new South Africa. And the Springboks themselves embraced the scheme. Soon South African TV would carry images of the team singing "Nkosi Sikelele Afrika," the longtime anthem of black resistance to apartheid.As their surprising string of victories lengthened, their home-field advantage grew exponentially. South Africans of every color and political stripe found themselves falling for the team. When the Springboks took to the field for the championship match against New Zealand's heavily favored squad, Mandela sat in his presidential box wearing a Springbok jersey while sixty-two-thousand fans, mostly white, chanted "Nelson! Nelson!" Millions more gathered around their TV sets, whether in dusty black townships or leafy white suburbs, to urge their team toward victory. The Springboks won a nail-biter that day, defying the oddsmakers and capping Mandela's miraculous ten-year-long effort to bring forty-three million South Africans together in an enduring bond.John Carlin, a former South Africa bureau chief for the London Independent, offers a singular portrait of the greatest statesman of our time in action, blending the volatile cocktail of race, sport, and politics to intoxicating effect. He draws on extensive interviews with Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and dozens of other South Africans caught up in Mandela's momentous campaign, and the Springboks' unlikely triumph. As he makes stirringly clear, their championship transcended the mere thrill of victory to erase ancient hatreds and make a nation whole.
Clouds Across the Sun
Ellen Brazer - 2009
Steeped in fact, and meticulously researched, Clouds Across the Sunis the story of just one of these children. From Naples, Florida, New York City, and Washington D.C. to Israel and then the killing grounds of Vilnius, Poland (Lithuania) this story is one of great romance, discovery, redemption, and enlightenment as Jotto Wells unravels the intrigue surrounding a plan to take over the government of the United States."
The Power of One
Bryce Courtenay - 1989
There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams, which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives and the power of one.
Song of the Shepherd Woman
Carlene Havel - 2017
Avram is known to be a peculiar, perhaps dangerous, man. His wife Yael cannot speak. Nevertheless, they are kind to Channah and teach her how to care for sheep. When her stepfather unexpectedly announces her betrothal to a Jerusalem tanner, the girl is forced to leave the only home she knows. Channah looks forward to a loving husband, but soon learns she is to be Enos the tanner’s second wife. The beautiful first wife is barren, and she resents her youthful rival. Channa struggles to adjust to marriage and city life, cherishing the hope of someday having her own child to love.
The King of Colored Town
Darryl Wimberley - 2007
This is the story of two African-American teens as they endure the backlash resulting from the integration of their segregated school with the all-white Lafayette County.
The Last Will and Testament of Henry Hoffman
John Tesarsch - 2015
Afterwards, hisdaughter Eleanor discovers a will, in which he has left his entireestate to a woman she has never heard of before. Hiding it fromher siblings, she sets out to solve this mystery, and to unearth theconfronting truth about her reclusive father’s past.But Henry isn’t the only Hoffman with secrets. In the months thatfollow, his children learn things about each other they could neverpreviously have imagined.The Last Will and Testament of Henry Hoffman is a gripping andmany-layered story of love and loss, conflict and survival. Itexplores subjects that affect us all: guilt and redemption, theinescapability of the past, and how trauma resonates acrossgenerations.
The Great Karoo
Fred Stenson - 2008
The Boers have turned out to be more resilient than expected, so the British have sent a call to arms to their colonies — and an a great number of men from the Canadian prairies answer the call and join the Canadian Mounted Rifles: a unit in which they can use their own beloved horses. They assume their horses will be able to handle the desert terrain of the Great Karoo as readily as the plains of their homeland. Frank Adams, a cowboy from Pincher Creek, joins the Rifles, along with other young men from the ranches and towns nearby — a mix of cowboys and mounted policeman, who, for whatever reason, feel a desire to fight for the Empire in this far-off war.Against a landscape of extremes, Frank forms intense bonds with Ovide Smith, a French cowboy who proves to be a reluctant soldier, and Jefferson Davis, the nephew of a prominent Blood Indian chief, who is determined to prove himself in a “white man’s war.” As the young Canadians engage in battle with an entrenched and wily enemy, they are forced to realize the bounds of their own loyalty and courage, and confront the arrogance and indifference of those who have led them into conflict. For Frank, disillusionment comes quickly, and his allegiance to those from the Distict of Alberta, soon displaces any sense of patriotism to Canada or Britain, or belief that he’s fighting for a just cause.The events of the novel follow the trajectory of the war. The British strategy of burning Boer farms, destroying herds, and moving Boer families into camps weakens the Boer rebels, but they refuse to give up. The thousands of Boer women and children who die in the camp make the war ever more unpopular among liberals in Britain. (In fact, this conflict marked the first use of the term “concentration camp” in war.) Seeing the ramifications of such short-sighted military decisions, and how they affect what happens to Frank and the other Canadians, is crucial to depicting the reality of the Boer War. By focusing on the experiences of a small group of men from southern Alberta, Fred Stenson brings the reality of what it would have been like to be a soldier in this brutal war to vivid life. The Great Karoo is a deeply satisfying novel, marked by the complexities of its plot, the subtleties of its relationships, and the scale of its terrain. Exhilarating and gruesome by turns, it explores with passion and insight the lasting warmth of friendship and the legacy of devastation occasioned by war.
Tangled Threads
Margaret Dickinson - 2002
Although the work is hard, the attentions of young Master Stephen Dunsmore - the son of the Hardcastles' employer - provide Eveleen with a welcome distraction. Mary's disapproval of the unsuitable match drives the young lovers to meet in secret. But it seems deception has a cruel price when Walter is found dead from a heart attack. The final blow comes with Stephen's callous rejection of Eveleen, and as the Hardcastles are forced to leave Lincolnshire, she resolves never to allow love to enter her heart again - until a stunning discovery about Mary's past causes her to reassess her mother and herself...
From Whiskey to Water
Sam Cowen - 2016
And yes I still count. I promised Iwould never speak about it publicly until my childrenunderstood what that meant, that mommy was an alcoholic.I think they may have understood long before I did.”From Whiskey to Water is the no-holds-barred memoir byone of South Africa’s most loved radio talk show hosts, SamCowen. Having kept her alcohol addiction well away fromthe public eye for over 14 years, in this tell-all tale, Sam findsthe courage to talk about her struggle with her addictionto whiskey, food and finally to a passion that saved herlife – marathon swimming. Told in her characteristicallyhilarious dead-pan style, this is one of the bravest booksyou’ll read this year.“So this is a book on how I stopped drinking? No, it’snot. It’s how I stopped drinking, started eating, becameclinically severely obese, stopped eating (everything thatwasn’t nailed down) and swam my way to freedom. No, it’snot. It’s actually about addiction and learning and sadnessand anxiety and love and drive. It’s about channelling theunchangeable into the miraculous. It’s about dragons andlearning how to put them to sleep when you can’t slay them.It’s about being my own Daenarys.”