With exclusive band interviews and over a decade of deep research, in The Book of ABBA, renowned music journalist Jan Gradvall explores the secret to ABBA's success.

Over half a century after their songs were recorded, ABBA’s songs still make people the world over dance and sing every day, and their ability to evoke every emotion has made them the ultimate soundtrack to major life events, from birthday parties and weddings to heartbreaks and memorials. Since interviewing the four members of ABBA for an article in 2013 – at which time the band had not been interviewed for 30 years – a relationship was sparked between writer Jan Gradvall and the band, and he was granted unique access for the next decade. He has interviewed each of them exclusively, and they share their thoughts and opinions with him here more openly than ever before.

Gradvall places ABBA at the centre of the musical universe, and alongside his fascinating interviews, he gives readers the socio-cultural context of how the band’s sound was formed – including the melancholic hints of Swedish folk music and the dansband culture of their formative years – and shows how the story of ABBA is also the story of Sweden and the internationalisation of pop culture.

This remarkably intimate, approved biography brings readers a few steps closer to one of the world’s most famously private bands.

As a child I would often lie awake at night, praying that through some miracle I would be woken up by people who had come to take me back to my rightful family, and that those I had come to know as my parents would tell me the truth: that I was, in fact, adopted and had been born a girl and they had had a doctor operate on me.’

Growing up as Kgositsile, meaning ‘king’,  Tshiamo Modisane  always knew that she was a girl despite her assigned birth gender. This talented child of a pastor from KwaThema and Daveyton townships near Johannesburg was expected to conform to conservative black culture’s expectations for a male, and would endure censure and even abuse from family, friends, peers and strangers into adulthood. Yet Tshiamo began making courageous choices at the age of five, a journey of both self-doubt and self-belief that culminated in gender-affirmation surgery in her thirties. With sass, faith and baked-in confidence from her family ties to the entertainment world, she successfully transitioned from male to female while navigating a career as an actress, celebrity stylist and Lux’s first gender-non-conforming brand ambassador.

As admirable as it is affirming, this poignant memoir examines past hurts and present truths, and opens up a sorely needed discussion about unconditional acceptance.

Nadia Kamies has written a profound and moving meditation on what it meant to grow up ‘coloured’ in South Africa under apartheid. The photographs from family albums that gave rise to this project not only represent the aspirations of the families and community about whom Kamies is writing, but are also repositories of memories weighted equally with joy and sorrow. Kamies mines these images for their secrets, showing them to be a record of the past and a promise of what the future might be.

Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: Shakespeare is a fascinating collection of surprising revelations, quirky characters and other fascinating pieces of trivia from the world of the great English bard. From the stories behind his well-known plays and poems, through the actors and theatres that have entertained his works, to his legacy in popular culture and beyond, an intriguing and unusual history of his life and times is revealed. Drawing back the curtains on this iconic English character, there is something here for every enthusiast to relish. This authoritative and absorbing book is published to coincide with the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's death on 23rd April 2016.

‘I wanted to be who I felt I was. Broken. A wreck. A nobody.’

There’s a moment where life happens. It’s the moment just before making a good decision, or a bad one. For Milton Schorr, just such a moment took place at the age of seventeen, when he found himself squatting on his haunches in a Cape Town flat with a heroin needle in his arm.

A friend sat with him, his thumb on the plunger, and a decision was to be made. Let the heroin slip inside, and take the road the drug offered, or turn away, and find a new life not defined by the endless quest for oblivion.

For Schorr, the path was already set, as it had been at his first taste of shoplifting, porn, cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, Mandrax, LSD, Ecstasy and sex. No decision is separate from any other, each one is a continuation of all that have gone before, and it is only by a monumental reckoning with the self that the course can be altered.

This book is the story of Milton Schorr’s life as a drug addict, both in active addiction and recovery. Today, two decades sober, he relates the pivotal points in his own journey toward death, and back to life.

Seismic shifts in Zimbabwe's politics since the 2017 demise of Robert Mugabe have generated renewed interest in Ndabaningi Sithole, the first president of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).

Tinashe Mushakavanhu brings this vanguard revolutionary back to center stage through a selection of his important political and literary works.

The result is an important biographical mapping of Sithole's political and intellectual contributions to the liberation of Zimbabwe.

The extraordinary life of Cher can be told by only one person … Cher herself.

After more than seventy years of fighting to live her life on her own terms, Cher finally reveals her true story in intimate detail, in a two-part memoir.

Her remarkable career is unique and unparalleled. The only woman to top Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades, she is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Cannes Film Festival Award, and an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who has been lauded by the Kennedy Center.

She is a longtime activist and philanthropist.

As a dyslexic child who dreamed of becoming famous, Cher was raised in often-chaotic circumstances, surrounded by singers, actors and a mother who inspired her in spite of their difficult relationship.

With her trademark honesty and humour, Cher: The Memoir traces how this diamond in the rough succeeded with no plan and little confidence to become the trailblazing superstar the world has been unable to ignore for more than half a century.

Cher: The Memoir, Part One follows her extraordinary beginnings through childhood to meeting and marrying Sonny Bono – and reveals the highly complicated relationship that made them world-famous, but eventually drove them apart.

Cher: The Memoir reveals the daughter, the sister, the wife, the lover, the mother and the superstar.

It is a life too immense for only one book.

Janet Hodgson traces the life of Xhosa prophet Ntsikana (1780–1821) from his birth through his years as a Christian convert, evangelist, and composer of enduring hymns.

Ntsikana is known as one of the first Christians to adapt Christian ideas to African culture, writing hymns in isiXhosa and translating concepts into terms that resonated with his Xhosa community.

Even today, his hymns are among the most important in the amaXhosa churches, and he is regarded as an important symbol of both African unity and Black Consciousness.

Welcome to the story of Sami – entrepreneur, blêrie influencer and social media content creator. Throughout her time on Earth she has constantly asked herself what she believes to be the most important question in her life: ‘Why do these things always happen to me?’

From almost manslaughtering her teacher’s unborn baby, shattering her dad’s dream of an athlete spawn and almost being murdered by a goose, she certainly has some stories to tell.

In The Memoirs of a Clumsy Potato Sami Hall takes you through some of the life events – tough and challenging events – that changed her forever and shaped her into the weird, clumsy, constantly tired potato that we know and love. The road hasn’t always been easy and there have been several obstacles along the way, but as Sami herself would tell you, it was all part of the journey and that her story is far from finished.

Enjoy the funny, sad, weird and outlandish stories of Sami’s life and take a glimpse into her mind while we explore the million things that cause her to break into lengthy and passionate rants – loadshedding, potholes, and cell signal to name a few, and also get some answers to the internet’s most burning questions.

The Real Interior not only allows the reader a behind-the-scenes peek into the glitz and glamour of design and décor, but into a career once never considered an option for a young girl, born in Soweto.

As one of the first black and very recognisable faces of Interior Design in Africa, Nthabi Taukobong was thrust into the limelight from the very start of her profession. Spanning a career of more than 23 years she has worked on esteemed residential and leisure projects for presidents, African royalty, captains of industry and five-star hotels, to name but a few. Through the rough and often very challenging terrain of her chosen career, sprinkled generously with the high-end glamour of prestigious interiors that Nthabi has been privileged to work on, she learned that she, in fact, had to be seated right within her own interior before she could offer anything further to those in search of her creative gift.

And as she searched and explored the greater world of design, trying to grasp what it really took to be an esteemed designer, the journey unexpectedly brought her right back into her own home. Not only Nthabi’s physical home, but also to her inner-home, the place that she refers to as her ‘real interior’. It was in writing a letter one evening, congratulating herself on reaching the milestone of 21 years in her career, that Nthabi discovered she was not only writing to herself, but to every creative.

Her letter ended up being an entire book and Nthabi finally understood how her unique story could inspire and encourage others.

By uncovering the untold story of Vesta Smith (1922–2013), a community activist from Noordgesig, Soweto, this biography addresses a crucial gap in the literature on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

Based on extensive interviews and previously unexamined archival materials, it reveals how her Christian faith fuelled her commitment to non-racialism and lifelong pursuit of social justice and how her non-sectarian, anti-apartheid activism connected generations, ideologies and communities.

This book reframes Ma Vesta’s legacy, celebrating her contributions while offering fresh insights into non-racialism, the politics of the everyday and the role of black women and Christians in the liberation struggle.

A powerful tale of resilience and hope, it stands as an inspiration for contemporary movements seeking social justice and community empowerment.

In Troep! vertel meer as ’n honderd oud-troepe wat hulle onthou van diensplig: om op skool opgeroep te word, te gaan oorlog maak en twee jaar later weer huis toe te kom. Tussenin lê stories van varkpanne, tiekiebokse, twee-komma-viers, boeliebief, die DB, ryloop, pakkies, bosbussies, naweekpas, ratpacks, stof, Buffels, landmyne en skrapnel – en ook herinneringe van vriende, seuns en broers wat nie teruggekom het nie.

Bun Booyens voeg al hierdie stemme saam tot die verhaal van die uitsonderlike dinge wat duisende gewone seuns beleef het. Hierdie stories sal ’n snaar by veterane roer, en hul naastes help om te verstaan watter dinge hierdie mense vandag steeds met hulle saamdra – dit wat hulle onthou, maar ook dit wat hulle nie kan vergeet nie.

The self-righteous, headstrong lawyering mother has a new and greater challenge. No longer seeking the approval of her successful mother, one of South Africa’s first women judges, Niki is out to find that elusive concept of the ‘work/life’ balance and some real, sustainable solutions.

Her journey takes her deep into feminist philosophies as she struggles to understand the unfolding media-driven drama of the Oscar Pistorius trial while researching issues of ethics in the legal profession. But in between life and children, Niki is also determined to navigate her own way around the new world of print and publishing and connect with her own identity as a writer. How is she going to survive all this?

Something In Between is a light-hearted non-fiction narrative about real issues in a changing world: issues of parenting and the legal profession, tertiary institutions and marriage institutions; issues about the old feminist debate and why it’s still unresolved and some lessons learnt about the world of books and book publishing. A memoir of her last three years and all of it absolutely true.

The Letters of Richard Cobden (1804-1865) provides, in four printed volumes, the first critical edition of Cobden's letters, publishing the complete text in as near the original form as possible. The letters are accompanied by full scholarly apparatus, together with an introduction to each volume which re-assesses Cobden's importance in their light. Together, these volumes make available a unique source of the understanding of British liberalism in its European and international contexts, throwing new light on issues such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, British radical movements, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Anglo-French relations, and the American Civil War. The fourth and final volume, drawing on some forty-six archives worldwide, is dominated by Cobden's search for a permanent political legacy at home and abroad, following the severe check to his health in the autumn of 1859. In January 1860, he succeeded in negotiating the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty, a landmark in Anglo-French relations designed to bind the two nations closer together, and to provide the basis for a Europe united by free trade. Yet the Treaty's benefits were threatened by a continuing naval arms race between Britain and France, fuelled by what Cobden saw as self-interested scare mongering in his tract The Three Panics (1862). By 1862 an even bigger danger was the possibility that British industry's need for cotton might precipitate intervention in the American Civil War. Much of Cobden's correspondence now centred on the necessity of non-intervention and a campaign for the reform of international maritime law, while he played a major part in attempts to alleviate the effects of the 'Cotton Famine' in Lancashire. In addition to Anglo-American relations, Cobden, the 'International Man', continued to monitor the exercise of British power around the globe. He was convinced that the 'gunboat' diplomacy of his prime antagonist, Lord Palmerston, was ultimately harmful to Britain, whose welfare demanded limited military expenditure and the dismantling of the British 'colonial system'. Known for a long time as the 'prophet in the wilderness', in 1864 Cobden welcomed Palmerston's inability to intervene in the Schleswig-Holstein crisis as a key turning-point in Britain's foreign policy, which, together with the imminent end of the American Civil War, opened up the prospect of a new reform movement at home. Disappointed with the growing apathy of the entrepreneurs he had once mobilised in the Anti-Corn Law League, Cobden now promoted the enfranchisement of the working classes as necessary and desirable in order to achieve the reform of the aristocratic state for which he had campaigned since the 1830s.

Patrick was a wayward child who could not speak until he was four and ran away from boarding school. A disappointment to his parents and the despair of his teachers, he lacked the normal abilities that young people acquire as they grow up. After being sacked from his job, Patrick decided to try his fortunes overseas. A timid traveller and always obedient to authority, how did he come to the attention of the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Los Angeles Police Departments South Africa's Bureau of State Security and Rhodesia's BSA Police? And why did he come to be in police custody in Tanganyika and the first white man deported by newly independent Kenya? Back in England, Patrick's CV was no conducive to gainful employment of the kind enjoyed by his peers: encyclopaedia salesman, nomadic field-hand, lavatory cleaner, bear-chaser, baggage-smasher, waitress (yes!), factory labourer, scullion. The BBC offered sanctuary as a clerk, with few prospects of advancement. After five years of entertaining if ill-paid work in an office full of colourful misfits, Patrick fell into the embrace of the Civil Service. A trainee again at the age of 30, could things improve? Things could, but not without a catalogue of mishaps on the way. Patrick's propensity for bright ideas tended towards disaster, including a national crisis when he set in train the events that culminated in Black Wednesday.