Mzuzephi Mathebula, also known as Jan Note and later as Nongoloza, founded the Umkhosi Wezi-ntaba (Regiment of the Hills), forerunner of the notorious "28" gang. He became known as the King of Nineveh, a man who sought social justice, paradoxically, through antisocial means. Nongoloza's story is also the story of South Africa's violent and racially accentuated past and, to an extent, provides clarification for the criminality that afflicts the present-day society.

Nongoloza Mathebula’s life is a poignant illustration of how political circumstances affect lives and how those lives encourage myths, setting in motion a spiral of events that eventually neither politics nor people have any control over. Van Onselen’s insightful biography tells the story of how a young man became a hardened criminal as the result of a minor incident.

Nongoloza Mathebula’s life is a poignant illustration of how political circumstances affect lives and how those lives encourage myths, setting in motion a spiral of events that eventually neither politics nor people have any control over.

“Sometime in November 2007 while working as an entertainment and lifestyle journalist, a job that had seen me party and hang out with local and international stars, including John Legend, I realised that I was over my life in South Africa. My job was fab and my life should have been great but it wasn’t because who cares if you get to pose with Beyoncé? I had had enough of writing about people living their wildest dreams. It was time to see what the story of my life would be. I had always had wanderlust, especially for Africa. And so I made the decision to leave South Africa, an urgent need that consumed me and almost drove me to a point of insanity. I planned to spend three months in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.”

When Lerato Mogoathle left South Africa for a planned three-month break to West Africa little did she know that those three months would turn into five years.

Vagabond is her hilarious and honest account of her five years of living as a drifter in Africa. In between the borders, foreign architecture and interesting new ways of life, Mogoatlhe found passion, love, laughter and heartbreak. On these pages you will find capsules of time spent in 21 countries in five regions of Africa. You will be regaled by the tales of how she tries to worm herself into hotels when she has no money because of unpaid invoices back home. You will be mortified and proud of how she navigates herself out of difficult situations like being misread by a man who tries to force himself on her.

Mogoatlhe’s book is a travel memoir driven by the belief that whatever else Africa is, it is first and foremost a home. It is punctuated with a deep urge to know the continent differently.

Martha Solomons is a simple woman, the daughter of a freed slave. Harry Grey is a priest from the British aristocracy, sent to the Cape Colony of the mid-nineteenth century because of bad behaviour. In the rugged Namaqualand their paths cross and a bond of love develops that stays with them throughout the contrasting landscapes of their lives.

Based on the lives of Martha Solomons and Harry Grey, this fascinating story was first published in Afrikaans, and was runner-up for the MNet-Jan Rabie Literary Award. Elsa Silke's masterful translation retains the spirit and the essence of the era in which this historical novel is set.

In this truly remarkable life story, Saray Khumalo shares her epic journey to the top of the world: Mount Everest.

From her childhood in Zambia and Zaire, to a corporate career in South Africa, through marriage and motherhood, Saray harboured one overriding ambition: to reach the summits of the world’s highest mountains. She first summited Mount Kilimanjaro, and then others, but her ultimate goal was to summit Everest. After three unsuccessful attempts, Saray became the first black African woman to summit the world’s highest peak. Her success was hard won, though – along the way, she suffered severe personal setbacks, serious health issues and life-threatening injuries.

But her perseverance finally paid off, and Saray’s success at high altitude has helped change the narrative about who belongs on the mountains and whose stories are told. Saray’s story, which redefines common perceptions about what women are capable of doing and achieving, will inspire girls and women from all walks of life. In this fascinating memoir, she shares not only her incredible mountaineering feats, but also the lessons she learnt about life, perseverance and failing forward.

To celebrate her 14-year clean and sober birthday, Ferguson organises to take a R3.2 million Ferrari California out on a test drive for the day. Twenty minutes before she returns the car, she is involved in a spectacular car crash, during which she experiences a near-death collision.

The crash is a catalyst for a series of life-changing events. Over the following months her long-term relationship implodes in a heart-ripping showdown of betrayal and deception. She is faced with a litany of legal and financial nightmares as a result of the Ferrari being written off, while certain members of the dog-eat-dog motoring journo industry relish in her downfall. “The thing is that any fool should have been able to see that I was traumatised. Finding a Dutch lesbian in your man’s bed, writing off a R3.2-million Ferrari, hardly sleeping for a year, facing the chop at work, watching your recent Ex-Boyfriend’s penis snap, plus writing a book about a stump-legged, murder-accused athlete … Well, hello! Who wouldn’t feel a tad fucking out of control?”

After she admits herself to a clinic to address her meltdown, in her trademark gritty tell-it-all and often hilarious style, she interrogates the controversial pharma-whore psychiatric industry as she is diagnosed and medicated over her three-week stay. Ultimately Crashed sees Ferguson slowly coming to grips with the meaninglessness of outward material success as she embarks on a painful journey of introspection in search of intangible inner peace and self love in a crazy out of control world. It’s South Africa’s very own The Girl (Monk) Who Crashed (Sold) her (his) Ferrari.

Crashed is the highly anticipated final installment of the 3-part memoir trilogy, following in the steps of her South African bestsellers Smacked (2005) and Hooked (2010).

Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material.

Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to their country's polarized politics and the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders - one Black and one white - looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself.

It includes:

• Original introductions by President Obama and Bruce Springsteen
• Exclusive new material from the Renegades podcast recording sessions
• Obama's never-before-seen annotated speeches, including his "Remarks at the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery Marches
• Springsteen's handwritten lyrics for songs spanning his 50-year-long career
• Rare and exclusive photographs from the authors' personal archives
• Historical photographs and documents that provide rich visual context for their conversation.

Obama and Springsteen discuss marriage and fatherhood, race and masculinity, the lure of the open road and the call back to home. They also compare notes on their favourite protest songs, the most inspiring American heroes of all time, and more. Along the way, they reveal their passion for - and the occasional toll of - telling a bigger, truer story about America throughout their careers, and explore how their fractured country might begin to find its way back toward unity.

The Springbok rugby captain, over more than a century, has represented many things to many South Africans. He has united, and he has divided. He has thrilled, he has disappointed. He has inspired, he has disheartened. He has triumphed, he has failed. But he has always had an impact.

In this revealing narrative, Edward Griffiths and Stephen Nell depict the men who have been able to call themselves ‘Springbok Captain’ through their backgrounds, triumphs and disappointments. Relive the heyday of rugby legends Bennie Osler, Danie Craven, Hennie Muller, Johan Claassen, Naas Botha, Francois Pienaar, Gary Teichmann, Joost van der Westhuizen, Andre Vos and others.

Now fully updated with the accounts of Bobby Skinstad, Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers, The Springbok Captains is the epic story that lies at the heart of South African rugby.

Die daggaplant (Cannabis sativa) word al vir duisende jare gebruik. Dit is, inderdaad, ’n baie nuttige plant om materiaal en toue mee te vervaardig. Dit is egter die bekendste vir die psigotropiese effekte van dagga se aktiewe bestanddeel, tetrahidrokannabinol (THC).

Die kwessie oor of dagga verslawend is, is nog nie heeltemal duidelik nie. Baie navorsing word gedoen om korrekte en interessante inligting vir gebruikers, hul naasbestaandes, handelaars en almal wat oor dagga wonder, beskikbaar te stel.

Hierdie handleiding bring die leser op datum met alles wat ons weet aangaande dagga. Slegs wanneer al die feite op die tafel is, is dit sinvol om ’n opinie oor hierdie wonderlike plant te waag.

Reflecting Rogue is the much anticipated and brilliant collection of experimental autobiographical essays on power, pleasure and South African culture by Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola, author of the bestelling Rape: A South African Nightmare.

In her most personal book to date, written from classic Gqola anti-racist, feminist perspectives, Reflecting Rogue delivers fourteen essays of deliciously incisive brain food, all extremely accessible to a general critical readership, without sacrificing intellectual rigour.

A moving personal reflection from global philanthropist and bestselling author Melinda French Gates that encourages readers to stay true to themselves as they navigate transitions in their own lives.

In a rare window into some of her life’s pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions.

Transitions are moments in which we step out of our familiar surroundings and into a new landscape—a space that, for many people, is shadowed by confusion, fear, and indecision. The Next Day accompanies readers as they cross that space, offering guidance on how to make the most of the time between an ending and a new beginning and how to move forward into the next day when the ground beneath you is shifting.

In this book, Melinda will reflect, for the first time in print, on some of the most significant transitions in her own life, including becoming a parent, the death of a dear friend, and her departure from the Gates Foundation. The stories she tells illuminate universal lessons about loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping friends navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty, and more.

Each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are in life, is headed toward transitions of our own. With her signature warmth and grace, Melinda candidly shares stories of times when she was in need of wisdom and shines a path through the open space stretching out before us all.

Nick Compton had it all. A literal golden boy, to many observers it would seem that he was born to be a great in the sporting arena coming as he did from an incredible sporting ancestry.

His grandfather Sir Denis Compton played cricket for England and football for Arsenal. Honed at an elite English boarding school, with a telegenic profile perfectly suited to the modern media environment, Nick appeared to be blessed with that rare ability to be able to stride out and face down the world's quickest bowlers, to survive and thrive in the danger zone at the hands of the hurtling new ball. However, greatness in any field comes at a price and this memoir explores the almost 'Faustian pact' he made in order to secure that time in the sun.

It will show what 'Mistress Cricket' demanded from Nick as his side of that bargain.

The family he left behind, the failed relationships both personal and professional and the utter physical and mental exhaustion which resulted from his drive to stay at the top.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country.

Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

Long Walk To Freedom is his moving autobiography, in which he tells the extraordinary story of his life - an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph!

'A rocket-fuelled adventure.' - Tim Peake 'His passion for adventure is truly infectious.' - Gareth Southgate Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. And above all, never ever give up. In Never Give Up, global adventurer, Chief Scout and TV presenter Bear Grylls immerses readers in some truly remarkable adventures. As Bear shares personal stories from his toughest expeditions, this inspiring autobiography captures the exhilarating reality behind some of his hairiest survival missions. In this eagerly awaited follow up to his Number One bestseller Mud, Sweat and Tears, Bear takes readers behind the scenes on 'Man vs. Wild', the series that spawned an entire adventure industry. He also provides a unique and revealing insight into what it's really like to go 'Running Wild' with guests including President Obama, Roger Federer and Julia Roberts, to name but a few of his global superstar guests. Along the way, Bear opens up about his most personal challenges, discovers the true value of adventure, and embodies the enduring power of courage, kindness and a never give up spirit. THE EXTRAORDINARY NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY FROM ADVENTURER BEAR GRYLLS. 'Bear is someone who truly grabs life with both hands.' - Jonny Wilkinson 'So many positive messages wrapped up in Bear's many incredible adventures.' - Roger Federer

The first book by a Coca-Cola CEO tells the remarkable story of the company's revival.

Neville Isdell was a key player at Coca-Cola for more than thirty years, retiring in 2009 as Chairman after rebuilding the tarnished brand image of the world's leading soft-drink company. Inside Coca-Cola tells an extraordinary personal and professional worldwide story, ranging from Northern Ireland to South Africa to Australia, the Philippines, Russia, Germany, India and Turkey. Isdell helped put out huge public-relations fires (India and Turkey), opened markets (Russia, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and Africa), championed Muhtar Kent, the current Turkish-American CEO, all while living the ideal of corporate responsibility.

Isdell's—and Coke's—story is newsy without being gossipy; principled without being preachy, and filled with stories and lessons appealing to anyone who has ever taken "the pause that refreshes." It's also a readable and important look at how companies can market and govern themselves more—ethically and to great success.

Source Code describes with unprecedented candour Bill Gates’ life from his childhood in Seattle to dropping out of Harvard aged 20 in 1975. Shortly afterwards he wrote, with Paul Allen, the programme which became the foundation of Microsoft and eventually for the entire software industry, changing the way the world works and lives.

Gates writes about the centrality of family to his life – his encouraging grandmother and ambitious parents, about struggles to fit in, his rebelliousness, and the impact on him of the death of his closest friend. We see his extraordinary mind developing as a teenager, his excitement about the rapidly emerging technology of computing, and the earliest signs of his phenomenal business acumen.

Source Code is a warm, wise and revealing self-portrait of one of the most influential people of our age.

Trained as a midwife, Chrissie Chapman went to Burundi in the nineties to open a maternity clinic and dispensary in a rural area of the country. She had been there just three years when a coup was declared, and the country descended into a state of civil war. It lasted for thirteen long years. During that time, God directed her to work with the orphans and widows.

She started a centre for abandoned babies and traumatised children and saw the Lord performing remarkable miracles in the lives of people who had lost everything. Chrissie adopted three children herself, and has raised more than fifty others to young adulthood. Again and again she has witnessed miracles of protection and provision. When the war started, Chrissie, her adopted children, and the health staff were living in a rural location on top of a mountain, in a healing centre, with maternity clinic and dispensary. Every night there was gunfire, and every day people would come seeking refuge. One night, she and David Ndarahutse, the mission director, were sitting praying amid the fighting, when David said, "Chrissie, look up." There were dozens of angels standing on top of the walls of the healing centre. That was the night the angels came.

"From that moment on," Chrissie records, "I have never experienced or felt fear for my life." Today Chrissie divides her time between Burundi, where she continues to care for the teenagers in her charge, and England, Canada and America, where she speaks widely about the faithfulness and power of God.

It’s midsummer in Wyoming and Alexandra Fuller is barely hanging on. Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe, reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober and piecing her way uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman, Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel.

And then – suddenly and incomprehensibly – her son Fi, at twenty-one years old, dies in his sleep.

No stranger to loss – young siblings, a parent, a home country – Alexandra is nonetheless levelled. At the same time, she is painfully aware that she cannot succumb and abandon her two surviving daughters as her mother before her had done. From a sheep wagon deep in the mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve herself whole. There is no answer, and there are countless answers – in poetry, in rituals and routines, in nature and in the indigenous wisdom she absorbed as a child in Zimbabwe. By turns disarming, devastating and unexpectedly, blessedly funny, Alexandra recounts the wild medicine of painstakingly grieving a child in a culture that has no instructions for it.

Combining the nostalgic writing of Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died with the urgency of Emily Ratajkowski's My Body, this gripping memoir from Hugh Hefner's widow lays bare the shocking reality of life in the Playboy mansion.

"I was 21 years old when I found myself on the front stoop of the Playboy Mansion. I want to tell the real story of my time there - the good and the bad, the dark and the light."

In 2008 the Playboy mansion became Crystal Harris's sanctuary - a shimmering vestige of opportunity. Within months she had ascended its hierarchy to become Hugh Hefner's top girlfriend. But her new home came at a cost. Forced to follow strict rules that governed everything from her appearance to behaviour, she began to lose her identity. By the time she married Hef in 2012, the mansion had become her prison.

Having made a promise to Only Say Good Things, for years Crystal suppressed the truth of what really happened behind the mansion's closed doors. Now, in this raw and honest memoir, she's finally ready to expose it all.

Laying bare the devastating impact that a culture of relentless objectification and misogyny had on her health, Crystal's extraordinary story carries powerful lessons that are relevant to us all.

Another year on the Diddly Squat Farm and Jeremy is still knee-deep in mud and endless challenges . . .

Welcome back to Clarkson's Farm. Since taking the wheel three years ago Jeremy's had his work cut out. And it's now clear from hard-won experience that, when it comes to farming, there's only one golden rule: Whatever you hope will happen, won't.

Enthusiastic and inventive schemes to diversify have met with stubborn opposition from the red trouser brigade, defeat at the hands of Council Planning department, and predictable derision from Kaleb - although, to be fair, even Lisa had doubts about Jeremy's brilliant plan to build a business empire founded on rewilding and nettle soup. And only Cheerful Charlie's still smiling about the stifling amount of red tape that's incoming. But he charges by the hour.

Then there are the animals: the sheep are gone; the cows have been joined by a rented bull called Break-Heart Maestro;. the pigs are making piglets; and the goats have turned out to be psychopaths.

But despite the naysayers and (sometimes self-inflicted) setbacks, Jeremy remains irrepressibly optimistic about life at Diddly Squat. Because It's hard not to be when you get to harvest blackberries with a vacuum cleaner.

And, after all, it shouldn't just be Break-heart Maestro who gets to enjoy a happy ending ....

The Struggle Continues is a “searing, heartfelt, brutally honest account of the turbulent modern history of Zimbabwe” (Douglas Rogers author of The Last Resort).

This autobiographical political history since the 1950s deals with an era of great turbulence from the perspective a person who has been at the centre of the great Zimbabwean drama for over 30 years, David Coltart.

It is set to be the most authoritative book to date of the last sixty years of Zimbabwe’s history, described by the doyenne of Southern African journalists, Peta Thornycroft, as “a masterpiece”: from the obstinate racism of Ian Smith that provoked Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1965, to the civil war of the 1970s, the Gukurahundi genocide of the 1980s, the land invasions of the 2000s, Robert Mugabe’s Murambatsvina war on poor urban dwellers in 2005, and the struggles waged by the MDC in confronting a brutal regime.

Shirley Zinn’s story is one of determination, courage, and triumph over incredible adversity.

Born and raised on the Cape Flats, Shirley never allowed her past to dictate her future. She proved that the typical story of a girl from the Cape Flats – that of gangsterism, alcoholism and teenage pregnancy – didn’t have to be her story. Instead she relentlessly pursued her own goals and forged an impressive academic career even when she faced significant odds. And when she’d done that, she set out to conquer the world of business.

Shirley is a formidable woman with an amazing story to tell. She has risen to the top of the pile in both academic and business circles, and yet she has retained great humanity and empathy in the face of great personal tragedy.

Her story has lessons for us all – whether we are ordinary or extraordinary, whether we work in business, in government, or at home. Shirley’s story will inspire you and show you that it is possible to achieve your goals, if you are prepared to swim upstream and be single-minded in getting where you want to be.

When Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist Party and heir apparent to Nelson Mandela, was brutally slain in his driveway in April 1993, he left a shocked and grieving South Africa on the precipice of civil war. But to 12-year-old Lindiwe, it was the love of her life, her daddy, who had been shockingly ripped from her life. In this intimate and brutally honest memoir, 36-year-old Lindiwe remembers the years she shared with her loving father, and the toll that his untimely death took on the Hani family. She lays family skeletons bare and brings to the fore her own downward spiral into cocaine and alcohol addiction, a desperate attempt to avoid the pain of his brutal parting.

While the nation continued to revere and honour her father’s legacy, for Lindiwe, being Chris Hani’s daughter became an increasingly heavy burden to bear.

"For as long as I can remember, I’d grown up feeling that I was the daughter of Chris Hani and that I was useless. My father was such a huge figure, such an icon to so many people, it felt like I could never be anything close to what he achieved – so why even try? Of course my addiction to booze and cocaine just made me feel my worthlessness even more".

In a stunning turnaround, she faces her demons, not just those that haunted her through her addiction, but, with the courage that comes with sobriety, she comes face to face with her father’s two killers – Janus Walus, still incarcerated, and Clive Derby Lewis, released in 2015 on medical parole. In a breathtaking twist of humanity, while searching for the truth behind her father’s assassination, Lindiwe Hani ultimately makes peace with herself and honours her father’s gigantic spirit.

His street name was Daylight. But he was a nightmare.

On the streets of New York, darkness and violence reigned. Dimas “Daylight” Salaberrios popped his first pill when he was eleven years old, and just days later, he was selling drugs to his schoolmates. By fifteen, he was facing time at the notorious Rikers Island Prison. It was never safe to turn your back, and Dimas saw only one chance to survive: to become a street god. He would be the richest, most powerful ruler in the hood . . . or die trying.

But in one terrifying moment, with a gun pointed at his head, Dimas had to decide: How far would he go? Was he finished taking reckless chances to rule as a god of the streets? Would he dare to entrust his life to the real God―an even riskier path? Because that God would send Dimas back down the darkest streets he’d ever known on a rescue mission after those still in danger.

Street God is the true story of one man’s against-all-odds journey from the streets to the altar and back again. A modern-day The Cross and the Switchblade for a new generation, it reveals that we’re never too far gone for God to change us―and shows how a single spark can illuminate even the darkest existence.

As a medical detective of the modern world, forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal’s chief goal is to bring perpetrators to justice. He has performed thousands of autopsies, which have helped bring numerous criminals to book. In Autopsy he covers the hard lessons learnt as a rookie pathologist, as well as some of the most unusual cases he’s encountered.

During his career, for example, he has dealt with high-profile deaths, mass disasters, death by lightning and people killed by African wildlife. Blumenthal takes the reader behind the scenes at the mortuary, describing a typical autopsy and the instruments of the trade. He also shares a few trade secrets, like how to establish when a suicide is more likely to be a homicide.

Even though they cannot speak, the dead have a lot to say – and Blumenthal is there to listen.

Dwarstrekkers, nonkonformiste, buitestaanders, randeiers...Noem hulle wat jy wil, Suid Afrika het meer as sy deel eksentrieke karakters opgelewer wat mense van die vroegste tye af na hulle asem laat snak of verstom agter hulle hand laat fluister het.

Hierdie rare mense het met die jare hul merk gemaak op vele terreine.

Dis hulle wat Daniël Lotter aan 'n nuwe geslag lesers bekendstel.