Wilderness guide Sicelo Mbatha shares lessons learnt from a lifetime’s intimate association with Africa’s wildest nature.

Black Lion begins in rural South Africa where a deeply traumatic childhood experience – he witnessed his cousin being dragged away by a crocodile – should have turned Sicelo against the surrounding wilderness. Instead, he was irresistibly drawn to it. As a volunteer at Imfolozi Nature Reserve, close encounters with buffalo, lion, elephant and other animals taught him to ‘see’ with his heart and thus began a spiritual awakening.

Drawing from his Zulu culture and his own yearning to better understand human’s relationship to nature, Sicelo has forged a new path, disrupting the conventional approach to nature with an immersive, respectful and transformative way of being in the wilderness. Both memoir and philosophical reflection, Black Lion - co-written with environmentalist Bridget Pitt - is his brilliant and profound account of life as a wilderness spiritual guide.

As humanity hurtles into the anthropogenic 21st century, Black Lion is an urgent reminder of just how much we need wilderness for our emotional and spiritual survival.

Zbyszek Miszczak is a retired engineer and reluctant author of this book.

His memoir is a collection of stories about his life under communist rule in Poland and as a political refugee in Austria, describing political events of that time with historical background as context.

After participating in the shipyard strike that gave birth/rise to the Solidarity movement and changed the political landscape in Europe, he was forced into exile.

While some of his experiences are tragic, he writes with insight, humour and a keen eye for detail.

For the first time, Spying and the Crown uncovers the remarkable relationship between the Royal Family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana.

In an enthralling narrative, Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac show how the British secret services grew out of persistent attempts to assassinate Victoria and then operated on a private and informal basis, drawing on close personal relationships between senior spies, the aristocracy, and the monarchy.

Based on original research and new evidence, Spying and the Crown presents the British monarchy in an entirely new light and reveals how far their majesties still call the shots in a hidden world.

Previously published as The Secret Royals.

From Josh Brolin, a unique and decidedly un-celebrity memoir, by turns affecting, funny, uncanny, and unforgettable.

Weaving a latticework of different strands, moving back and forth through time, Josh Brolin captures a life marked by curiosity, pain, devotion, kindness, humor. He recounts an unconventional childhood far from Hollywood.

Raised on a ranch in Paso Robles, California, he was surrounded as a child by the wolves, cougars, and other wild animals gathered by his fearless and explosive mother, Jane Agee Brolin. Her tragic, early death haunts this book, and the force of her unforgettable personality is felt throughout. Brolin also brings to life his career in the film industry—from his breakout role in The Goonies to the set of No Country for Old Men—and the professional and personal ups and downs in between and since.

With unflinching honesty but also great humor, he shares insights into relationships, addiction, love, and fatherhood, while letting the white space in between words speak for itself. Grappling with the mysteries of life and death in a way that will catch readers by surprise, From Under the Truck is an audacious and riveting memoir from a born writer.

The Thabo Mbeki I Know is a collection that celebrates one of South Africa’s most exceptional thought leaders. The contributors include those who first got to know Thabo Mbeki as a young man, in South Africa and in exile, and those who encountered him as a statesman and worked alongside him as an African leader.

In The Thabo Mbeki I Know, these friends, comrades, statesmen, politicians and business associates provide insights that challenge the prevailing academic narrative and present fresh perspectives on the former president’s time in office and on his legacy – a vital undertaking as we approach a decade since an embattled Thabo Mbeki left office. Edited by Miranda Strydom and Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu, The Thabo Mbeki I Know provides readers with an opportunity to reassess Thabo Mbeki’s contribution to post-apartheid South Africa – as both deputy president and president – to the African continent and diaspora – as a highly respected state leader – and to the international community as a whole.

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

Your Damage Does Not Define You.

Underneath our designer clothes, makeup, jewellery, and photo filters are cracks left by abuse, mistakes, rejection, and disappointment. Bestselling author and pastor Michael Todd reveals his own damage: the hits he’s experienced from trauma, dumb choices, and lingering struggles passed down through generations. Using candid stories, engaging illustrations, and biblical wisdom, he encourages readers to be H.O.T.—humble, open, and transparent—and face the pain of past hits to move toward the triumphant future God has for them.

Damaged but Not Destroyed: From Trauma To Triumph will give you tools to identify the impact of your damage, see yourself the way God sees you, and realize that healing is all about progression, not perfection.

No matter how badly you’ve messed up, and no matter the pain you’ve experienced, nothing can destroy the God-given value of your life. It’s time to turn your damage into destiny! You may be damaged, but you are not destroyed.

From the acclaimed author of Losing Eden (“Powerful, beautifully written”—Anthony Doerr) an important, moving, passionate and passionately written inquiry—personal and scientific—into what happens—mentally, spiritually, physically, during the process of becoming a mother, from pregnancy and childbirth to early motherhood and what this profound process tells us about the way we live now.

In this important and ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, Jones writes of the emerging concept of “matrescence” – the wholeness of becoming a mother.

Drawing on her own experiences of twice becoming a mother, as well as exploring the latest research in the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology, Jones writes of the physical and emotional changes in the maternal mind, body, and spirit and shows us how these changes are far more profound, wild, and enduring than have been previously explored or written about.

Part memoir, part scientific and health reporting, part social critique, ecological philosophy, eco-feminism and nature writing, Matrescence is a kind of whodunnit, ferreting out with the most nuanced, searing and honest observations, why mothers throughout this heightened transition are at a breaking point, and what the institution of intensive, isolated motherhood can tell us about our still-dominant social and cultural myths.

What would you put on the line for what you believe in? For Chris Bertish, the answer is everything. ALL IN!

In 2017 Chris became the first person ever to stand-up paddleboard across any ocean. Defying all odds, he paddled 7500 kilometers solo, unassisted and unsupported, for 93 days across the Atlantic Ocean, from Morocco, Africa to Antigua in the Caribbean. During three months at sea he was targeted by a great white shark, towed by a giant sea squid, capsized multiple times and surfed down 10-meter waves as challenging as anything he had faced in any Mavericks Big Wave Surfing Championships.

Too many times he found himself hanging on the edge of his modified SUP for dear life. He also become one with the elements, and ultimately succeeded in doing something everyone said was simply impossible.

This is the story of his incredible journey.

Frederik van Zyl Slabbert was a man on a mission, whether as an academic, opposition politician, democratic facilitator or businessman. When he famously led a delegation of leading Afrikaners to Dakar in 1987 to meet the exiled ANC, many saw it as a breakthrough moment, while others felt he had been taken in. And yet his reputation – for honesty, integrity, wit and courage – still towers above many of his contemporaries.

An academic turned politician, Slabbert brought unusual intellectual rigour to Parliament, transforming the upstart Progressive Federal Party into a force that could challenge the National Party. Disillusioned by South African society, he resigned in 1986 to explore democratic alternatives. Sidelined during the democratic transition, he continued to pursue a broad range of initiatives aimed at building democracy, empowering black South Africans and transforming the economy.

Grundlingh offers insights into this most unlikely politician, providing new perspectives on a figure who even today remains an enigma.

Emile Joubert is sy lewe lank ’n kosgenieter.

Op sesjarige ouderdom het sy ouma se kerrie ’n groot indruk op hom gemaak en van daar af was hy ’n onkeerbare smulpaap en het kos hom betower – of dit nou die skoolmaaltye in sy kortstondige verblyf in Londen was, die honger en dors in die weermag, of die seekos wat hy uitgeduik het – Joubert se kosobessies word lewend in sy lekker skryfstyl in die oortreffende trap.

Sy kosreise strek van Londen tot Griekeland, Italië, Frankryk en die dorre landskap van Angola. Die Mars bar, fondue, baked beans, oesters en boeliebief is enkele van die kossoorte wat sy reise vergesel.

Lucy Easthope lives with disaster every day. When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, she's the one they call. As one of the world's leading experts on disaster she has been at the centre of the most seismic events of the last few decades - advising on everything from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to the 7/7 bombings, the Salisbury poisonings, the Grenfell fire and the Covid-19 pandemic.

She has travelled across the world in this unusual role, seeing the very worst that people have to face, and finding that even the most extreme of situations, we find the very best of humanity. In her moving memoir she reveals what happens in the aftermath. She takes us behind the police tape to scenes of destruction and chaos, introducing us to victims and their families, but also to the government briefing rooms and bunkers, where confusion and stale biscuits can reign supreme.

With wisdom, resilience and candour When the Dust Settles looks back at a life spent on the edges of disaster and shows us that where there is terrible tragedy there is also great hope and that humanity and humour can - and must - still be found on the darkest of days.

Dogtag Memories is a raw, darkly humorous memoir that follows Jon Goetzsche’s chaotic journey through South Africa’s military machine.

Drafted into the Defence Force in 1977as a carefree seventeen-year-old, Jon’s tranquil schooldays are abruptly replaced by the brutal regimentation of army life. What begins as naive indifference soon spirals into a struggle against authority, misfortune and the absurdities of war.

After surviving the gruelling training to become a Parabat, Jon is court-martialled for assaulting a fellow soldier and sent to Detention Barracks. Reassigned to an ordinary infantry battalion, he completes five months of training and is sent to the border for the rest of his two years’ national service, followed by several camps. Through the laughable rules, harsh punishment, grinding boredom, fatal mishaps and clashes with enemy guerrillas, he endures with wit, irony and a stubborn refusal to surrender his humanity.

Told with unflinching honesty and biting humour, Dogtag Memories transcends the typical border war narrative. Decades later, Jon reflects on how those formative years shaped him, offering a poignant, irreverent and deeply human account of camaraderie, hardship and resilience.

This insightful portrait of Winston Churchill delves beyond well-known political moments, incorporating perspectives from various individuals who encountered him throughout his life.

From Bletchley Park codebreakers and Hollywood stars such as Charlie Chaplin, through writers as varied as H. G. Wells and P. G. Wodehouse, to the likes of Harold Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II, these lesser-known interactions reveal glimpses of the man behind the legend.

We meet Churchill the exuberant schoolboy thug with an early mania for bull-dogs, and Churchill the elder statesman shedding a tear in the House of Commons smoking room. Other incidents include a young journalist rudely dismissing a call from Churchill as a prank, and a visiting Dwight D. Eisenhower dreaming of being strangled, only to awake entangled in Churchill’s borrowed nightshirt.

The book showcases the profound transformations during Churchill’s lifetime, which ran from Benjamin Disraeli’s premiership to the release of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Route 66’, and the shift from steam to atomic power. Examining controversial aspects of his legacy, this multifaceted portrait challenges preconceived notions, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of Churchill.

Noni Jabavu was the first black South African woman to publish books on her life. Her memoirs Drawn in Colour and The Ochre People have been compared to Zora Neale Hurston's work.

A cosmopolitan, free-spirited woman, she returned home in 1977 and wrote a weekly column in the Daily Dispatch. 

This book is a compilation of these cheeky, insightful and hilarious columns for a younger audience of empowered women. 

Hierdie is 'n biografie in konteks en lees soos 'n roman.

Die jaar is 1700, die plek Amsterdam. Die bruid is 21 jaar oud en inderhaas getroud met 'n wewenaar wat oud genoeg is om haar pa te wees. Wie is die Franse vrou wat kans sien vir 'n pionierslewe op 'n verre voorpos? Marie Buisset is 'n vlugteling, 'n weeskind uit Sedan, Frankryk, gebore tydens die felste Hugenootvervolging. Sy word die stammoeder van die families Du Plessis en Smith in Suid-Afrika. As vroedvrou - later op die loonlys van die VOC - word Marie (later genoem Maria) die hulp van die kwesbares: 'n verkragte meisietjie, 'n tiener wat geboorte gee en verskeie vroue wat deur hul eienaars, minnaars of eggenote verniel is.

Die leser ontmoet talle bekende name in die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis. Dis 'n verhaal van politieke stryd, ontbering, politiek en liefde. Dis 'n storie oor mense en die uitdagings wat hulle aanpak.

Uit skrapse oorblyfsels soos hofverslae, mediese rekeninge, veilings en testament onthul Joan Kruger 'n ryk en boeiende verhaal, vol humor en patos. Wieg: die verhaal van Maria du Plessis, née Buisset, (1679 - 1751) Hugenoot en vroedvrou is a vonds vir historici en lesers wat nuwe lig werp op 'n gedeelde verlede. 'n Kragtoer.

Eben Etzebeth is the most-capped player in South African rugby history. A towering lock, his intelligence, energy and aggression on the pitch is feared, respected, often imitated but never matched.

He is the heart and soul of a historically successful Springbok team and a key part of their astonishingly successful run that encompasses two consecutive World Cups and a current two-year-stint at the top of the world rankings. In this frank and disarming account, Eben uncovers the key factors in his extraordinary success, and how he keeps focussed, both on and off the pitch. From his humble beginnings in Goodwood, a Cape Town suburb where nothing came easy, through his early club career and on to his hard-won place within the South African squad, UNLOCKED reveals the personal side of an astonishing professional career.

This is an inspiring story of a man who has led from the front, and played against the best in the world.

Eben Etzebeth is tans die speler wat al die meeste toetswedstryde in die Suid-Afrikaanse rugbygeskiedenis gespeel het. Op die veld word hierdie ellelange slot se intelligensie, energie en aggressie gevrees, gerespekteer en dikwels nageboots – maar hy bly ongeëwenaard. 
 
Hy is lid van die Springbokke se senior leierskapsgroep, en speel ’n deurslaggewende rol in ’n ongelooflik suksesverhaal wat twee agtereenvolgende Wêreldbekers insluit, asook die span se posisie boaan die wêreldranglys die afgelope twee jaar. 

In hierdie eerlike en onderhoudende vertelling beskryf Eben van die vernaamste faktore vir sy buitengewone sukses, en hoe hy gefokus bly – op en van die veld af. Van sy beskeie kinderjare in Goodwood – ’n voorstad van Kaapstad waar niks maklik kom nie – regdeur sy vroeë klubloopbaan, tot by sy swaar verdiende plek in die Suid-Afrikaanse nasionale span, vertel Ten slotte die verhaal van ’n merkwaardige sportloopbaan.

Benni had everything that a coach loves in a player.’ – José Mourinho

Benni McCarthy is South Africa’s most successful footballer – he’s the all-time top scorer for  Bafana Bafana, the country’s only Champions League winner, and he is now forging a  successful career as a coach.

Benni has gone from growing up in the ganglands of the Cape Flats to playing at some of  the biggest arenas in sport, moving from South Africa as a teenager to become a much- prized player at clubs in the Netherlands, Spain and England. He was the top scorer at the  Africa Cup of Nations finals, he also found the back of the net at the World Cup, and he  helped FC Porto and their fabled coach José Mourinho to win the top club prize in world  football.

Since hanging up his boots, Benni has embarked on a coaching career that has seen him win  silverware in South Africa and then go on to work on the staff at Manchester United. He is  now building a national team for Kenya as they ready themselves to host the 2027 Cup of  Nations tournament.

Overcoming formidable obstacles has been the hallmark of Benni’s career, be it defying  neighbourhood gang bosses, a series of vindictive coaches or selfserving South African  football administrators. His defiant approach to officialdom often landed him in hot water  but he has always stayed true to his principles, resulting in a love-hate relationship with  Bafana Bafana that has never been properly explained … until now

In December 2017, Walter Meyer was stabbed in the heart with a kitchen knife by his wife, Sophia. Dubbed "South Africa's own van Gogh" and critically acclaimed as the finest landscape artist to emerge from this country in the last century, his brutal death left a deep void.

Written by his brother, Frans, along with rare insights from Walter's rehab journals, Impossible Skies explores the artist's roots, his genius as a painter and a poignant relationship between two brothers.

Falling Forward is a story of reclaiming identity, voice and power.

In this deeply personal memoir, released alongside her documentary, Rachel Kolisi takes readers behind the public image and into the private moments that shaped her. With courage and clarity, she traces her journey through childhood, motherhood, love, marriage, her faith in God tested and rebuilt, loss and reinvention, and the complex reality of living a life under constant scrutiny.

This is not a story of perfection or arrival, but of becoming. Of breaking, rebuilding and choosing to rise anyway. Through hard-learned lessons and unflinching honesty, Rachel reflects on what it means to let go of who you were expected to be and step fully into who you are. Together with Rachel’s personal journey, she shares how purpose and service became anchors in her healing process. Her commitment to uplifting others is not separate from her story, but a natural continuation of it.

Raw yet hopeful, grounded yet powerful, Falling Forward is for any woman who has had her world turned upside down, and found the strength to begin again.

When Stephen Clingman was two, he underwent an operation to remove a birthmark under his right eye. The operation failed, and the birthmark returned, but in somewhat altered form.

In this captivating and beguiling book, Clingman takes the fact of that mark – its appearance, disappearance and return – as a guiding motif of memory. This is how we remember the worlds we are born into, how they become a set of images in the mind, surfacing and resurfacing across time and space. South Africa under apartheid was itself governed by the markings of birth – the accidents of colour, race, and skin. But what were the effects on the mind?

Here a further motif comes into play, for in the operation Stephen’s vision was affected, and his eyes came to see differently from one another: divided vision in a divided world. How, in these circumstances, can we come to a deeper kind of vision, how can we achieve wholeness, acceptance, find our place in the midst of turmoil and change?

In an enchanting and cumulative narrative set on three continents, Stephen’s memories make up the hologram of the book’s subtitle. It is a story that is personal, painful, comic, and ultimately uplifting: a book not so much of the coming of age, but the coming of perspective.

Journalist Lesley Mofokeng investigates the life of his remarkable grandfather, Mongangane Wilfred Mofokeng, a prominent Dutch Reformed Church evangelist, who built a thriving community out of the dust of the far Northwest.

The journey takes him from Joburg’s Marabi-soaked townships of the 1930s to his childhood home of Gelukspan near Lichtenburg and then to the rural Free State and the remote mountain kingdom of Lesotho. In what becomes a spiritual quest, he traces the inspirational footsteps of his ancestors and the legendary King Moshoeshoe.

In the process, Mofokeng proudly claims his heritage and also uncovers a long-lost chapter of South African history and the church of the apartheid regime.

A Dangerous Love is an exhilarating, true love story that plays out in the chaos and lawlessness of the political turmoil that was South Africa in the late 80s and early 90s. The mayhem and desperation of a country whose social fabric is unravelling is mirrored in Karen Daniels’s own life, and hers is an up-close-and-personal account of life as a young woman of colour in the anarchy of early post-apartheid South Africa.

Karen Daniels was only 21 when she met Martin, a mysterious, dangerous man who, at 22 years of age, had the world at his feet. Captivated by this man, she was soon caught up in a love affair that turned into obsession and violence. Gutsy and charming, Martin wasn’t born into a life of crime and drugs, but his greed and passion soon pulled him into the underworld and he was overcome by a darkness he could not escape.

Hold your breath as Karen takes you with her on a roller-coaster ride into an abyss of armed heists, crime, and violent abuse. Her story shows how having such intense and conflicting emotions for a man – loving him and being petrified of him – is only a few heartbeats away from hate.

Karen’s eventual escape from this life is a success story that has taken her to the heights of the corporate world, and encouraged her to become an advocate for human rights and women empowerment. Her story is one of human resilience, courage and determination. It offers hope to those struggling to break free from their circumstances, and will inspire anyone who wants to live their best life and go from surviving to thriving.

"A tightly coiled story of obsession and crime that plays out in an era of lawlessness" - Terry-Ann Adams, author of Those Who Live in Cages.

For more than five decades Walter and Albertina Sisulu were at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid. As secretary-general of the ANC, Walter was sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela in 1964 and spent 26 years in prison until his release in 1989. While her husband and his colleagues were in jail, Albertina played a crucial role in keeping the ANC alive underground, and in the 1980s was co-President of the United Democratic Front. Their story has been one of persecution, bitter struggle and painful separation. But it is also one of patience, hope and enduring love.