Welcome back to Clarkson’s Farm.

So, that went well …

The spring barley crop failed. Just like the oil seed rape. And the durum wheat. Then the oats turned the colour of a hearing aid and the mushrooms went mouldy. Farming sheep, pigs and cows was hardly more lucrative. Jeremy would be better off trying to breed ostriches.

But in the face of uncooperative weather, the relentless realities of the agricultural economy, bureaucracy, a truculent local planning department and the world’s persistent refusal to recognise his ingenuity and genius, our hero’s not beaten yet. Not while the farm shop’s still doing a roaring trade in candles that smell like his knacker hammock, he isn’t.

On the face of it, the challenges of making a success of Diddly Squat are enough to have you weeping into your (Hawkstone) beer, but misery loves company and in girlfriend Lisa, Farm Manager Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald his Head of Security Jeremy knows he’s got the best. And it’s hard for a chap to feel too gloomy about things when there’s a JCB telehandler, a crop-spraying hovercraft and a digger in the barn.

Because as a wise man* once said, ‘there’s no man alive who wouldn’t have fun with a digger …’

*Jeremy

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.

When Rael Levitt stepped onto the podium at Quoin Rock Wine Estate in December 2011, he was CEO of the industry-pioneering Auction Alliance and at the pinnacle of a glittering 20-year career. But then disaster struck. After being accused by a powerful billionaire of using a ghost bidder to inflate the bid price, Levitt’s reputation was obliterated.

In an echo of the Boxing Day tsunami that he survived in 2004, the self-made entrepreneur was overwhelmed by a media-driven scandal that came at him like a train of killer waves. Once the face of South African auctions, he seemingly sank without a trace. But he was not beaten.

A decade later Levitt has a thrilling rise-and-fall-and-rise-again story to tell. The lessons he learnt from suffering catastrophe and finding the tenacity to survive have laid the foundations for new success. At once candid and controversial, Levitt’s story is ultimately an uplifting one, revealing that the greater the tsunami, the greater the lesson.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"If there’s one sure thing I have learned from half a century in the restaurant business, it’s that patience isn’t a virtue when you’re hungry. Service is the virtue."

Join Allen Ambor on a rock ’n roll ride through the restaurant business and pioneering days of franchising in South Africa.

Ambor’s exuberance for life and exacting management style shine through on every page of this biography of the man who went from being a hippy waiter to opening the first Spur in 1967 and growing it into an empire that included more than 500 franchises under the Spur, Panarottis, John Dory’s and RocoMamas brands.

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.

Lady Gaga is a once-in-a-decade artist, and the rare instant celebrity whose appearance can become a cultural event. No other music star of the last decade combines the talents Lady Gaga possesses: she’s a genuine singer, composer, songwriter, designer, and performance artist, who uses technology and social media to shape her art and career. In the space of fifteen months, she has become a demographic-smashing pop icon with global reach and impact.

Not since Madonna’s breakout success in the mid-eighties has the world witnessed the advent of a pop-culture provocateur who mixes high-and-low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, “downtown” authenticity with the sheen of glamorous artifice. She has quickly formed a symbiotic relationship with her rabid fan base who have taken to dressing as she does, imitating her hair and make-up in tribute. Gaga, too, is a cultural shape-shifter, allowing her fans to project their needs, wants, confusions, and desires onto her.

This is a must-read for Gaga fans, who, devoted as they are, know next to nothing about who she is and how she got that way, as well as for anyone who has heard Lady Gaga on television and the radio and is curious about America’s latest over-the-top cultural success story.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

He became obsessed with fish during his early childhood and carried this passion with him throughout his career. Mike Bruton was born in the town where the first living coelacanth was discovered and studied at Rhodes University in South Africa at the same time as the great ichthyologist, Professor JLB Smith, who described ‘old fourlegs’. He subsequently became Director of the Ichthyology Institute established in Smith’s name and pioneered searches for the coelacanth off the coast of southern Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean using the German research submersible, ‘Jago’. Together with colleagues from South Africa, the USA, Canada and Germany he made many new discoveries on the biology of this extraordinary fish and campaigned internationally for its conservation.

Mike’s research on the freshwater fish of Africa and the Middle East lead to entanglements with crocodiles, hippopotami, giant snakes and military operations but also allowed him to contribute to international efforts to conserve wetlands and endangered species. He also made major contributions to our understanding of the ways in which fish are adapted to their watery environments and how they made that epic evolutionary transition from water onto land.

Whether or not you are a fisherman, aquarist or sushi eater, you will be fascinated by these astonishing tales of a man who almost became a fish!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is a new and updated edition of a book which was a major bestseller in the UK in 2004. The author met Prince Philip some forty years ago when they were jointly engaged in charity work, and they became firm friends. Building upon Gyles Brandreth’s acclaimed 2004 book, this extraordinary account is fully revised, presenting new information about the last twenty years alongside previously unpublished royal correspondence.

This is the story of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - the longest-serving consort to the longest-reigning sovereign in British history. It is an extraordinary story, told with unique insight and authority by an author who knew the prince for more than forty years.

Philip - elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous, sometimes irascible - is the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide'. Who was he? What was he really like? What is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumours of affairs? This is the final portrait of an unexpected and often much-misunderstood figure. It is also the portrait of a remarkable marriage that endured for more than seventy years.

Philip and Elizabeth were both royal by birth, both great-great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but, in temperament and upbringing, they were two very different people. The Queen's childhood was loving and secure, the Duke's was turbulent; his grandfather assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his parents separated when he was only ten. Elizabeth and Philip met as cousins in the 1930s. They married in 1947, aged twenty-one and twenty-six.

Philip: The Final Portrait tells the story of two contrasting lives, assesses the Duke of Edinburgh's character and achievement, and explores the nature of his relationships with his wife, his children and their families - and with the press and public and those at court who were suspicious of him in the early days. This is a powerful, revealing and, ultimately, moving account of a long life and a remarkable royal partnership.

Good Morning, Mr Mandela tells the extraordinary story of how Zelda la Grange’s life, beliefs and prejudices were transformed by the greatest statesman of our time.

It is the incredible journey of an awkward, terrified young typist in her twenties who was chosen to become Nelson Mandela’s most loyal servant, spending the greater part of her adult working life travelling with and caring for the man she would come to call ‘Khulu’.

This is a book about love and second chances. It will touch your life and make you believe that every one of us, no matter who we are or what we have done, has the power to change.

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.

Two months into a planned solo source-to-sea navigation of the Amazon River, adventure Davey du Plessis was ambushed and shot within the isolated jungles of Peru.

The adventure turned into an intense moment-to-moment struggle to survive as he made his way, wounded, through the dense jungle, seeking rescue and safety.

Choosing To Live is Davey's personal account of his Amazon experience. He retells the remarkable story with an endearing openness, while sharing unique insights into the power of compassion and his ability to maintain motivation in his balance between life and death.