Anger, hurt, loss, rejection … these feelings are familiar to the families who, in the early 1970s, were forced from their homes in Harfield Village in Cape Town’s southern suburbs. Siona O’Connell brings their stories to light. She examines the lost ways of life, the sense of home and belonging.

David Brown’s images show what life was like in Harfield before the removals, and his images are echoed by recent photos of the same former residents.

François Levaillant was the first and greatest South African birder, the first major figure of modern ornithology, the creator of the first safari, the first anthropologist of the Cape and the first investigative reporter criticising colonial brutality at the Cape. He predicted the rebellion of the frontier Boers and portrayed the dilemmas of coloured identity. He created the most beautiful illustrated bird books of his time, becoming a model for Audubon and others, and inspired a map for King Louis XVI that has become the most valuable African map ever produced. His Travels into the Interior of Africa was a best-seller across Europe and the most widely translated text on South Africa until Nelson Mandela’s autobiography two centuries later.

This book tells how, for a quarter of a century, the author searched for Levaillant’s travel notebooks and the fate of his collection. Glenn’s search took him from the banks of the Orange River to the vaults of the Paris Natural History Museum facing 30 000 dead birds in search of Levaillant’s legacy; from tracing Levaillant’s travels to Theefontein, Pampoenkraal and Kokskraal to showing that the bloubok exhibit in the hall of extinct animals in Paris’s Natural History Museum came from Levaillant; from encounters with billionaires to interactions with French archivists. Glenn’s experiences show that research means searching.

The revised second edition reflects new information and research on Levaillant’s descendants; the provenance of the Paris bloubok; Levaillant’s use of illustrations as a re-viewing of his experiences and his collaboration with Colonel Robert Gordon as a crucial part of his development as an ornithologist.

The book appeals to all natural history lovers, to researchers on colonialism and criticism of it and to people interested in birding who want to know more about Levaillant’s role in establishing ornithology as a new discipline.

In 2003, Thabo Jijana's father was gunned down in a scrap between rival taxi associations who had been forced to operate from a single rank. A decade later, Thabo faces up to South Africa's most violent industry to try to figure out how and why his father was murdered.

In this searing first-person investigation, Thabo puts a face behind a recurrent tragedy that plagues South African working class communities. By speaking to the people who knew his father best he tries to fill in the blanks that are the years that have followed his father's death.

He begins by trying to reconstruct the night the murder took place, but what he uncovers about the ongoing strife that has plagued government's consistent attempts to formalise this multi-million rand industry comes with more baggage than he expected.

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.

'It is through that choice of taking a resistance road, the one less travelled, that I got to experience a liberated life.'

Patric Tariq Mellet took his first steps on this road at the tender age of 8 and by 13, he engaged in his first consequential and difficult political act. He organised a fast in his high school to protest the killing of anti-apartheid cleric, Imam Abdullah Haron in detention. The match had been lit. Arbitrarily classified as 'white' despite his heritage and family, he was ordered to join the armed forces. He refused as he could not take up arms against his own people. Instead he heeded the call of OR Tambo and joined resistance as an MK in exile.

Mellet's autobiography demonstrates a spirit of innate and unbridled resistance, in small and major ways, that liberated Cleaner's Boy from an unpromising and tragic early life to a life of influence driven by a deep understanding of identity. A freedom fighter, a mystic and always a firebrand.

For over three decades, the remarkable story of Umkhonto we Sizwe’s Special Operations Unit has remained largely untold. Formed under the direct command of ANC president Oliver Tambo and senior ANC and SACP leader Joe Slovo, this elite unit executed some of the most daring and high-profile attacks against the apartheid state in the 1980s. From the spectacular 1980 Sasol bombings to the 1987 attack at the Wits Command, Special Ops was at the forefront of the armed struggle, targeting strategic economic and military sites with precision and determination.

In this groundbreaking book, the history of Special Ops is brought to life through the voices of its surviving participants. Based on interviews with 48 individuals, this oral history offers an intimate and comprehensive look at the unit's operations, challenges, and achievements. Also drawing from press reports, TRC records and official documents, the narrative provides a balanced assessment of the political context, role, and significance of Special Ops within the broader ANC-led national liberation struggle.

Attacking the Heart of Apartheid is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of the anti-apartheid struggle, the dynamics of armed resistance, and the power of collective action in the pursuit of justice and equality.

A compelling and agonising story.

Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke up one Sunday morning almost two years ago to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Horning’s story chronicles a parent’s worst nightmare. Establishing that his death was suicide, Horning embarks on a journey of anguished self-recrimination.

Should she not have seen the signs? Could she somehow have prevented it? As she struggles with Spencer’s decision to end his life, she has to learn to understand what the depths of depression entail. We feel Horning’s pain, and learn to understand and feel Spencer’s pain, at a visceral level.

Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of Spencer’s death, writing with a brutal and heart-searing intensity of grief and loss, but also of the joys of celebrating her son’s life. This book will touch anyone who has experienced a mental health journey directly or indirectly, or a searing loss. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.

The year is 1976, and South Africa is gripped by a terrible lockdown – apartheid. Nelson Mandela is in prison on Robben Island; South Africa is isolated from the rest of the world, and revolution is in the air.

Against this background, a young student at Johannesburg’s Wits University decides to try and take control of his life, and his destiny, and give himself a sense of purpose. He challenges himself to run South Africa’s most famous long-distance race, the grueling 90-kilometre Comrades Marathon. Little does he know that five years later he will win this most iconic of races and he will go on to be considered one of the greatest Comrades runners in the history of the race.

In Winged Messenger, Bruce shares this 1976/77 training diary so that raw novices and experienced runners alike can follow the journey he took to his first Comrades. Novices particularly will enjoy reading about how he took his first stumbling, rudimentary steps and how, as an ordinary runner, he began to understand the demands of the race. He documents his mistakes, his successes and his progress towards his date with destiny in May 1977. Using his own experiences, he guides others, but particularly novices, on their quests to become winged messengers.

This is a unique blend of both a training guide and a fascinating glimpse of the life of a young man in his quest to conquer both himself and South Africa’s greatest race.

Rebecca Davis has been described as one of the funniest writers in South Africa today. Her razor-sharp wit combines with her acute powers of observation to produce social and political commentary that will have you in stitches even as it informs and provokes you to think seriously about the topics she discusses.

In Best White And Other Anxious Delusions, Davis offers advice on life's tricky issues; discusses the perils of being a 'Best white'; laments the fact that society does not have a universally adopted form of greeting, such as the high-five; explores the intricacies of social media and internet dating; considers the future of reading and tackles a range of controversial topics in between.

In this intimate memoir, Hannah Botsis chronicles life as a minister's daughter in post-apartheid South Africa.

Through the lens of her father's forty-year ministry at a Presbyterian church in Cape Town's northern suburbs, she explores faith, family, and racial privilege with unflinching honesty.

A meditation on grace and belonging, this story illuminates how communities navigate change while wrestling with their complicated histories.

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.

Khamr: The Makings Of A Waterslams is a true story that maps the author’s experience of living with an alcoholic father and the direct conflict of having to perform a Muslim life that taught him that nearly everything he called home was forbidden.

A detailed account from his childhood to early adulthood, Jamil F. Khan lays bare the experience of living in a so-called middle-class Coloured home in a neighbourhood called Bernadino Heights in Kraaifontein, a suburb to the north of Cape Town. His memories are overwhelmed by the constant discord that was created by the chaos and dysfunction of his alcoholic home and a co-dependent relationship with his mother, while trying to manage the daily routine of his parents keeping up appearances and him maintaining scholastic excellence.

Khan’s memories are clear and detailed, which in turn is complemented by his scholarly thinking and analysis of those memories. He interrogates the intersections of Islam, Colouredness and the hypocrisy of respectability as well as the effect perceived class status has on these social realities in simple yet incisive language, giving the reader more than just a memoir of pain and suffering.

Khan says about his debut book: "This is not a story for the romanticisation of pain and perseverance, although it tells of overcoming many difficulties. It is a critique of secret violence in faith communities and families, and the hypocrisy that has damaged so many people still looking for a place and way to voice their trauma. This is a critique of the value placed on ritual and culture at the expense of human life and well-being, and the far-reaching consequences of systems of oppression dressed up as tradition."

After a string of police botches, Captain Ben "Bliksem" Booysen was assigned the Krugersdorp Killers' case in 2016.

Eleven people had already been brutally murdered by a group calling themselves Electus Per Deus. Booysen made headlines when he arrested the mastermind Cecilia Steyn, and her accomplices.

South Africa's own "Chuck Norris" takes the reader behind the scenes of the satanic killings, divulging new and shocking details of the crimes that have kept the nation on edge for almost a decade.

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.

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

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.

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.

"I wanted to write this book before I forgot the finer details. As strange as that may sound, you can forget these things, and it is probably healthier to do so. You can visit the depths of hell – just don’t hang around there for too long." – Gérard Labuschagne

In this gripping – and sometimes terrifying – account, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls some of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career. An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his fourteen and a half years in the SAPS. He walks the reader through the first crime scene he ever attended, his arrest of the Muldersdrift serial rapist, his experience as the head of the task team mandated to catch the Quarry serial murderer, his involvement with the Brighton Beach axe murders, and more. Despite often being stymied by a lack of resources, office politics and political interference, Labuschagne and his team were always determined to get their man – or woman, as in the Womb Raider case.

The Profiler Diaries is a fascinating – and often hair-raising – glimpse into what it was like to be a profiler in the world’s busiest profiling unit.

Most serial murderers undeniably spring from abusive or neglected childhoods, and/or are potentially predisposed to various genetic, sociopathic or schizophrenic afflictions, rendering the root cause of their murderous behaviour a complex, lethal combination of factors. What is less credited, however, is the role of pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in the making of a serial killer.

Narcissistic rage, sexual narcissism, necrophilia and cannibalism are all driven by a need to control and satisfy a grandiose sense of entitlement for personal pleasure, and of those, narcissistic rage is possibly the most dangerous factor of all in the understanding of serial rape and murder. In this riveting book, the author explores the role of NPD through the lived experiences of various serial murderers and showcases the profiles of both infamous and lesser-known serial offenders from South Africa and around the world.

From the blatant, callous criminality of the likes of Jason Rohde, Dina Rodrigues and Henri van Breda to the unspeakable cruelty of serial rapists and murderers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Kobus Geldenhuys (the Norwood killer) and Don Steenkamp (the Griekwastad murderer), this book reveals the role pathological narcissism might have played in some of the most notorious and gruesome criminal cases of our times. Just one warning: Don’t read this book at night!

The Mending of a Broken Vessel chronicles how the yearn to be loved became something that she chased for, the result of which was a promiscuous lifestyle.

It details the journey of rejection, pain, disappointments, abusive relationships, suicide attempts, alcoholism and many ill that the author fell into and survived.

How did a teenage refugee from communist Poland become one of the richest women in South Africa? In what ways did she disrupt the financial services industry? What drove her to become an activist exposing corporate and government corruption? What are her secrets for succeeding in business and life?

The founder of multibillion-rand financial services empire Sygnia Limited, Magda Wierzycka is South Africa’s most successful businesswoman. In this engaging and insightful book, she tells the story of her life, from her childhood in communist Poland, her family’s escape and relocation to South Africa, her early struggles in the male-dominated financial services industry, and the formation and growth of her own company, Sygnia.

With a business model built on transparency and low fees, it was a natural step for Magda to become an outspoken critic of corporate and government corruption, exposing wrongdoing and making her many powerful enemies in the process.

In this book, Magda shares the life lessons and business principles that have driven her and brought her success. This is a fascinating story that will inspire you to speak out, lean in, break out, and ultimately empower yourself not only to survive in life and business, but to thrive.

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.

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.

South Africa’s pre-eminent historian explains the spectacular rise – and probable demise – of the numerical minority that dominated 20th-century South Africa.

The Afrikaners are unique in the world in that they successfully mobilised ethnic entrepreneurship without state assistance, controlled the entire country, and then yielded power without military defeat. Award-winning author Hermann Giliomee takes a hard analytical look at this group’s dramatic ascent and possible disappearance as a nation in a series of well-argued thematic chapters. Topics range from ethnic entrepreneurship, the ‘coloured vote’ and ‘Bantu’ education to Nelson Mandela’s relationship with the last Afrikaner leaders.

It ends with a final chapter on the most likely future for this sometimes admired, often reviled group, which undoubtedly left the largest imprint on South African history in the 20th century.