Dit is 1713. VOC-admiraal Johannes van Steelant bring sy ryklik belaaide retoervloot via die Kaapse diensstasie terug na Nederland uit Batavia. Saam op die vlagskip, sy vyf jong kinders. Op die oop see raak hulle een-een siek. Hete koors, maagpyn, swere – die gevreesde pokke.

Op 12 Februarie gaan die gesin, nou almal gesond, aan land in Tafelbaai. Hul skeepsklere word gewas in die VOC se slawelosie. Enkele maande later is byna die helfte van die Kaapse bevolking dood aan pokke.

In Retoervloot bring VOC-kenner Dan Sleigh dié gegewe, en die verbysterende werkinge van die VOC-retoervlootstelsel, lewend voor die oog. Aan die hand van Van Steelant se nuut-ontdekte skeepsjoernaal, met die agtergrondinkleding wat ’n meesterlike geskiedkundige soos Sleigh kan bied, staan die leser op die dek van vlagskip Sandenburg – ’n magtige skip van ’n roemryke organisasie, dog uitgelewer aan die woedende oseaan. Verder is Retoervloot ’n gedenksteen vir Kaapstad se grootste ramp tot op hede

The stories of Naz Gool Ebrahim and District Six are intimately linked; in fact it is hard to imagine the one without the other.

As the niece of Cissie Gool, Naz came from fighting stock. Strong women with strong voices ran in the family. So when the Apartheid Government declared 'the District', a slum in 1966 and announced plans to flatten it, Naz wasn’t about to lose all that she held dear without a fight. She became the voice of the voiceless, both in South Africa and in the USA and was nominated as ‘Woman of the Year’. Naz combined her radical political activism with her roles as devoted wife and mother to six children. Up until the end of her life in 2005, she worked tirelessly to oppose the evil of racial segregation.

To her opponents, she was an indomitable adversary, but to her friends she was ‘Naz – Raz-a-ma-tazz’, a great lady who certainly knew how to tell a story and put on a good show.

Vir 45 jaar het Freek Robinson die grootste nuusgebeure in die ou én nuwe Suid-Afrika eerstehands beleef. As TV-joernalis en nuusanker was hy ’n gereelde besoeker in miljoene Suid-Afrikaners se huise.

In sy memoires deel Freek dit wat hy agter die skerms beleef het.

Dié boek verweef die lewe en loopbaan van een van ons land se mees gerespekteerde en geliefde joernaliste en gee ’n besonderse blik op die ingrypende nuusomwentelinge in ons onlangse geskiedenis.

Gedurende die Grensoorlog het die Spesiale Magte se 4 Verkenningsregiment tientalle klandestiene seewaartse operasies saam met die SA Vloot uitgevoer. Van Cabinda in Angola tot Dar es Salaam in Tanzanië het hulle strategiese teikens soos oliedepots, vervoerinfrastruktuur en selfs Russiese skepe aangeval. Die bestaan van 4 Recce is grootliks geheim gehou, ook in die SAW.

Ystervuis uit die see beskryf 50 operasies deur 4 Recce, ander Spesmagte-eenhede en die SA Vloot. Daaronder tel Operasie Kerslig (1981), waartydens ’n operateur dood en ander beseer is in ’n aanval op ’n olieraffinadery in Luanda, en Operasie Argon (1985) toe kaptein Wynand du Toit in Angola gevange geneem is.

Die skrywers, wat self aan etlike van die operasies deelgeneem het, het ook toegang gekry tot uiters geheime dokumente wat intussen gedeklassifiseer is. Hul dramatiese vertellings wys hoe veelsydig en doeltreffend hierdie elite-eenheid was.

Die omvattende boek is ’n moet vir enigeen met ’n belangstelling in die Spesmagte. Dit neem jou na die hart van die aksie, die adrenalien en vrees van seewaartse operasies.

Join Hloni Bookholane on his journey of becoming a doctor: from student to intern at the world-famous Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town to the best school of public health in the world across the Atlantic, and back home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are highs and lows – learnings and unlearnings – about the personal versus political as he discovers how government policy, socioeconomics and more influence disease and medicine.

Geloof soos aartappels is die inspirerende ware verhaal van bekende evangelis Angus Buchan. Dit is ’n getuienis van hoe geloof ’n mens deur die donkerste tye kan dra. Nadat Angus tot bekering gekom het, is hierdie humeurige man wat van sy drank gehou het, verander in ’n passievolle dienaar van God. Sy geloof het hom al deur droogtes, familietragedie en finansiële krisisse gedra. Sedert hy tot bekering gekom het, het Angus die evangelie oor die wêreld heen verkondig. Hy het ook ’n kinderhuis gestig, verskeie boeke geskryf en duisende mense geïnspireer met sy boodskappe op TV, radio en by sy konferensies. Hierdie aangrypende boek sal jou opnuut verseker van God se almag en sy voorsiening vir sy kinders.

’n Baie lang brief aan my dogter is Marita van der Vyver, een van Afrikaans se mees geliefde skrywers, se ontroerende jeugmemoir. Dit is 'n speurtog deur die skrywer se beginjare, maar dit is ook ’n liefdesbrief aan ’n dogter en ’n taal en ’n land. En bowenal is dit ’n ma se poging om sin te maak van hierdie onverskillige en wrede wêreld waarin sy haar nou begewe.

Ses jaar ná die verskyning van Bloedvreemd vertel Juliana Coetzer wat hét geword van haar dogter, Anneke. In Bloedvreemd vertel die skrywer hoe Anneke op sewejarige ouderdom ’n virus opgedoen wat haar brein aangetas het, en geleidelik het sy verstandelik begin agteruitgaan. Die werklikheid het egter nie stilgestaan nie. Ses jaar ná die boek vra mense steeds – wat het geword van julle? Is Anneke oukei? Hoe maak ’n mens met die voortdurende verlies, die agteruitgang?

Juliana Coetzer is ook ’n terapeut. Met 'n skreiend eerlike stem wat voortdurend selfondersoek doen, skryf Juliana oor die verdere reis met Anneke, nou al in haar vroeg dertigs. Sy kan al hoe minder praat, al hoe minder verstaan, en steeds probeer sy haar onafhanklikheid behou. Sover Juliana en haar eggenoot, Fanus, daartoe in staat is, probeer hulle haar omhul in ’n wêreld met embarming en begrip. Maar elke dag (en nag) bring sy eie, eindelose uitdagings.

Die kind se naam is Anneke is aangrypende leesstof vir enigiemand wat al pyn/verlies ervaar het. Of jy ’n kind het of nie. En of jy Bloedvreemd gelees het al dan nie.

Professor. Pundit. Public nuisance. In his columns, books and on social media, Jonathan Jansen is prolific and he likes to speak his mind about schools and universities, race, politics and our complex South African society.

He has brought an incisive analysis, compassion and sense of humour to some of the most controversial issues in our country for many years. And now, in this memoir, he goes back to his early years growing up in a loving, fiercely evangelical family on the Cape Flats,
being put on the road to purpose by an inspiring school teacher and becoming the first of his generation to go to university under the apartheid regime. Journey with Jansen as he finds a passion for teaching high school and becomes a leading academic and thinker
amid great transformation in post-apartheid South Africa.

This patchwork of memories tells a bigger story than his own life. It’s a tale of learning the value of ‘breaking bread’ with others, of finding mutual recognition in our different faith and fears, our ideals and frustrations, our hurts and our hopes.

In hierdie opvolg op Daniël Lötter se eerste bundel moordverhale, 17 Maal Moord, wat einde 2020 verskyn het, vertel hy nog van Suid-Afrika se mees opspraakwekkende ware moordverhale in sy gemaklike en dikwels humoristies styl.

Nuwe lewe word geblaas in die slagoffers sowel as oortreders wat Suid-Afrikaners destyds na hul asem laat snak en dié verhale laat verslind het.

Xoliswa Nduneni-Ngema loved the theatre and dreamed of being an actress. She soon discovered that acting wasn't for her – managing productions was. She meets rising-star, Mbongeni Ngema and they marry.  As his success grows, they start a company that births the hit Sarafina! But beneath the stardom, Xoliswa experiences constant abuse.  With Fred Khumalo, she tells her powerful story. 

When Letshego Zulu set off with her husband, South African racing champion Gugulethu Zulu, to conquer Mount Kilimanjaro in July 2016, she had no idea that she would return to South Africa days later with her husband’s body in a coffin. Known and loved as SA’s Adventure Couple, the husband and wife team were brimming with excitement at being part of the 42-strong team of the Trek4Mandela initiative, attempting to summit the world’s highest free-standing mountain.

Along the way, Gugulethu complained about a scratchy throat but seemed fit to scale the 5 895 m peak. The doctor on the expedition gave him the all clear. On 17 July, the couple were separated as Gugu, who seemed to be struggling with the altitude, elected to join the slower team heading for the Kibo peak.

By the time the couple rejoined that evening at the base station, Gugu was deeply exhausted. Letshego helplessly watched as an energy drip was attached to her husband, which she later discovered was a medical faux pas at high altitudes. Within hours, his breathing had become gurgling gasps for air. Letshego’s blood turned to ice; it sounded like her husband was drowning. The camp doctor decided that Gugu, now in medical emergency mode, needed to descend. In the middle of the icy night, along with two guides, team leader Richard Mabaso and her husband strapped to a crude metal stretcher, Letshego ran down the treacherous mountain for eight hours in the black night behind her husband to find help.

I Choose to Live is both a tragic and inspiring memoir told in mesmerising detail by Letshego Zulu. As much as it is about the death of a beloved husband and the 17-year-long relationship the two shared, it is also a remarkable story of a wife’s courage and stamina as she tries to make sense of her loss and find life after Gugu’s untimely death. Letshego’s wish is that after reading her story, readers will be inspired to choose to live, to really live.

Sentenced to Lockdown, regarded as "non-essential", 40 South African writers get together in a virtual Corona Collective, to pen The Lockdown Collection, trying to make sense of a world, held hostage by a virus.

Powerfully visceral, this gem includes a list of South Africa's most celebrated writers, brilliantly capturing the emotional, the spiritual and even the humorous effects of a global pandemic.

This historical gem includes: Sisonke Msimang, Lebo Mashile, Fred Khumalo and Marianne Thamm.

Putco Mafani, from humble beginnings in Bhofolo in the Eastern Cape, has become household name in South Africa. From Radio Ciskei, he went to Umhlobo Wenene FM where he anchored the biggest breakfast show in the country. The former Kaizer Chiefs PRO and sought­after marketing consultant will soon be launching his own radio station.

Things have not always been smooth sailing for Putco. In this memoir, he writes about the hurdles he has had to overcome. He has been detained in solitary confinement, endured a traumatic divorce and found himself unemployed at one stage. He openly talks about some of the mistakes he made as a young person, and also shares his successes and moments of fame and what these taught him.

With contributions from a wide range of people who know and admire Putco, as well as take­home lessons called Putco's Padkos, this book tells an inspirational, authentically South African story.

Brent Meersman’s memoir of a humble yet eccentric upbringing in a Milnerton, Cape Town, flat in the 1970’s and 1980’s reads as a stirring eulogy to his schizophrenic mother, yet also as a vivid snapshot in time.

His adoring mother, a horse-loving artist, received only rudimentary treatment and Brent, his brother and father had to look to each other for support. His father battled alcoholism and unemployment, at one point taking the whole family to Belgium, where he had found work, only for them to return a year later, defeated. Traversing a home environment constantly on high alert for something to go wrong, waiting for his mother’s fragile mental stability to shatter, not finding support in his father, whose drinking and absences from home took a punishing toll on the family, bred in the author an almost heroic resilience.

This delicate yet brutal memoir, filled with wry humour, will resonate with many readers.

Basetsana Kumalo shot to fame as a fresh-faced Miss South Africa in 1994 and soon became the face of South Africa’s new democracy. As the first black presenter of the glamorous lifestyle TV show Top Billing, she travelled the world and interviewed superstars like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, Jon Bon Jovi, Will Smith, the Bee Gees, Gloria Estefan and Luther Vandross. After a successful career in television, Bassie’s drive and ambition took her into the world of business. The street savvy that her entrepreneurial mother gave her stood her in good stead as she built a media empire. When she married the handsome businessman Romeo Kumalo in a fairytale wedding, they became South Africa’s sweethearts and ‘it’ couple.

Bassie: My Journey Of Hope recounts the stories of Bassie’s life as a celebrity, including her relationships with mentors like Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela- Mandela and Graça Machel. She also shares the secrets of her success and all the lessons she’s learnt along the way, and opens up about the pressures of her high-profile marriage to Romeo, their heartbreaking struggle to have a family, and how they made sure that their loving and respectful union has lasted two decades.

Bassie also talks frankly about the domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of boxer Dingaan Thobela and the legal battles she had to fight to protect her name and her brand over the years. She gives her account of the stalker who harassed her for decades, and the nonexistent ‘sex-tape’ allegation that rocked her family and career, leading to painful experiences of cyber-bullying. It is an intimate, inspiring and entertaining account of a remarkable life.

You will find a real life, gritty account of drug addiction in the pages of Rocks – One Man’s Climb from Drugs to Dreams.

Set in the leafy suburbs of Joburg in the 90s, and at the height of the Johannesburg Rave Culture, this book brings to life the agonising heartache of the drug addicted Marco Broccardo, and that of his family members including the dirty details of the daily life of an addict – the close encounters with the law, moments of insanity and rock bottom desperation. But amidst all the despair, there is a moment of liberation and hope. Hope that addiction can be beaten through the right decisions and the over-arching idea of love.

This book will take you on a journey – from the despair of being rock bottom to the elation of the mountain-tops of Kilimanjaro.

It was a dark and stormy night in 1991 when a magician took over the bridge of the Oceanos, an ageing passenger liner travelling up the Wild Coast.

The captain was nowhere to be found. The ship started taking in water in the auxiliary engine room just a few hours after it had set sail from East London. Panicking, the crew scrambled into the lifeboats, leaving passengers largely to fend for themselves. The ship’s entertainment staff bravely started to calm passengers and coordinated the abandon-ship operation and rescue effort.

The story of this dramatic rescue, which made headlines across the world, is told from the perspective of all the key role players and describes their extraordinary heroism.

Rosette Jordaan (gebore Theron) het vyftig jaar gelede Theuniskraal toe getrek as jong vrou van Kobus Jordaan, een van die plaas se twee erfgename. Hierdie boek bevat grepe uit haar lewe op dié spogplaas in die Tulbagh-vallei – die fabelagtige “Land van Waveren” – waar van Suid-Afrika se beroemdste wyne gemaak word.

Dit vertel ook Theuniskraal se verhaal en die vallei se geskiedenis vandat Jan van Riebeeck se landmeter, Pieter Potter, dit besigtig het, en die eerste setlaars hul so dertig jaar later daar gevestig het. Amusant, interessant en soms ontroerend, dis ’n lekkerleesrelaas van ’n halwe eeu van lief, lag en leed op ’n besonderse Bolandse plaas.

Bowenal spreek dit van die skryfster se deernis vir haar gesin, Theuniskraal, al sy mense en diere, en haar hele gemeenskap.

Elise se eens briljante man raak aggressief en vergeetagtig, en tree heeltemal anders op as wat sy hom ken. Sy het ’n vae vermoede wat skort, maar uiteindelik word haar ergste vrese bewaarheid: haar geliefde man het Alzheimer se siekte. Hy vra haar in ’n oomblik van helderheid om tot die einde na hom om te sien, wat sy doen. Elise vertel hierdie intieme en aangrypende verhaal met deernis vir haar man en elke persoon wat aan alzheimers ly. Sy gee ook praktiese raad vir die versorgers van mense met alzheimers en tekens waarna mens moet oplet.

'Let me say to Mr Botha: apartheid is doomed! It has been condemned in the Councils of God, rejected by every nation on the planet and is no longer believed in by the people who gave it birth. Apartheid is the god that has failed.' So preached Bishop Peter Storey in 1986. Challenging apartheid wherever he could, he led the SA Methodist Church into what many whites saw as uncomfortable 'political' territory.

Join him in his inspiring journey from sailor-turned-minister to the South African Council of Churches leadership in its darkest hour, from tending to Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, through the forced removals of District Six and the storm surrounding Stompie Seipei's murder. I Beg to Differ spans a parish minister’s sorrows and joys, founding Life Line SA, the bombing of Khotso House and a close shave with death with Desmond Tutu. Storey shares the convictions that inspired him to minister amid the teargas, violence and intimidation of the apartheid regime.

Dis 'n fassinerende verslag van die lewe in maksimumsekuriteit-gevangenisse, met vars invalshoek: China was hondemeester, aan die voorfront tydens tronkgevegte. Gewapen slegs met 'n knuppel en sy hond moes hy messtekers en oproeriges afweer. Hy is 'n mensch, 'n ongeslypte diamant met hart en ondernemingsgees.

Hy herinner aan Bennie Griessel: hy rook en drink straf, sy huwelik is op die rotse, hy sukkel om gevoelens te wys, maar oor 'n hond wat doodgaan, grens hy. Sy eerste pos, toe hy net 16 was, was op Robbeneiland, waar hy 'n lang, breedgeskouerde gevangene met 'n vriendelike gesig gesien skerm het. Hy was self 'n bokser en kon sien die man het 'n besonderse tegniek, dat hy lig op sy voete soos 'n weltergewig was.

Die bokser was Nelson Mandela. Saans het Mandela deur sy tralies vir die seun hardgekookte eiers wat hy afgeskil het, aangegee, dan eet hulle saam en gesels. Mandela het hom altyd aaangepor om verder te gaan leer.

In 1982 aanvaar Nico Smith ’n beroep na die NG Kerk in Afrika se Mamelodi-gemeente. Hy en sy vrou laat hulle gemaklike lewe agter en gaan bly in Mamelodi. Hier leer Nico en Ellen rêrig die hart van Mamelodi se mense ken, en beleef swaarkry saam met hulle. Hulle leer wat dit beteken om swart te wees in Suid-Afrika onder apartheid. Hulle leer ’n ander God ken, nie die God van Nico se vaders nie, maar die God van die verworpenes en die verdruktes.

A key study on writer and activist Keorapetse Kgositsile that presents a new approach to studying the radicalism of Africa and its diaspora, and makes a major contribution to the histories of Black lives, gender studies, jazz studies, politics, and creativity.

The cultural configurations of the Black Atlantic cannot be fully understood without recognising the significant presence of writers and artists from the African continent itself. Among the most influential was South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile, or Bra Willie, as he was affectionately known. Yet, until now, there has been no full-length study of his work.

Uhuru Portia Phalafala’s wide-ranging book reveals the foundational influence of Kgositsile’s mother and grandmother on his craft and unveils the importance of Tswana oral andaural traditions, indigenous knowledge systems, and cosmologies he carried with him into and after exile. It illuminates a southern African modernity that was strongly gendered and expressed robust anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and civil rights struggles. Using the original concept of ‘elsewhere’, the author maps the sources of Kgositsile’s transformative verse, which in turn generated ‘poetics of possibility’ for his contemporaries in the Black Arts and Black Power Movements and beyond - among them Maya Angelou, Larry Neal, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tom Dent, members of The Last Poets, Otabenga Jones & Associates, and rapper Earl Sweatshirt – who all looked to his work to model their identities, cultural movements and radical traditions.

In Kambrokind deel F.A. Venter sy jeugherinneringe vanaf sy voorskoolse jare tot op universiteit.

Op boeiende wyse vertel Venter hoe hy die Karoo se sagte én harde kant leer ken. Hy kon homself wees in die veld en sy gedagtes vrye teuels gee, maar hy het ook die wreedheid van droogtes en siektes en die lang trekpad met skaap na beter weiding ervaar.

Op skool het sekere onderwysers hom ontvanklik gemaak vir die wêreld van boeke en oordenking en het dit hom gedryf om hard te werk sodat hy met ’n studielening en twee pakke klere kon gaan studeer aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch.