We cannot underestimate how critical strong leadership is in all aspects of our lives. It enables us to run our lives, homes, communities, workplaces and nations. Given its importance, it is pertinent to ask: What is the source of good leadership?

Albert Einstein once said, ‘The only source of knowledge is experience.’ Many philosophers have observed this and, if we accept experience as the only source of knowledge, can we extend this conclusion to leadership? Or is the basis of good leadership intuition or instinct? Or is it perhaps a combination of these?

In Leadership Lessons from Books I Have Read, Tshilidzi Marwala adopts the theory that the source of good leadership is knowledge, and the source of knowledge is experience, and these can be in the form of reading, listening and engaging in discussion. If leadership is derived from knowledge and knowledge is derived from the experience, the ‘experience’ in this book is from 50 books that Tshilidzi has read, and the source of knowledge informing leadership is the collective experiences of more than 50 authors who wrote these books.

Broken into four sections, Tshilidzi shares his leadership lessons on the topics of Africa and the diaspora; the search for ideal polity; science, technology and society; and the leadership of nations.

Trade marks, copyright, designs and patents involve different forms of intellectual property rights. In our daily lives, from the music we download, to photographs we post, to goods we buy and products we manufacture, intellectual property is present. However, their laws have terminology and concepts that can be difficult for us to understand.

This book simplifies the nature, creation, and ownership of these different intellectual property rights. It explains the procedures for registration, and the remedies for enforcement, all in bite-size sections which are easy to read and simple to understand.

"Can't" is not a word in Kevin Chaplin’s vocabulary.

From humble beginnings he realised that the only way to change his world was to act - a philosophy that has stood him good stead ever since, first with a 26 year-career in banking from which he took the bold step to establish the South African Ubuntu Foundation, and second to rescue the Amy Biehl Foundation (now Amy Foundation) from the brink of bankruptcy.

A lateral thinker, Chaplin’s success can be ascribed to an ability to see business and personal challenges as a means of motivation to generate creative and innovative ideas and ways of solving problems.