South African born-and-raised Hollywood screenwriter Helena Kriel is researching the ancient text of the Kama Sutra for a movie she’s writing. At the same time, she is travelling to India to meet with sages and find answers to the universal challenges of sex and love. While searching for love in her doomed relationships, little does she know she will find her answers in caring for her dying brother, Evan, in South Africa.

Set in the mid-1990s, South Africa is just emerging from the darkness of apartheid and bursting with vibrant chaos. The story zooms in on an intense year in the narrator’s life. It centres around the lively and eccentric South African Kriel family: Maya, the combative but inspired mother; Lexi, the sister recently returned from living in a temple in India; Ross, the younger brother diving with sharks; and Helena, the narrator, herself on a journey to understand love and death. At the heart of the story is Evan, her terminally ill 30-year-old gay brother, who has been keeping his illness a shameful secret. Conscious, sensitive, terrified and trying to hang onto sanity as his world changes, Evan becomes paralysed then finally goes blind as death draws ever closer. But it is Evan who leads the family through the fire.

In living through her brother’s fight to stay alive, the narrator finds herself at the heart of a savage story, one she would not have chosen. How could she know when she set out to India to find ancient solutions to the modern problems of our age that her brother’s approaching death would be her greatest teacher? How could she imagine that dying brings everything to life?

The Year Of Facing Fire is an astoundingly written memoir by one of South Africa’s finest writers. It traverses universal themes including love, death and sex, and finds value in the ordinary and great beauty in the uncertain.

Journalist Sarah Bullen and her filmmaker husband Llewellyn seemed like a golden couple, with successful careers and two lovely children. But then Llewellyn discovers that he has a brain tumour. As he pursues a shamanic path to fight the cancer, they are catapulted into a world of ritual and ceremony. With hospitals, surgery and treatments comes a wilder journey of spiritual searching. Then the impossible happens: she falls ill. While in a coma, Sarah travels through near-death and into other realms and worlds.

She comes back with a message and a spark to follow – to choose joy over fear. It becomes a roadmap to allow her to write a new life story and call in a new way of living rooted in bliss, joy and love.

Taking us from Hout Bay to the Mediterranean and back, Sarah’s story is in turn sad, funny and magical, filled with laughter and tears. From African rituals in the bush to a Greek island of sex and celebration, Love & Above is filled with wild rapture and infinite possibility.

This guide is written with love and care by a palliative nursing sister to help ease the journey for patients and their loved ones.

This book offers mindful advice for patients and their loved ones on navigating the cancer journey – from the time of diagnosis to remission or terminal stages – armed with appropriate information and emotional support. It covers the practical aspects of cancer treatment in a simple, comprehensive way – from medical aids, treatments and side effects to nutrition, complementary therapies and caring for a loved one. It also addresses questions and fears, what to say and do, and how to deal with a terminal diagnosis.

Amongst this, you will also find stories of how others experienced and managed their cancer journey.

Hot Water is an intimate and daring look into the life of a young African woman from the Cape Flats with a chronic illness. The book investigates how endometriosis affects the way young woman function and navigate the world, and how this becomes especially complicated for those who are underprivileged and reliant on the public sector’s healthcare system.

In Hot Water Nadine Dirks reveals the unique issues of racism, sexism, classism, fatphobia and slut-shaming that African women experience within the context of healthcare facilities, and how especially jarring it is when the stigma comes from medical staff who one expects to have the patient’s care as their primary concern. All of this has enraged Dirks and catapulted her into becoming a sexual reproductive health and rights advocate.

Hot Water tells the story of how people with chronic illness are treated daily, at school, university and socially for being differently abled; how people are regarded as lazy, aggressive, disappointing, lacking, among multiple other things for being unwell in comparison to their healthy counterparts.

One cannot look at seeking adequate healthcare as a young, black, underprivileged woman on the Cape Flats without experiencing racism in the most blatant of ways. Even with guidelines in place, the book shows that it is next to impossible to invoke those rights even if you are aware of them for fear of being victimised and excluded from the system.

Few athletes hold a record comparable to that of Oscar Chalupsky. He made history at the age of fifteen as the first person to win both the Junior and Senior Ironman titles on the same day at the South African National Lifesaving Championships, he was the country’s spokesman at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and he is a multiple-times global surfski champion, having won the internationally famous Molokai to Oahu World Surfski Marathon championships in Hawaii a record twelve times – his most recent victory being at the age of forty-nine.

Then, in 2019, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable bone marrow cancer and told he had six months to live. But as with everything else Oscar does, he is determined to emerge victorious. He continues to paddle kayaks, play golf, and with a combination of medical treatment, exercise, iron determination and unconquerable optimism, he has defied every doctor’s prediction to date. How does he do it?

In this book, Oscar relives some of his most exhilarating and nail-biting races, and shares the lessons he has learnt from winning on the international surf lifesaving, kayak and surfski circuits as well as running several successful businesses. The final chapters recount his courageous battle against cancer, the vital support of his family and friends, and his refusal to let the deadly disease dictate his life.

No Retreat, No Surrender is an uplifting account of grit, perseverance, talent and attitude, vividly capturing the determined mindset of an inspirational sporting legend.

Autoimmune conditions are on the rise, with more and more people, young and old, experiencing the frustrating and debilitating symptoms of conditions that seem to be difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to treat with conventional medicine alone. Trauma and prolonged stress disrupt healthy body-functioning and can trigger or exacerbate autoimmune and other similar conditions.

Malvina approaches autoimmunity holistically to look for their roots in trauma and prolonged stress, and find ways to improve health and restore vitality. She draws on psychological, natural and ancient practices that have been shown to help those affected by autoimmune conditions to reduce their stress load, boost their body’s defences and re-establish internal balance.

The book not only offers a range of helpful, practical solutions to those impacted by these conditions but more importantly it offers hope and understanding.

From the author of the global bestseller How Not To Die comes The How Not To Die Cookbook – a lavish, beautifully illustrated collection of delicious recipes based on the groundbreaking nutritional science of the original book.

Dr Michael Greger, founder of the wildly popular website NutritionFacts, takes his comprehensive, lifesaving science into the kitchen. Why suffer from disease and ill health when the right food is proven to keep you healthy, and without the side effects of drugs? We can avoid heart disease, cancer and our other biggest killers if we use food as medicine, and the How Not To Die Cookbook offers a sustainable and delicious guide to preparing and eating the foods that will prevent and reverse fatal diseases.

Featuring over 100 easy-to-follow, beautifully photographed plant-based recipes, with plenty of recipes suitable for vegetarians and vegans, the How Not To Die Cookbook merges cutting-edge science with everyday ingredients from the supermarket to help you and your family eat your way to better health and a longer life.

The uplifting true story. A Sunday Times bestseller, shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

The story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey, not of escape, but salvation.

Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset via Devon and Cornwall.

They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

A proven plan to reverse prediabetes and type 2 diabetes with manageable changes to improve your life.

If you are struggling with type 2 diabetes, obesity, or hypertension, you should know two important things:

1) It is not your fault.
2) It is your responsibility to turn things around.

The truth is that the hardship caused by type 2 diabetes is fueled by profit-seeking food manufacturers. And while it is easy to place blame on the food industry, it is also important to understand our own roles in creating these circumstances.

You might wonder why, if type 2 diabetes is reversible, it is commonly treated as a lifelong condition. The answer might shock you: It is being treated that way because it is profitable to treat it that way. It is a lot more profitable to sell drugs to treat lifelong conditions than to show people how to turn them around.

But here's the good news: it doesn't have to be this way.

In this book, Eric Edmeades and Dr. Ruben Ruiz give you a solid, step-by-step plan that just might reverse the condition for you. Over the course of 9 weeks, you'll learn how to make subtle changes to your lifestyle and deep changes to your psychology. You'll look at what you eat, when you eat it, and why you eat it. You'll begin to move your body into a primarily fat-burning metabolism and away from your current sugar-burning metabolism, learn more about seasonal eating, and reap the benefits of cyclical eating patterns.

By the end of this program, you will have a clear understanding of the way the seasons work in concert with your body, and how you can turn around your type 2 diabetes and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

When Gail Gilbride is diagnosed with breast cancer, she experiences the full range of emotions. There’s disbelief, anger, confusion, fear, bargaining and, why, yes, indeed, of course she wants to talk to the manager! But then Gail settles on resolve. She’s ready to fight. Not only will she follow her doctor’s instructions and march with the big guns in the oncology centre, but she’ll also tip her helmet to her late mother’s inclination for alternative treatments.

Gail is ready to give her body everything it might need to conquer the disease, recover and live a long life of joy. She nourishes it, meditates, exercises, rests, and explores parts of her consciousness she’s previously pushed to the far corner and ignored. Determined not to be a passenger, Gail hops behind the wheel and embarks on a journey like no other. What she doesn’t anticipate is that she’ll have a furry, ginger wingman for company.

Archie is the irredeemably part-feral tomcat who, when it suits him, moves in the same circles as Gail – and it suits him when he decides she needs the kind of therapy only he can give. In many ways, Gail and Archie are opposites. Where she’s amiable, he can be bellicose. Where Gail is gentle, Archie has claws. Where she is considerate, he is self-serving. And yet Archie brings to Gail camaraderie and healing in the dark hours when, alone, she cannot keep the dread at bay. He’s the remedy she didn’t know she needed.

Reverse Your Diabetes provides all the information and support you need to take control of type 2 diabetes and, potentially, to reverse it.

Based on the latest research and proven results, this clear and effective programme outlines the key steps you need to take to turn around your health: watch what you eat, get more active, monitor your progress and commit to change. Written by diabetes expert Dr David Cavan and in association, Reverse Your Diabetes also tackles the myths and misinformation about type 2 diabetes.

This is an essential book that will empower you to take control of your diabetes and maximise your health for good.

When Lauren Segal receives a call from her husband one wintry morning in 2014, the furthest thing from her mind is her biopsy results. For two years she’s been living a cancer-free existence after a double mastectomy that has put her in the clear. The call shatters the foundation of her world – the lump she thought was scar tissue is malignant. Her cancer is back.

Cancer: A Love Story is the intimately searing memoir of a four-time cancer survivor. The book magnificently tracks Lauren’s journey to come to terms with the untold challenges of facing the dreaded disease. Forced to face her needle phobia, the author leads the reader into her crumbling world as she confronts the terrors of treatment – from debilitating chemo to nuking radiation. Death is her uninvited companion.

But in the midst of her lonely horror, in a quest for deeper meaning, Lauren discovers the unexpected gift of awareness of unanticipated opportunities that cancer presents – to confront her unmasked humanity – her fears, strengths and weaknesses.

“Throughout my arduous journey into the world of cancer, I have discovered that proximity to death brings with it a new proximity to life. I have learned that luck and unluck, happiness and distress, hope and despair are tightly coiled into a life well lived.” Lauren’s story removes the enormous stigma that still surrounds breast cancer; it tackles the deep fear surrounding diagnoses and treatment and it encourages us to take control of our health. It ultimately triumphs by showing the reader how a person in any unwanted life situation can come out on the other side. The book also provides vital insights for professionals involved in the care of cancer patients and a hugely informative section on chemo tips for those undergoing treatment.

The Cancer Guide is a definitive and inspirational book designed to help patients, partners, family and work colleagues navigate the trials and difficulties associated with cancer and its treatment.

With over forty years worth of experience to her name, O’Dwyer writes about cancer with humanity and clarity, helping to combat the myths and misinformation surrounding the disease in an age of information overload.

Adopting an integrated biological and psychological perspective, O’Dwyer highlights the person at the heart of every treatment, providing helpful advice and shared experiences that are able to destigmatize the shame, fear and denial faced by those affected by cancer.

The Cancer Guide is an empowering and informative book for all those whose lives and loved ones have been touched by cancer.

Die eerste uitgawe van Die keer toe ek my naam vergeet het verskyn in 1995, vyf jaar nadat die skrywer F.A. Venter ’n beroerte gekry het. In hierdie outobiografiese vertelling dokumenteer hy die pynlike en stadige proses van herstel: hy moet weer leer loop, leer praat, leer skryf. Dit is verder ’n verhaal oor die verhouding tussen Venter en sy geliefde vrou, Stella. In Die Afrikaanse literatuur 1652–2004 beskryf J.C. Kannemeyer Die keer toe ek my naam vergeet het as een van Venter se “belangrikste bydraes tot die Afrikaanse prosa”: “Die aangrypende verhaal van ouderdom en lyding, maar ook van ’n mooi huwelik en toegewyde liefde, is terselfdertyd ’n getuienis van die onblusbare gees van die skeppende mens wat, ten spyte van alle teenspoed, kan voortgaan met die werk waarvoor hy hier op aarde geplaas is.” Op ’n eerlike en roerende wyse, en met ’n tikkie humor, raak Venter die universele, tydlose temas van siekte, oudword en die dood aan. Uiteindelik is dit ’n verhaal van aanvaarding: “Ek het baie verloor – die kosbaarste. Maar ek het ook geleer om te verduur. Te aanvaar. Tevrede te wees. Anders sou dit ondraaglik wees.”

"His ability to overcome adversity and pain, even in the face of death, is what makes Grant truly unique." – Edwin Moses, Olympic Gold Medallist

He was told he would never cycle again. But South African ultra-endurance cyclist Grant Lottering doesn’t take no for an answer.

In 2013, Lottering’s heart stopped after a gruesome accident in the Italian Alps. Doctors said he would never ride again. Since then, he has completed many gruelling rides through some of the toughest terrain on the planet. The first South African to complete a solo, non-stop 420-kilometre ultra-endurance ride through the northern French Alps in under 24 hours, Lottering has endured numerous rides previously thought to be impossible, while raising millions for charities.

Grant Lottering is a highly regarded motivational speaker and ambassador for Laureus Sport for Good. His story – proving that the human body can achieve the near impossible if you have the right mindset – is an inspiration to millions.

"Perseverance, resilience and determination personified". – Bryan Habana

A personal testimony detailing the life of a teenage patient in a tuberculosis hospital taken from his daily diary entries. Like others he was cooped up and restricted, while gratefully receiving care and treatment from surgeons and nursing staff under the watchful eye of strict yet sympathetic Sisters and Matrons. This is an entertaining read involving co-operation and modest revolt including nruse chasing, illicit pub crawls, and regular carpeting by the Ward Sister and Medical Superintendent. Yet accompanying the lighter moments is an important medical, social and personal record of the 1950s sanatorium experience.

A quest is never what you expect it to be.

Elizabeth Madeline Martin spends her days in a retirement home in Cape Town, watching the pigeons and squirrels on the branch of a tree outside her window. Bedridden, her memory fading, she can recall her early childhood spent in a small wood-and-iron house in Blackridge on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Though she remembers the place in detail – dogs, a mango tree, a stream – she has no idea of where exactly it is. ‘My memory is full of blotches,’ she tells her daughter Julia, ‘like ink left about and knocked over.’

Julia resolves to find the Blackridge house: with her mother lonely and confused, would this, perhaps, bring some measure of closure? A journey begins that traverses family history, forgotten documents, old photographs, and the maps that stake out a country’s troubled past – maps whose boundaries nature remains determined to resist. Kind strangers, willing to assist in the search, lead to unexpected discoveries of ancestors and wars and lullabies. Folded into this quest are the tender conversations between a daughter and a mother who does not have long to live.

Taken as one, The Blackridge House is a meditation on belonging, of the stories we tell of home and family, of the precarious footprint of life.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe in recent months, many countries have had to implement strategies to fight the virus and keep its people safe. These strategies, particularly in the West, have not been as effective at keeping the numbers of infected people as low as the governments would have hoped.

Charles R Stith predicted the trajectory the virus would take as its spread progressed and developed a critical analysis of the western countries’ responses to the pandemic. He specifically focuses on South Africa’s response to the virus as it spearheads the surge of cases on the African continent.

The crisis has far reaching consequences that impacts the most vulnerable people in the country. A recent OXFAM report draws connections between the lockdown, to hunger, to deaths which confirms the statement Stith made at the beginning of the outbreak about how people would die of hunger as they lose their jobs, their ability to provide for their families and access to fresh foods.

Stith wrote this book in real time in response to the growth and spread of the coronavirus and analyses the results of South Africa’s response to it. He gives answers to the questions politicians should have been asking and gives his view of what Africa will require to recover