By the time Shana Fife is 25 she has two kids from different fathers. To the coloured people she grew up around, she is a jintoe, a jezebel, jas, a woman with mileage on the p*ssy. She is alone, she has no job and, as she is constantly reminded by her family, she is pretty much worthless and unloveable. How did she become this woman, the epitome of everything she was conditioned to strive not to be?

Unsettlingly honest and brutally blunt, Ougat is Shana Fife’s story of survival: of surviving the social conditioning of her Cape Flats community, of surviving sexual violence and depression, and of ultimately escaping a cycle of abuse. Exploring themes of sexuality, marriage and motherhood, rape, drugs and depression and cultural identity, Shana describes – with the self-deprecating humour her followers love so much – what it means to be a coloured woman, who gives coloured womanhood meaning and, ultimately, how surviving life as a coloured woman means being OK with giving a giant ‘f*ck you’ to the norm.

A powerful, fresh and disarming new voice – Shana’s writing is like nothing you’ve read before.

"I’ve always been told that if I was good, I’d attract good things. So then, why am I unhappy?"

From a young age, women are taught to put everyone else first. The result? A society full of ‘Good Girls’, pushing themselves to meet expectations while ignoring their own needs. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this whip-smart and empowering book, psychotherapist Marta Martínez Novoa explains that people pleasing is not a personality failing, but a common response to trauma – an instinct to become more appealing to a threat, and a way to feel safe. Taking you on a journey into your past, this book will help you understand why you feel the way you do in the present, and gives you practical tools to build a future where you feel bolder, safer and more confident in everything you do.

If you’re done being a people pleaser and ready to start living for you, this is your toolkit to wake up and finally take charge.

In a world where misinformation distorts the essence of manhood and societal expectations push men into emotional incarceration, bestselling author and founder of the Cave of Adullam, Jason Wilson, offers a path to freedom.

The Man the Moment Demands will empower you to become the right man in every moment by embodying the ten characteristics of the comprehensive man: the Fighter, the Provider, the Leader, the Lover, the Nurturer, the Gentleman, the Friend, the Husband, the Father, and the Son. With The Man the Moment Demands you'll learn how to:

• unpack the impact of your past and unlock the power to shape your future;
• embrace transparency and express the full spectrum of your emotions while maintaining self-control;
• evolve beyond the “alpha male” myth through example, not intimidation; and
• answer the question “Who are you?” to strip away the facade and live authentically.

This is not just a transformative book; it's a blueprint. A rite of passage for those ready to rise and rediscover what it truly means to be a man—authentically human. One that will empower you to be the man the moments demands.

Shirley Zinn’s story is one of determination, courage, and triumph over incredible adversity.

Born and raised on the Cape Flats, Shirley never allowed her past to dictate her future. She proved that the typical story of a girl from the Cape Flats – that of gangsterism, alcoholism and teenage pregnancy – didn’t have to be her story. Instead she relentlessly pursued her own goals and forged an impressive academic career even when she faced significant odds. And when she’d done that, she set out to conquer the world of business.

Shirley is a formidable woman with an amazing story to tell. She has risen to the top of the pile in both academic and business circles, and yet she has retained great humanity and empathy in the face of great personal tragedy.

Her story has lessons for us all – whether we are ordinary or extraordinary, whether we work in business, in government, or at home. Shirley’s story will inspire you and show you that it is possible to achieve your goals, if you are prepared to swim upstream and be single-minded in getting where you want to be.

Women everywhere marvel at those "good girls" in Scripture - Sarah, Mary, Esther - but on most days, that's not who they see when they look in the mirror. Most women (if they're honest) see the selfishness of Sapphira or the deception of Delilah. They catch a glimpse of Jezebel's take-charge pride or Eve's disastrous disobedience. Like Bathsheba, Herodias, and the rest, today's modern woman is surrounded by temptations, exhausted by the demands of daily living, and burdened by her own desires.

So what's a good girl to do? Learn from their lives, says beloved humor writer Liz Curtis Higgs, and by God's grace, choose a better path. In Bad Girls Of The Bible, Higgs offers a unique and clear-sighted approach to understanding those "other women" in Scripture, combining a contemporary retelling of their stories with a solid, verse-by-verse study of their mistakes and what lessons women today can learn from them.

Whether they were "Bad to the Bone," "Bad for a Season, but Not Forever" or only "Bad for a Moment," these infamous sisters show women how "not" to handle the challenges of life. With her trademark humor and encouragement, Liz Curtis Higgs teaches us how to avoid their tragic mistakes and joyfully embrace grace.

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.

How to make home your family’s favorite place to be . . . all year long.

Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for “home” to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn’t you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy . . . the one place where you and your family can’t wait to be?

There is good news waiting for you in the pages of The Lifegiving Home. Every day of your family’s life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God. In this unique book designed to help your family enjoy and celebrate every month of the year together, you’ll discover the secrets of a life-giving home from a mother who created one and her daughter who was raised in it: popular authors Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Together they offer a rich treasure of wise advice, spiritual principles, and practical suggestions. You’ll embark on a new path to creating special memories for your children; establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish.

Like an apparition, conjured out of the darkness, a young man with light blond hair pushed his face into the car. I immediately spotted the knife. It was a long, thin weapon, almost like a letter opener, with a tapering blade. It felt cold and spiny as he pressed it to my neck. When he spoke his voice, which was quiet and controlled, sounded as though it emanated from a distant planet. But every word thudded into my skull. “Move over or I’ll kill you,” he whispered.

And so began Alison’s nightmare journey with the two callous killers who were to rape her, stab her so many times doctors could not count the wounds, slit her throat and leave her for dead in a filthy clearing miles from the city of Port Elizabeth which was her home. But Alison defied death. And more than that, she denied her attackers the satisfaction of destroying her life.

I Have Life is the triumphant story of a woman who refused to become a victim. The courage which allowed her to move beyond severe physical and emotional trauma and to turn a devastating experience into something life-affirming and strong, is an inspiration to people everywhere.

Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasant’s Revolt was started and propelled by women, protesting a tax on women? Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?

These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and ground-breaking book, she tells the story of our nation over 900 years, but for the very first time women – some fifty per cent of the population – are no longer invisible in this history of England, but are at its beating heart.

Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records to find highway women, beggars and shepherdesses, through newspapers and diaries to find murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The ‘normal women’ you will meet in her pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency and built ships, corn mills and houses as part of their everyday lives They committed crimes, or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things and rioted. A lot. They built our society to be as diverse and varied as the women themselves. They are there in the archives – if you look – and they made our history.

A searing investigation that challenges everything you thought you knew about domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it?

Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience – abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence – not in generations to come, but today.

Combining forensic research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes.

'I do not hate boys, I hate men.'

This provocative statement sets the stage for a searing exploration of the complex relationship South African society holds with its Black and Coloured men and boys. Dr Mzamo Masito's urgent new book, This Country hates Our Boys, confronts the pervasive 'cold and hot love' that often translates into collective male guilt. When a child goes missing, a collective sigh of relief by men is heard when the blame points to maternal filicide, such as headlines like 'South African woman guilty of kidnapping and trafficking daughter aged 6' (BBC).

The widely accepted phrase 'amadoda zizinja' – men are dogs – is more than a colloquialism; it's a symptom of a society where positive masculine role models are scarce. This linguistic shortcut flattens the nuanced reality of masculinity into a single, simplistic concept of patriarchy, obscuring the complex, chaotic social issues at play.

Through the vital work of African Men Care, a non-profit organisation, Dr Masito unpacks the interlocking crises facing Black boys and men: educational disparities, mental health struggles, pervasive violence, and fractured relationships. More crucially, the book illuminates a clear path forward.

'Every man is every boy' is not merely an observation but a powerful call to action. The struggles of adult men today are often rooted in the unaddressed needs and unrealised potential of the boys they once were. The lament 'awekho amadoda' (there are no men) serves as a stark warning: without decisive intervention, we risk losing entire generations. This book reveals how individual trauma metastasises into a collective crisis. When boys lack robust interior lives and positive identity models, the repercussions echo through families, schools, and communities. Hurt boys mature into hurting men, perpetuating cycles that impact everyone, including the girls and women in their lives.

¬This Country Hates Our Boys is essential reading for men, educators, policymakers, community leaders, parents, and anyone committed to breaking cycles of hurt and forging futures where all young people can thrive. The ultimate goal is revolutionary in its simplicity: to empower both girls and boys, ensuring no child is left behind.

For once, this is not a book about 'transactional sex' or HIV. There is no moral panic over women having standards in their romantic lives, or easy clichés of desperation in the face of unrelenting African poverty. In this book, Lebohang Masango explores how women in South Africa give meaning to aspiration, romance and love in their pursuit of the soft life -- a life free of hardship.

Love it or hate it, soft life will not be a passing trend, even if it carries different names in the future.

In some parts of South Africa, more than one in three people are HIV positive. Love in the Time of AIDS explores transformations in notions of gender and intimacy to try to understand the roots of this virulent epidemic. By living in an informal settlement and collecting love letters, cell phone text messages, oral histories, and archival materials, Mark Hunter details the everyday social inequalities that have resulted in untimely deaths. Hunter shows how first apartheid and then chronic unemployment have become entangled with ideas about femininity, masculinity, love, and sex and have created an economy of exchange that perpetuates the transmission of HIV/AIDS. This sobering ethnography challenges conventional understandings of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

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."

Doctor, author and influencer (@DrAmyShah) Amy Shah, shares a nutritional, science-based protocol to minimise hormonal havoc, hot flashes, and night sweats and take on perimenopause and menopause with improved mood, energy, and health.

Hot flushes, mood swings, anxiety, weight gain, brain fog - the hormonal flux that comes with menopause and perimenopause may bring some notorious side effects, but that doesn't mean you have to feel miserable or settle for debilitating symptoms. This isn't your mother's menopause!

Double-board certified medical doctor Amy Shah shows you the power of targeted nutrition to manage the chaos that perimenopause and menopause can bring. There's a growing awareness about perimenopause, the period of hormonal changes leading up to menopause that can begin as early as your late 30s. Starting in perimenopause and continuing through menopause, your immune system, gut and metabolism get out of balance as your hormones shift.

Dr Shah's protocol supports your hormones by increasing key nutrients-including protein, fibre, probiotics, and vitamins and minerals-to realign and nourish your body and heal your gut-brain connection, helping to reduce and relieve unpleasant menopause symptoms while dramatically decreasing the risk of serious diseases from heart disease to depression to osteoporosis. It's as easy as 30-30-3:

• 30 grams of protein in your first meal to curb cravings
• 30 grams of fibre to diversify and strengthen the gut
• 3 probiotic foods to balance the microbiome.

Pairing this optimal diet with circadian fasting and science-supported lifestyle strategies and 20 recipes to maximise benefits, Hormone Havoc is your all-in-one guide to taking control of your health when you and your hormones feel out of control. You don't have to settle for feeling awful during perimenopause and menopause-Dr Shah shows how you can not just feel like yourself again, but feel even better than before.

101 Remarkable South African Women is the first book to bring together such a wide-ranging collection of extraordinary women who shaped South Africa’s past and present. From the prehistoric Eve of the West Coast and cultural bridge-builder Krotoa to groundbreaking figures like Olive Schreiner, Miriam Makeba, Thuli Madonsela, and global star Tyla, these 101 stories span centuries of South African history, politics, art, literature, music, sport, science, and activism.

This beautifully curated and highly readable volume offers an accessible entry point into South African history for general readers, students, and anyone who wants inspirational local role models or to discover the voices too often left out of the official records. Inspiring, informative, and filled with remarkable lives, it is at once a celebration of our foremothers and a showcase of contemporary role models

On a freezing winter’s night, a few hours before dawn on 12 May 1969, security police stormed the Soweto home of Winnie Mandela and detained her in the presence of her two young daughters, then aged eight and ten.

Rounded up in a group of other anti-apartheid activists under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, designed for the security police to hold and interrogate people for as long as they wanted, she was taken away. This was the start for Winnie Mandela of a 491-day period of detention and two trials.

Forty-one years after her release on 14 September 1970, Greta Soggot, the widow of David Soggot, one of Winnie Mandela’s advocates during the 1969/1970 trials, handed her a stack of papers that included a journal and notes that she had written in detention.

491 Days: Prisoner number 1323/69 shares with the world Winnie Mandela’s moving and compelling journal as well as some of the letters written between affected parties at the time. Readers gain insight into the brutality she experienced, her depths of despair as well as her resilience and defiance under extreme pressure.

This book was co-edited by Swati Dlamini and Sahm Venter with the support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Meet Daisy De Melker, who 'lovingly' prepared a flask of strychnine-laced coffee for her son. She is very different from Najwa Petersen, who carefully planned a 'house robbery' to eliminate her musician husband. Chané van Heerden placed her victim's facial skin in the freezer for preservation, yet Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron wished to dispose of her mother's body before it was even cold. And Dina Rodrigues? She 'wouldn't harm a fly' - but then went and organised a hit on a baby.

Women are not paragons of virtue who cannot commit murder. Nor are they always insane when they do deliberately cause death. And the women with 'blood on their hands' are not homogeneous.

In Blood on Her Hands, award-winning journalist Tanya Farber investigates the lives, minds and motivations of some of South Africa's most notorious female murders, from the poisonous nurse Daisy de Melker, to the privileged but deeply disturbed Najwa Petersen, to the mysterious Joey Haarhoff, who died before revealing the fate of her victims. Written in a style lighter than the subject matter might suggest, Blood on Her Hands will keep you reading until late at night.

A fusion of conversations, observations, and personal reflections on his own experiences, work with men, and scholarship, Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity is Kopano Ratele’s meditation on love, violence and masculinity.

This book seeks to imagine the possibility of a more loving masculinity in a society where structural violence, failures of government and economic inequality underpin much of the violent behaviour that men display. Enriched with personal reflections on his own experiences as a partner, father, psychologist and researcher in the field of men and masculinities, Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity is Kopano Ratele’s meditation on love and violence, and the way these forces shape the emotional lives of boys and men.

Blending academic substance and rigour in a readable narrative style, Ratele illuminates the complex nuances of gender, intimacy and power in the context of the human need for love and care. While unsparing in its analysis of men’s inner lives, Ratele lays out a path for addressing the hunger for love in boys and men. He argues that just as the beliefs and practices relating to gender, sexuality and the nature of love are constantly being challenged and revised, so our ideas about masculinity, and men’s and boys’ capacity to show genuine loving care for each other and for women, can evolve.

Surviving isn't enough: this is how you can thrive.

Over the past 15 years, anti-racist psychologist Guilaine Kinouani has contributed writing and run workshops on how racism affects both physical and mental health. Based on her findings, she has devised tried and tested psychological strategies. Her mission is to help thousands to find peace with this book.

Living While Black gives voice to the diverse experiences of Black people around the world and uses case studies and exclusive research to offer expert guidance on how to: set boundaries and process microaggressions; protect children from racism; navigate the dating world; identify and celebrate the wins.

Kinouani empowers Black readers to adopt self-care routines that improve day-to-day wellness to help them thrive not just survive and find hope - or even joy - in the face of adversity. This is also a vital resource for allies who wish to understand the impact of racism and how they can help.

Since 2004, Dr. Lois P. Frankel's Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office has been an essential resource for women seeking advice and empowerment to stop sabotaging their careers and get ahead in the workplace. This completely updated and revised vital new 3rd edition is everything a modern working girl needs to get what she wants.

We've leaned in, we've girl bossed, we've untamed, and it's still challenging to be a woman at work. Though the workplace looks different than it did twenty years ago, women still face considerable challenges that men do not.

In this new 3rd edition of The New York Times bestseller Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, Dr. Lois P. Frankel teaches you how to reject the "nice girl" mentality, which manifests as a distinctive set of behaviors learned in girlhood that ultimately sabotage you as an adult, and still exists in today's modern workplace. Dr. Frankel provides tools and guidance for eliminating these unconscious mistakes that could be holding you back in your career.

Mistakes such as:
Mistake #4: Believing Negative Self-Talk. Counter negative messages with positive ones.
Mistake #26: Fear of Coming Across too Strong. Don't dumb down, shut down, or tone down--be assertive!
Mistake #55: Poor Boundaries. If you're going to work from home, set boundaries.
Mistake #85: Doing Instead of Leading. Picking up others' slack becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You have the power to take control of your career without being controlling, to speak your mind while still being respected, and to chase your ambitions without fear or shame.

In recent decades, the issue of gender-based violence has become heavily politicized in India. Yet, Indian law enforcement personnel continue to be biased against women and overburdened. In Capable Women, Incapable States, Poulami Roychowdhury asks how women claim rights within these conditions. Through long term ethnography, she provides an in-depth lens on rights negotiations in the world's largest democracy, detailing their social and political effects. Roychowdhury finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules, but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves. And they behave this way because law enforcement personnel do not protect women from harm but do allow women to take the law into their own hands.These negotiations do not enhance legal enforcement. Instead, they create a space where capable women can extract concessions outside the law, all while shouldering a new burden of labor and risk. A unique theory of gender inequality and governance, Capable Women, Incapable States forces us to rethink the effects of rights activism across large parts of the world where political mobilization confronts negligent criminal justice systems.