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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
The perfect match. Or so she thinks. Her warmth and empathy. His charisma and ambition. Yet, Cathy feels safer teaching battle-scarred gangsters in a prison classroom than at home with her own partner. By day she walks on eggshells. At night she sleeps on the backseat of her car. Her safe place is an all-night roadhouse; her best friend, her journal. The slow boil intensifies until, one day, Cathy finds her grandmother’s armoire smashed to pieces in her bedroom, a hammer on the floor, her life in splinters beside it. Part memoir, part inspiration, Boiling A Frog Slowly is unflinching in its confrontation of abuse and utterly courageous in its portrayal of redemption.
Mteto Nyati knew as a schoolboy in Mthatha, working at his mother’s store, that he wanted to fix and build things. After completing his studies at Natal University, he turned down a Rhodes scholarship and headed for Jo'burg to take up a position at Afrox. He was the only black engineer and the advice he received was ‘don’t mess up’. He didn’t and today is one of South Africa’s top CEOs. This is his inspirational story.
’n Blik op die binnekring van die Krugersdorp-kultus “Daar was bloedspatsels oor die koffietafel, die banke en die banke se kussings. Peter en Joan was oortrek van steekwonde in hul rûe, nekke en agterkoppe. Nicholas het sy pa en ma gesigte na onder in ’n bloedbad op die mat in die sitkamer gekry. Hulle het hul hek en huis vir hul moordenaars oopgemaak, want hulle het ’n afspraak met hulle gehad.” Elf wrede moorde oor ’n tydperk van vier jaar ruk die gemeenskap van Krugersdorp en haal landwyd nuusopskrifte. Eindelik word al hierdie moorde verbind met Cecilia Steyn en haar kultusgroep, Electus per Deus (uitverkies deur God). Lede van die groep aanbid die grond waarop Cecilia loop en sal selfs vir haar moord pleeg. Die moordenaars is slim, gewone mense – ’n onderwyseres, ’n finansiële makelaar, ’n kind wat tussen die moorde deur steeds ses onderskeidings in matriek behaal en boonop keuring kry om medies te gaan studeer. Hul slagoffers het bloot ’n sake- afspraak nagekom, min wetend dat dít ’n afspraak met die dood was. Wie is Cecilia Steyn? Hoe kan een mens vyf ander manipuleer om moord te pleeg en namens haar in die hof te lieg? Watter rol het Satanisme gespeel? Hoe ontduik onervare misdadigers die polisie vir so lank? Jana Marx beantwoord dié en ander vrae in ’n waremisdaad-verhaal wat gelei het tot een van die opspraakwekkendste moordsake in die land se geskiedenis. Met behulp van onderhoude uit diegene in die binnekring, hofgetuienis en polisiedossiere oor ’n tydperk van vier jaar poog Marx om die publiek se vrae te antwoord en ’n blik te gee op die binnewerkinge van só ’n kultus.
Holding My Breath is a candid, heart-breaking and very funny memoir of life in one of Johannesburg’s busiest emergency rooms. Biccard’s warmth and humanity shine through the often harrowing tale, creating an unputdownable, uplifting and inspiring book. The first customer today reports that, the previous night, his right nipple had moved away from its usual location. He noticed its absence when he looked in the mirror and later found it in his armpit. ‘Wow,’ I say with a slight frown. I have never heard of a migrating nipple before. ‘Let’s have a look.’ I slide the door shut and motion to him to pull his T-shirt off. ‘Oh, it has moved back now,’ he says.
‘Untamed will liberate women - emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal.’ (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray Love) Who were you before the world told you who to be? Part inspiration, part memoir, Untamed explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and instead dare to listen to and trust in the voice deep inside us. From the beloved New York Times bestselling author, speaker and activist Glennon Doyle. For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There. She. Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high but soon she realised they had come to her from within. This was the voice she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions and social conditioning. Glennon decided to let go of the world’s expectations of her and reclaim her true untamed self. Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanising wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is also the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honour our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts. Untamed shows us how to be brave. And, as Glennon insists, 'The braver we are, the luckier we get.'
A modern gangster cashes in on the London Olympics; while business, politics and police corruption undermine the operation to stop him. When billions poured into the neglected east London borough hosting the 2012 Olympics, a turf war broke out between crime families for control of a now valuable strip of land. Using violence, guile and corruption, one gangster, the Long Fella, emerged as a true untouchable. A team of local detectives made it their business to take him on until Scotland Yard threw them under the bus and the business of putting on "the greatest show on earth" won the day. Award-winning journalist Michael Gillard took up where they left off to expose the tangled web of chief executives, big banks, politicians and dirty money where innocent lives are destroyed and the guilty flourish. Gillard's efforts culminated in a landmark court case, which finally put the Long Fella and his friends on trial exposing London's real Olympic legacy.
Mzuzephi Mathebula, also known as Jan Note and later as Nongoloza, founded the Umkhosi Wezi-ntaba (Regiment of the Hills), forerunner of the notorious "28" gang. He became known as the King of Nineveh, a man who sought social justice, paradoxically, through antisocial means. Nongoloza's story is also the story of South Africa's violent and racially accentuated past and, to an extent, provides clarification for the criminality that afflicts the present-day society. Nongoloza Mathebula’s life is a poignant illustration of how political circumstances affect lives and how those lives encourage myths, setting in motion a spiral of events that eventually neither politics nor people have any control over. Van Onselen’s insightful biography tells the story of how a young man became a hardened criminal as the result of a minor incident. Nongoloza Mathebula’s life is a poignant illustration of how political circumstances affect lives and how those lives encourage myths, setting in motion a spiral of events that eventually neither politics nor people have any control over.
Martha Solomons is a simple woman, the daughter of a freed slave. Harry Grey is a priest from the British aristocracy, sent to the Cape Colony of the mid-nineteenth century because of bad behaviour. In the rugged Namaqualand their paths cross and a bond of love develops that stays with them throughout the contrasting landscapes of their lives. Based on the lives of Martha Solomons and Harry Grey, this fascinating story was first published in Afrikaans, and was runner-up for the MNet-Jan Rabie Literary Award. Elsa Silke's masterful translation retains the spirit and the essence of the era in which this historical novel is set.
On the face of it, life looks good for Sara-Jayne. She’s a popular radio personality, a bestselling author and she’s recently been reunited with her long-lost father, nearly 40 years after she was given up for adoption as a baby. Best of all, she’s just found out she’s about to become a mother, with Enver, the ‘love of her life’. She's convinced that she’s finally heading towards her "happily ever after". But six weeks after discovering she’s pregnant, Enver relapses on heroin and disappears, leaving Sara-Jayne devastated. She checks into The Clinic, where despite the little life growing inside her, she realises she’s never felt more alone. In her much-anticipated follow up to the bestseller Killing Karoline, Sara-Jayne is now forced, for the sake of her unborn child, to find a way to save herself. But first she has to unravel why everyone always leaves her. Why like that song she's always looking for love in all the wrong places? And why she is so obsessed with mad, bad love?
A moving personal reflection from global philanthropist and bestselling author Melinda French Gates that encourages readers to stay true to themselves as they navigate transitions in their own lives. In a rare window into some of her life’s pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions. Transitions are moments in which we step out of our familiar surroundings and into a new landscape—a space that, for many people, is shadowed by confusion, fear, and indecision. The Next Day accompanies readers as they cross that space, offering guidance on how to make the most of the time between an ending and a new beginning and how to move forward into the next day when the ground beneath you is shifting. In this book, Melinda will reflect, for the first time in print, on some of the most significant transitions in her own life, including becoming a parent, the death of a dear friend, and her departure from the Gates Foundation. The stories she tells illuminate universal lessons about loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping friends navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty, and more. Each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are in life, is headed toward transitions of our own. With her signature warmth and grace, Melinda candidly shares stories of times when she was in need of wisdom and shines a path through the open space stretching out before us all.
The first book by a Coca-Cola CEO tells the remarkable story of the company's revival. Neville Isdell was a key player at Coca-Cola for more than thirty years, retiring in 2009 as Chairman after rebuilding the tarnished brand image of the world's leading soft-drink company. Inside Coca-Cola tells an extraordinary personal and professional worldwide story, ranging from Northern Ireland to South Africa to Australia, the Philippines, Russia, Germany, India and Turkey. Isdell helped put out huge public-relations fires (India and Turkey), opened markets (Russia, Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and Africa), championed Muhtar Kent, the current Turkish-American CEO, all while living the ideal of corporate responsibility. Isdell's—and Coke's—story is newsy without being gossipy; principled without being preachy, and filled with stories and lessons appealing to anyone who has ever taken "the pause that refreshes." It's also a readable and important look at how companies can market and govern themselves more—ethically and to great success.
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.
It’s midsummer in Wyoming and Alexandra Fuller is barely hanging on.
Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe,
reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober and piecing her way
uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman,
Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel.
Another year on the Diddly Squat Farm and Jeremy is still knee-deep in mud and endless challenges . . . Welcome back to Clarkson's Farm. Since taking the wheel three years ago Jeremy's had his work cut out. And it's now clear from hard-won experience that, when it comes to farming, there's only one golden rule: Whatever you hope will happen, won't. Enthusiastic and inventive schemes to diversify have met with stubborn opposition from the red trouser brigade, defeat at the hands of Council Planning department, and predictable derision from Kaleb - although, to be fair, even Lisa had doubts about Jeremy's brilliant plan to build a business empire founded on rewilding and nettle soup. And only Cheerful Charlie's still smiling about the stifling amount of red tape that's incoming. But he charges by the hour. Then there are the animals: the sheep are gone; the cows have been joined by a rented bull called Break-Heart Maestro;. the pigs are making piglets; and the goats have turned out to be psychopaths. But despite the naysayers and (sometimes self-inflicted) setbacks, Jeremy remains irrepressibly optimistic about life at Diddly Squat. Because It's hard not to be when you get to harvest blackberries with a vacuum cleaner. And, after all, it shouldn't just be Break-heart Maestro who gets to enjoy a happy ending ....
As a medical detective of the modern world, forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal’s chief goal is to bring perpetrators to justice. He has performed thousands of autopsies, which have helped bring numerous criminals to book. In Autopsy he covers the hard lessons learnt as a rookie pathologist, as well as some of the most unusual cases he’s encountered. During his career, for example, he has dealt with high-profile deaths, mass disasters, death by lightning and people killed by African wildlife. Blumenthal takes the reader behind the scenes at the mortuary, describing a typical autopsy and the instruments of the trade. He also shares a few trade secrets, like how to establish when a suicide is more likely to be a homicide. Even though they cannot speak, the dead have a lot to say – and Blumenthal is there to listen.
Dwarstrekkers, nonkonformiste, buitestaanders, randeiers...Noem hulle wat jy wil, Suid Afrika het meer as sy deel eksentrieke karakters opgelewer wat mense van die vroegste tye af na hulle asem laat snak of verstom agter hulle hand laat fluister het. Hierdie rare mense het met die jare hul merk gemaak op vele terreine. Dis hulle wat Daniël Lotter aan 'n nuwe geslag lesers bekendstel.
An unforgettable memoir in the tradition of The Glass Castle about a young girl, who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University. Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills” bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in her father’s junkyard. Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent. When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University. There, she studied psychology, politics, philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes from severing one’s closest ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
When Chris Hani, leader of the South African Communist Party and heir apparent to Nelson Mandela, was brutally slain in his driveway in April 1993, he left a shocked and grieving South Africa on the precipice of civil war. But to 12-year-old Lindiwe, it was the love of her life, her daddy, who had been shockingly ripped from her life. In this intimate and brutally honest memoir, 36-year-old Lindiwe remembers the years she shared with her loving father, and the toll that his untimely death took on the Hani family. She lays family skeletons bare and brings to the fore her own downward spiral into cocaine and alcohol addiction, a desperate attempt to avoid the pain of his brutal parting. While the nation continued to revere and honour her father’s legacy, for Lindiwe, being Chris Hani’s daughter became an increasingly heavy burden to bear. "For as long as I can remember, I’d grown up feeling that I was the daughter of Chris Hani and that I was useless. My father was such a huge figure, such an icon to so many people, it felt like I could never be anything close to what he achieved – so why even try? Of course my addiction to booze and cocaine just made me feel my worthlessness even more". In a stunning turnaround, she faces her demons, not just those that haunted her through her addiction, but, with the courage that comes with sobriety, she comes face to face with her father’s two killers – Janus Walus, still incarcerated, and Clive Derby Lewis, released in 2015 on medical parole. In a breathtaking twist of humanity, while searching for the truth behind her father’s assassination, Lindiwe Hani ultimately makes peace with herself and honours her father’s gigantic spirit.
The Billionaire Career is an allegory of risk, playing to your strengths and discovering yourself to become successful in business. It tells the story of Dan, a man who wants more from his job and his life. He yearns to start his own business, and for the freedom and control that being his own boss would give him but he is faced with numerous challenges – for one thing, how to start a business with next to no money. But everything changes one day when he’s faced with a choice at work.
Nancy Brooks was sixteen when she went to sea with her father. Despite a gypsy fortune-teller’s warning to her mother, on 2 July 1938, she signed up as Captain’s Clerk for a shilling a week on the SS Nailsea Manor. Leaving from Birkenhead in Liverpool, the ship was to circumnavigate the world. The log Nancy Fancy Pants, as she became known, types during the voyage tells tales of exotic ports, fascinating people and places, and the rope-and-grease routine of a sailor. On board, she masters navigation, the Morse code as well as all the sea knots, and she flies high on the swing the crew rig up for her. On land, she learns even more, but when a squall takes its toll one stormy night in Australia, she is unprepared for the lessons death brings. Between the neatly typed lines of her extraordinary record, she captures her own journey, of self-discovery, and love. The Skipper’s Daughter interweaves the log with Nancy’s recollections and is lovingly shared with us by her daughter, Nancy Richards.
Martha Solomons is 'n eenvoudige vrou, die dogter van 'n vrygestelde slaaf. Harry Grey is 'n gewese priester uit die Britse adelstand, wat weens wangedrag na die Kaapkolonie van die middel-negentiende eeu gestuur word. In die dorre Namakwaland kruis hulle paaie en ontstaan daar 'n liefdesband wat hulle deur die kontrasterende landskappe van hulle lewens bybly. Martha is hulle meersleurende verhaal.
In 2018, Alastair McAlpine, a palliative paediatrician in Cape Town,
decided to share some inspiring thoughts from the children in his care.
He posted: ‘I asked some of my terminal paediatric palliative care
patients what they had enjoyed in life, and what gave it meaning. Kids
can be so wise, y’know. Here are some of the responses.’
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.
“I’m a very level-headed person,” Melanie Verwoerd told the gynaecological oncologist. “However, I feel like my dogs during a thunderstorm. I’m desperately trying to find somewhere to hide, but everywhere I go, it is still there.” A week earlier, another gynaecologist had paused mid-sentence during a routine ultrasound examination. Something big was wrong. Blood tests showed elevated tumour markers and scans revealed a huge ovarian tumour with at least a 70% chance of being cancerous. A few days later a radical hysterectomy was performed. As the terror grew, the only way for her to make sense of what was happening was to write. This book is the brutally honest reflection of the year that followed the operation. The physical recovery was painful, messy and took much longer than expected. However, even more surprising was the deeper, soul-searching questions that the procedure brought to the fore. The physical crisis triggered an intense journey of self-reflection and discovery. It required courageous investigations of the darkest corners of her psyche and forced her to face many of the fears that had comfortably lived there for decades. It also threw a spotlight on the relationship she – and many women – have with their bodies, sex, money as well as the role of intergenerational trauma. In the process, Melanie also had to come to terms with the rage, pain and grief of the hysterectomy specifically and many other losses in general, whilst investigating what she wanted to do with the second part of her life. Although this book was triggered by a hysterectomy, it is not intended just for those who have had or are going to have a similar experience. It is also meant for every woman who comes to a crossroad and has to reassess her life. And although it is brutally honest, it is also hope giving, and insists that women’s voices be heard.
’n Ongekende opkoms van Afrikaner-magnate het die Suid-Afrikaanse
ekonomie die afgelope drie dekades gekenmerk. Dit is veral merkwaardig
in die lig van die regering se omvattende program van swart ekonomiese
bemagtiging. |
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