Hoe gemaak as jy vastrapplek moet kry tussen die Hemel en die Hel? Kliek. En jou lewe verander. Onomkeerbaar. So sal Markus Meyer en Regardt Muller, twee avontuurlustige vriende wat ná matriek by die Britse Weermag aansluit en as lede van die gerespekteerde 3 Valskermregiment in Afghanistan diens doen, weldra leer. Dit is egter eers wanneer stilte oor die slagveld neersif en die gevolge van konflik beredder moet word, dat die wáre vegters na vore sal tree. En daardie slagveld is nie noodwendig in ʼn oorlogsgeteisterde gebied waar die droë hitte iets lewendigs is nie; soms lê dit ook tussen kamerade, gesinslede en verál midde-in die liefde. Want selfs ʼn soen is by tye ʼn landmyn wat afgetrap word ...

Vegters is die merkwaardige verhaal van uitdaging, lojaliteit en deursettingsvermoë. ʼn Verhaal wat die leser deur drie valleie sal neem: van die Gamtoosvallei in die Oos-Kaap na die Sanginvallei langs die Helmandrivier in Afghanistan, tot die Vallei van ʼn Duisend Heuwels in KwaZulu-Natal waar die wêreldbekende Dusi-kanomarathon die twee vriende tot die uiterste sal beproef. Wees gereed om oorbluf te word. Hierdie boek is nie 'n Sondagmiddagpiekniek nie - dis `n ontsnappingsroete deur `n slagplaas. Vegters moet nie verwar word met 'n hedendaagse oorlogboek nie. Die kontraste tussen die drie wêrelde in die teks is hemelsbreed.

Die leser word gelawe met die idiliese Gamtoosvallei, net om weer om sy gemaksone geruk te word na die hel van 'n oorloggeteisterde Afghanistan. Nog min het twee werelde so baie verskil waar die skrywer dit regkry om beide te versoen. 'n Nuwe blik word gegee oor die oorlog in Afganistan, uit die oogpunt van twee Afrikaanse soldate in die Britse leer. Dis'n verhaal van hoop en versoening. Dis mooi. Dis bitter. Dis `n emosionele wipplankrit. Daar is oomblikke van teerheid,maar voor jy te gemaklik raak, word jy aan die bek geruk deur die twee hoofkarakters se ervarings in Afghanistan. Maar dat dit jou gaan by bly en uit jou gemaksone ruk, is gewis.

Redigeerder Louis Esterhuizen - ”Hierdie werk is by verre een van die mees indrukwekkende tekste wat ek tot nog toe die voorreg gehad het om te hanteer.”

'Brilliantly funny ... the best satire of our contemporary nightmare that you will ever see, and very possibly the last' Alan Moore

It's 2019 and America is ruled over by a billionaire reality TV star. Its media is owned by a transnational class of the shameless and the depraved. And its people have been silently robbed of their wealth, their dignity and their democracy.

In this brave new world, going to see a superhero movie counts as activism, and arguing with the other serfs on social media is political engagement. BUT EVERYTHING'S FINE - as long as you never, ever ask yourself who makes money from the ticket sales and the ratings, or who owns Twitter.

It's 2019 and Jarett Kobek has done the only thing a dissident American novelist can do in those circumstances: he's joined the party and written fantasy novel about an immortal fairy queen and a shadowy billionaire philanthropist sheikh called Dennis.

Hilarious, provocative and unmissable, Only Americans Burn in Hell is the only novel for our certifiably insane times.

After an unexpected and diabolical farewell breakfast conversation with his father, Spud Milton returns to boarding school for his 1993 Matric year, his last as a schoolboy. Armed with a prefects’ tie and a raging libido, Spud soon discovers that being a large(ish) fish in a small pond has its fair share of challenges.

He finds himself embroiled in fighting for his own room, directing a house play where both lead actors refuse to learn their lines, and assisting in Vern Blackadder’s dramatic return from the dead with nothing more than a drip cord and a pair of oven gloves.

Amidst mounting pressure in the classroom and on the cricket field, Spud prepares to face down the most feared and dreaded challenge of them all – finding a date for the Matric dance.

In this hilarious final instalment of the Spud series John van de Ruit brings to a close his savagely funny blow by blow account of the agonies of growing up. The embarrassments, the thrills, the defeats, and the sheer -absurdity of daily life are wittily recorded in Spud’s unique voice as he prepares to make his own exit, pursued by a bear.

As the only daughter, Sylvia Miller of The Tinderbox has always held a special place in her Old Order family, one Adeline Pelham jeopardizes when she shows up at the Millers' Hickory Hollow farm. It isn't that Adeline means to be a threat, but her very existence is a reminder of the painful secret that has so recently upended the Miller household. And with Sylvia and her mother still struggling to come to terms with that news, this is a challenging time to welcome an Englisher--especially this Englisher--into their midst.

Despite the Millers' unexpected hospitality, Adeline is well aware that she's treading on Sylvia's turf, and she feels guilty about doing so when Sylvia is grappling with issues of her own. Not only is Sylvia trying to rebuild her trust in her father, but she's uncertain what to make of her once-promising engagement to Titus Kauffman, who hasn't pursued her since she confronted him. Adeline wishes she could help Sylvia, but she's not sure that either she or Sylvia is ready for that level of closeness in their relationship.

Can God make something good come out of the mistakes of the past? Or does Adeline's arrival mark one too many surprises for the Millers and their Amish community?

The Girl Who Reads on the Métro is the French phenomenon by Christine Féret-Fleury ready to charm book-lovers everywhere, for fans of The Little Paris Bookshop and The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

When Juliette takes the métro to her loathed office job each morning, her only escape is in books – she avidly reads on her journey and imagines what her fellow commuters’ choices might say about them.

But when, one day, she decides to alight the train a few stops early and meets Soliman – the mysterious owner of the most enchanting bookshop Juliette has ever seen – she is sure her life will never be the same again . . .

For Soliman also believes in the power of books to change the course of a life – entrusting his passeurs with the task of giving each book to the person who needs it most – and he thinks Juliette is perfect for the job.

And so, leaving her old life behind, Juliette will discover the true power a book can have . . .

Bestselling novelist Tracie Peterson joins Karen Witemeyer, Regina Jennings, and Jen Turano in this collection of four novellas, each featuring a Harvey Girl heroine. From Kansas to Texas, the Grand Canyon to New Mexico, the stories cross the country with tales of sweet romance and entertaining history.

In Karen Witemeyer's 'More Than a Pretty Face,' a young woman works her hardest to escape poor choices from her youth. Tracie Peterson offers 'A Flood of Love,' where reuniting with an old flame after more than a decade offers unexpected results. Regina Jennings's 'Intrigue a la Mode' delights with a tale of a young woman determined to help support her family, despite warnings of danger nearby. And Jen Turano's 'Grand Encounters' heads to the Grand Canyon with a tale of a society belle intent on finding a new life for herself.

A new story of common wisdom from the bestselling author of The Traveler's Gift.
Orange Beach, Alabama is a simple town filled with simple people. But like all humans
on the planet, the good folks of Orange Beach have their share of problems -
marriages teetering on the brink of divorce, young adults giving up on life, business
people on the verge of bankruptcy, as well as the many other obstacles that life
seems to dish out to the masses.

Fortunately, when things look the darkest - a mysterious man named Jones has a
miraculous way of showing up. An elderly man with white hair, of indiscriminate age
and race, wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt and leather flip flops carrying a battered
old suitcase, Jones is a unique soul. Communicating what he calls "a little
perspective," Jones explains that he has been given a gift of noticing things that
others miss. "Your time on this earth is a gift to be used wisely," he says. "Don't
squander your words or your thoughts. Consider even the simplest action you take,
for your lives matter beyond measure…and they matter forever."

Jones speaks to that part in everyone that is yearning to understand why things
happen and what we can do about it.

Like The Traveler's Gift, The Noticer is a unique narrative is a blend of fiction,
allegory, and inspiration. Gifted storyteller Andy Andrews helps us see how becoming
a "noticer" just might change a person's life forever.

'Smart and funny' Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things

The first step was learning to read, but if she really wants to turn her life around, Maggsie is going to have to trust other people – and that might just be the hardest lesson she’s ever faced . . .

Small and dyslexic, with a short fuse, bad teeth, a prison record and something to prove, Marguerite McNaughton – Maggsie – doesn't need anybody or anything, thank you very much. She's more than capable of looking after herself.

She’s also about to discover that everyone needs someone, sometimes.
Even her.

The thing about trusting others, though, is that not everyone is trustworthy . . .

It starts when a fellow inmate gives Maggsie reading lessons. Then she's offered a job in London as a kitchen assistant, together with supported accommodation and a colleague who seems determined to befriend Maggsie, no matter what.

At first, Maggsie is convinced nothing will change.
Especially her.

But maybe this time can be different? Maybe Maggsie can be different – if she can just put her previous mistakes behind her and her trust in the right people.

Maggsie McNaughton's Second Chance, by Frances Maynard, is an uplifting, heartwarming novel about the power of friendship and the written word, perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Home, Three Things about Elsie and Elizabeth is Missing.

Curl up by the fire this holiday season with a timeless Christmas tale.

Perhaps no Christmas novel is more beloved by readers than Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol-the Victorian story of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. This giftable edition of Dickens's 1843 work will delight those who already know the perennial classic, as well as any collector of beautiful case-bound books.

Additionally, this collector's edition will include shorter, lesser-known works by famous authors from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each story and poem has been lovingly selected to celebrate the heart of the season and to gently remind readers of the true meaning of Christmas.

GUARDIAN MUST READ BOOKS OF 2019

AFRICAN BOOK ADDICT MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS 2019

Nudibranch is Irenosen Okojie's second collection of short stories, a follow up to Speak Gargantular which was shortlisted for the 2016 Jhalak Prize and 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize.

The collection focuses on offbeat characters caught up in extraordinary situations - a mysterious woman of the sea in search of love arrives on an island inhabited by eunuchs; dimensional-hopping monks navigating a season of silence face a bloody reckoning in the ruins of an abbey; an aspiring journalist returning from a failed excursion in Sydney becomes what she eats and a darker, Orwellian future is imagined where oddly detached children arrive in cycles and prove to be dangerous in unfamiliar surroundings.

Irenosen Okojie was a recipient of the 2016 Betty Trask Award and in 2015, the Evening Standard named her as one of top debut novelists of the summer for her novel, Butterfly Fish. Her writing has been featured in the Guardian and Observer and has been lauded by the likes of fellow writers such as Rupert Thompson, Ben Okri and Michele Roberts.

When Tom Cutter hires Constantine Shaklin as an engineer in his air freight business, he little realises the extraordinary gifts of his new recruit. Shaklin possesses a religious power which inspires everyone he meets to a new faith and hope for humanity. As Cutter's business grows across Asia, so does Shaklin's fame, until he is widely regarded as a unifying deity. Though he struggles to believe Shaklin is indeed divine, the friendship will transform Cutter's life.

From John Banville, one of the world's greatest writers, comes The Blue Guitar, a story of theft and the betrayal of friendship. Adultery is always put in terms of thieving. But we were happy together, simply happy. Oliver Orme used to be a painter, well known and well rewarded, but the muse has deserted him. He is also, as he confesses, a petty thief; he does not steal for gain, but for the thrill of it. HIs worst theft is Polly, the wife of his friend Marcus, with whom he has had an affair. When the affair is discovered, Oliver hides himself away in his childhood home. From here he tells the story of a year, from one autumn to the next. Many surprises and shocks await him, and by the end of his story, he will be forced to face himself and seek a road towards redemption. Praise for Ancient Light: 'Everything I want from a love story: sexy, convincing, baffling, funny, sad and unforgettable' Evening Standard, Books of the Year 'Illuminating, funny, devastating. A meditation of breathtaking beauty and profundity on love and loss and death' Financial Times John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fifteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature, and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain's most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.

Nuwe plek, nuwe skool, nuwe mense. Ek het my eenkant gehou, net in die middae pinball gespeel by die Griek se kafee op die hoek. Pinball was my ding. My nuwe klasmaats het gesien hoe ek speel.

“Kyk hoe jive die cat daar agter die pinball,” lag die een. “Ek scheme dié Randfontein cat is nie te bad nie.”

Omdat ek ’n soort van pinball wizard was, het hulle my nie so geboelie soos vir my kleinboet Johnny nie.
 
Ná ’n lewe in die skadus neem ’n man stelling in, rewolwer in die hand, om sy allerlaaste misdaad te pleeg.
 
Terwyl hy in ’n donker sitkamer wag, loop sy herinneringe wye draaie: na harde grootwordjare in Randfontein en Germiston se strate, waar selfs jou eie familie jou kon bloedmond slaan. Hy onthou die Suid-Afrika waarin hy opgegroei het: die Castle Lager en Lucky Strikes agter skoolpawiljoene, die seuns met aanvalsgewere op die grens.
 
Vir ’n hierjy soos hy was sy pad reeds vroeg uitgemeet: hoëtroustelle steel, baie Klipdrift, verbeteringskool, daarná die army. En toe sluk Sunnyside se nagklubs en onderwêreld hom in.
 
In André Krüger se aangrypende roman oor familie, verraad en wraak – geskryf in die taal van die straat en die tyd – voer een man ’n uiterste stryd teen sy lotsbestemming.

“I could have guessed that one day I’d hear something I shouldn’t have on that party line. It was one thing listening to the gossip and the small talk that buzzed along its wires all the time, but it was something else to hear, on a hot Saturday morning before you started high school, that your best friend’s mother, the woman you wished you could somehow have married one day, was dead.”

Dangerous boyhood memories surface when a letter brings news of Karl’s suicide.

Karl, Max’s enigmatic friend who taught him how to toughen up when he’d first arrived in their small Lowveld town. Karl, whose beautiful mother became the object of Max’s raging teenage obsession.

Her tragic death brought a brutal end to the two boys’ friendship. But why exactly did Karl and his family leave town so soon thereafter?

As Max tries to make sense of what is transpiring, his complicity in the ills of the past begins to gnaw at him.

Due South of Copenhagen is Mark Winkler’s masterful tale of the friendships between men, small-town living during the height of South Africa’s Border War, and about what it takes to put the past to rest.

Shep Knacker has long saved for "The Afterlife": an idyllic retreat to the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Traffic jams on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be replaced with "talking, thinking, seeing, and being"—and enough sleep. When he sells his home repair business for a cool million dollars, his dream finally seems within reach. Yet Glynis, his wife of twenty-six years, has concocted endless excuses why it's never the right time to go. Weary of working as a peon for the jerk who bought his company, Shep announces he's leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her.

Just returned from a doctor's appointment, Glynis has some news of her own: Shep can't go anywhere because she desperately needs his health insurance. But their policy only partially covers the staggering bills for her treatments, and Shep's nest egg for The Afterlife soon cracks under the strain.

Enriched with three medical subplots that also explore the human costs of American health care, So Much For That follows the profound transformation of a marriage, for which grave illness proves an unexpected opportunity for tenderness, renewed intimacy, and dry humor. In defiance of her dark subject matter, Shriver writes a page-turner that presses the question: How much is one life worth?

Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the centuries-old history that binds the two sides of his family.

From the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, where generations of his family served as watchmen, to the lives of British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 leave Cambridge on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue, this tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces that attempt to bridge that divide.

Moving and richly textured, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a poignant portrait of the intricate relationship between fathers and sons, and an unforgettable testament to the stories we inherit and the places we are from.

Political photo-journalist Ester Green has seen many sides of life. She is the daughter of Leon Green, a Jew and one of the most successful newspaper editors in the country, and has learned since childhood that the word is a mighty tool. But everything Ester believes in is turned upside down when her parents are shot dead in front of their home. After the funeral Ester leaves for England where she takes up a job as fashion photographer. She sets about changing her clothes, her style, her life.

Two years later she finds herself back on African soil for a photo shoot on a Lowveld farm. Here she meets Samuel McGreggor, a vet who’s involved with various conservation groups. He’s not afraid to speak his mind and openly criticises big corporations who ignore matters of ecological importance. Samuel believes that South Africa has enough people who want to make a difference. Ester thinks Samuel is naive and involved in a futile struggle. But being a Jew, Ester understands the fact that a person can feel bound to a particular country.

Her road to acceptance is not an easy one. Ester will have to learn how to make peace with a country and its people, her past and a man who refuses to give up hope.

Drie vriendinne gaan hou saam vakansie langs die see. En in 'n oogwink verander 'n jare lange standvastige vriendskap in 'n stormagtige moeras.

Daleen skraap eindelik die moed bymekaar om die waarheid omtrent haar en haar lover, Jan, se verhouding te vertel; Amelia praat laat een aand haar mond verby oor haar affair met 'n getroude man; en Karien - Karien pak haar goed en gaan vroeer terug huis toe.

Want hoe kon haar twee, beste vriendinne haar soveel jare lank 'n rat voor die oe draai?

Dis 'n boek oor vriendskap, oor leuens, geheime, kinders, kilojoules en mans.

A letter among her deceased ex-husband’s belongings rips open Theresa’s world. For years she has turned her back on Theo, a man who spent the last two decades of his life institutionalised, and on their shared past in a country where teenage boys were conscripted to fight on ‘the Border’ in a war that those back home knew little about. Least of all Theresa, who spent her days dreaming of discos and first kisses.

Realising that the letter was written by a Cuban soldier and addressed to his child – who, if still alive, would be at least forty years old – Theresa heads for Cuba: to search for the soldier’s child, to deliver the letter, to atone in some way for Theo’s deeds and for her own ignorance.

In sultry Cuba, amid its picturesque 1950s cars and the fragrant smoke of its cigars, Theresa’s search connects her intimately with those branded ‘the enemy’ during the war in Angola as she begins to unravel what growing up in the South Africa of that time really meant.