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Books > Biography > General
This timely memoir-cum-guide includes the insights of black women at various stages of their career as they navigate the pitfalls of the corporate world.
A performance review of the working world introduced to the young women reveals issues such as racism, sexism, ethnic chauvinism, ageism, and sexual harassment that many encounter with naivety.
When technical expertise and hard work are not the issue, how do black women make the most of their efforts and support each other to success?
’n Baie lang brief aan my dogter is Marita van der Vyver, een
van Afrikaans se mees geliefde skrywers, se ontroerende
jeugmemoir. Dit is 'n speurtog deur die skrywer se beginjare,
maar dit is ook ’n liefdesbrief aan ’n dogter en ’n taal en ’n land. En
bowenal is dit ’n ma se poging om sin te maak van hierdie onverskillige
en wrede wêreld waarin sy haar nou begewe.
Paris Nights: My Year at the Moulin Rouge opens with a bored
twenty-seven-year old Cliff Simon staring out at the ocean from his
beachfront house, wishing he was somewhere else. Gavin Mills
telephones him from Paris inviting him to join him at the iconic
Moulin Rouge. Cliff sells everything he owns, leaving Johannesburg,
South Africa for the City of Lights. He learns that his spot at the
Moulin is not guaranteed and is forced to audition. Making the
grade, he is put into can can school before he is allowed into the
company. His adrenaline is pumping from excitement and fear, both
of which he has faced before. Taking a look back, we see
twelve-year-old Cliff helming a racing dinghy in the midst of a
thunderstorm on the Vaal River. His father yells at him not to be a
sissy, and he brings the boat back to shore alone. We then travel
to London with his family escaping the tumult of Apartheid. He
trains for the Olympics, but drops out, enrolling in the South
African military where he subjected to harsh treatment and name
calling Fokken Jood. After a honorable discharge, he works in
cabaret at seaside resorts and is recruited as a gymnast in a
cabaret, where he realizes that the stage is his destiny. The
memoir fast forwards to Cliffs meteoric rise at the Moulin from
swing dancer to principal in Formidable. Off stage he gets into
fights with street thugs, hangs out with diamond smugglers, and has
his pick of gorgeous women. With a year at the Moulin to his
credit, doors open for him internationally and back in South
Africa. He earns a starring role in Egoli: Place of Gold, and
marries his long-time girlfriend, Colette. On their honeymoon to
Paris, Cliff says, Merci Paris for the best year of my life.
The book contains stories on various subjects, starting with the
contemplations of passengers in an airplane during a fictitious
flight on various situations in their life, through the memories
captured by ZS during his study and work, as well as stories based
on pub talks and on the imagination of the author.
Ses jaar ná die verskyning van Bloedvreemd vertel Juliana Coetzer wat
hét geword van haar dogter, Anneke. In Bloedvreemd vertel die skrywer
hoe Anneke op sewejarige ouderdom ’n virus opgedoen wat haar brein
aangetas het, en geleidelik het sy verstandelik begin agteruitgaan. Die
werklikheid het egter nie stilgestaan nie. Ses jaar ná die boek vra
mense steeds – wat het geword van julle? Is Anneke oukei? Hoe maak ’n
mens met die voortdurende verlies, die agteruitgang?
Juliana Coetzer is ook ’n terapeut. Met 'n skreiend eerlike stem wat
voortdurend selfondersoek doen, skryf Juliana oor die verdere reis met
Anneke, nou al in haar vroeg dertigs. Sy kan al hoe minder praat, al
hoe minder verstaan, en steeds probeer sy haar onafhanklikheid behou.
Sover Juliana en haar eggenoot, Fanus, daartoe in staat is, probeer
hulle haar omhul in ’n wêreld met embarming en begrip. Maar elke dag
(en nag) bring sy eie, eindelose uitdagings.
Die kind se naam is Anneke is aangrypende leesstof vir enigiemand wat
al pyn/verlies ervaar het. Of jy ’n kind het of nie. En of jy
Bloedvreemd gelees het al dan nie.
Approaching retirement and frustrated with her job, Siobhan Daniels
made a BIG decision: to start living life on her own terms. Rather
than hiding from life's challenges, she bought a motorhome and
drove off to find them. Retirement Rebel is Siobhan's honest and
uplifting story of how one woman stepped off the merry-go-round of
life, slowed down and started enjoying the journey. Of how she sold
up, packed up and hit the roads of the UK with no real plan,
embarking on a positive-ageing adventure and hoping to inspire
women across the country with her message that retirement could
actually be the start of life's adventures. With no shortage of
mishaps and hardships along the way - not least being commanded to
'stay at home' during the Covid lockdowns, despite always being at
home wherever she was - Siobhan's story can inspire us all. Her
message is that we can make simple lifestyle changes to feel
happier and more fulfilled. Because at the end of the day, age
shouldn't be a barrier to having an adventure.
‘Of all the sleep a man can have, the fisherman’s sleep is the
sweetest. It is the greatest of luxuries – sleep and fishing.’
Through tender, vivid, and often humorous recollections – from magical
fishing trips to the rivers and ponds of Bustehrad to his charismatic
father’s eccentric business ventures - this bittersweet memoir tells
the story of a childhood in Czechoslovakia, against the backdrop of
World War II.
The third volume of the Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield
covers the eight months she spent in Italy and the South of France
between the English summers of 1919 and 1920. It was a time of
intense personal reassessment and distress. Mansfield's
relationship with her husband John Middleton Murry was bitterly
tested, and most of the letters in this present volume chart that
rich and enduring partner'ship through its severest trial. This was
a time, too, when Mansfield came to terms with the closing off of
possibilities that her illness entailed. Without flamboyance or
fuss, she felt it necessary to discard earlier loyalties and even
friendships, as she sought for a spiritual standpoint that might
turn her illness to less negative ends. As she put it, 'One must be
... continually giving & receiving, and shedding &
renewing, & examining & trying to place'. For all the
grimness of this period of her life, Mansfield's letters still
offer the joie de vivre and wit, self-perception and lively
frankness that make her correspondence such rewarding reading - an
invaluable record of a `modern' woman and her time.
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