'I was made in Coffee Bay. Right there on the beach, in the sand.'

From the opening lines, we are drawn in and engrossed by this startling memoir of a singular childhood. Suzan is adopted as a newborn in the late 1960s into a seemingly loving and welcoming family living in Pietermaritzburg. But Suzan is set on a collision course with, most particularly, her adoptive mother, and society, from her very beginning. Suzan's relationship with her mother is fraught with drama, which veers over into a level of emotional abuse and needless cruelty that is shocking.

At the age of thirteen, Suzan is sent to a place of safety as a ward of the state, effectively 'orphaning' her. From there, she spirals out of control – fighting to survive in a world of other neglected, abandoned and abused children. She becomes a 'runner', escaping at every opportunity from her various places of confinement, grabbing her schooling in snatches, living on the edges of a drug and prostitution underworld, finding love wherever she can.

Suzan’s young life was the stuff of movies, but it is her writing, in a voice that is unforgettable and true, that transforms her memories into something magical rarely matched in South African literature. A new classic.

Closing the Gap is an accessible overview of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the impact it is set to have on various sectors in South Africa and Africa. It explores the previous industrial revolutions that have led up to this point and outlines South Africa’s position been through each one.

With a focus on artificial intelligence as a core concept in understanding the 4IR, this book uses familiar concepts to explain artificial intelligence, how it works and how it can be used in banking, mining, medicine and many other fields.

Written from an African perspective, Closing the Gap addresses the challenges and fears around the 4IR by pointing to the opportunities presented by new technologies and outlining some of the challenges and successes to date

The fourth edition of this popular title has been given a completely new look, but it remains the same practical illustrated guide that is a must-have for all gardeners. The text has been updated to incorporate more indigenous species, locally bred hybrids, and waterwise plants, in keeping with changing trends that recognize the importance of gardening in harmony with the natural environment.

The bulk of the book comprises directories that describe over 2000 plants (trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, creepers, bulbs, grasses and roses) with each entry accompanied by symbols that depict the ideal growing conditions, such as water and sun requirements, hardiness to frost, and whether the plant is deciduous, evergreen or flowering.

A brief introduction covers garden planning and design, maintenance, and how to deal with pests and diseases. The book concludes with a handy list of plants, grouped according to their suitability for particular circumstances, such as drought-tolerance, growing in containers, in full or partial shade, or to provide flowers for the vase.

Think Yourself Rich: A Step-by-Step Guide to Financial Independence is aimed at first-timeearners who want to put themselves on the right path to financial independence. It provides an easy-to-understand guide that explains in clear terms how to consciously choose and plan for a debt-free lifestyle and not only survive, but thrive, on the long-term journey towards financial freedom.

The book covers crucial issues about financial planning clearly and succinctly, including:

- Why it is important to get rid of all unnecessary debt as quickly as possible.

- When you should start saving or investing.

- How to plan for emergencies.

- How much and what kind of insurance you need.

- How much of your income you should save.

- How much of your income you should invest.

- Where, how and when you should invest.

Theoretical information about budgets, financial plans and investment (including all important terminology for various investment options) is interwoven with relevant reallife examples and scenarios that will inspire readers to set aside the time to design and write up a proper financial plan – and execute it. Each chapter builds on the previous one to help readers achieve their goals by sticking to their plans. This book will equip readers to take full control of their finances.

“Rebels And Rage is a critically important contribution to public discussion about #FeesMustFall”–Eusebius McKaiser

Adam Habib, the most prominent and outspoken university official through the recent student protests, takes a characteristically frank view of the past three years on South Africa’s campuses in this new book. Habib charts the progress of the student protests that erupted on Wits University campus in late 2015 and raged for the better part of three years, drawing on his own intimate involvement and negotiation with the students, and also records university management and government responses to the events. He critically examines the student movement and individual student leaders who emerged under the banners #feesmustfall and #Rhodesmustfall, and debates how to achieve truly progressive social change in South Africa, on our campuses and off.

This book is both an attempt at a historical account and a thoughtful reflection on the issues the protests kicked up, from the perspective not only of a high-ranking member of university management, but also Habib as political scientist with a background as an activist during the struggle against apartheid. Habib moves between reflecting on the events of the last three years on university campuses, and reimagining the future of South African higher education.

How do you build a new bank from scratch? What does it require to take on the big four – Absa, Standard Bank, FNB and Nedbank – and to win?

In Capitec: Stalking Giants, top-selling business author TJ Strydom tells the gripping tale of a small team of entrepreneurs that in the early 2000’s turned a small microlending network into a challenger bank.

Everywhere she looked, the world was in poor shape. And because she’d quit drinking, she no longer had the comfort blanket of alcohol to tamp down her anxiety. How did sober people stay sane?

In recent times, the self-help industry has exploded into a multi- billion dollar global industry – and along with it has come every imaginable type of therapy, healing or general woo-woo. In the past, Rebecca scoffed at this industry, mocking its reliance on half-baked science and the way it appears to prey on the mentally fragile.

But as she searched for a meaning of life that did not involve booze, she found it increasingly hard to rationalize her default scepticism. This shit really seems to work for some people, she reasoned. And it’s not like I have any particularly solid alternatives.

Rebecca lives in Cape Town, the undisputed epicentre of ‘alternative’ paths to peace and enlightenment in South Africa. She decided that over the course of a year, she would embark on a quest for personal wellness, spiritual enlightenment and good old-fashioned happiness. She was willing, within reason, to try anything. She would open herself to even the most outlandish contemporary fads in self- improvement.

What followed was a twelve-month immersion in the world of auras, chakras, hallucinogenic drugs, sweat lodges, sangomas, past lives and more.

And by the end of it? Maybe she would find some new ways of thinking and living. Or maybe she would emerge with her prejudices untouched.

Either way, it would be a good story.

Veganism is a growing phenomenon on the culinary scene. The South African Vegan Cookbook is the first of its kind locally.

In it you will find everything you need for a vegan lifestyle: from basic information such as the definition of veganism, why it’s good for you, answers to common questions, the essential equipment, vegan alternatives for everyday products, the pantry essentials and resources to learn more. The family-friendly recipes are easy to make and are made from locally-sourced products. This cookbook includes recipes for breakfast, snacks, lunch, tea time, the braai, entertaining and late-nights feasts.

Think decadent chocolate granola and overnight oats, kale chips and cauliflower bites, easy-to-make couscous salad, lasagne and stir-fry as well as South African favourites like milk tart, banana loaf, macaroni-and-cheese and chicken burgers. And to top it all: chocolate mousse, date balls and truffles.

Vegan 101 – good for your health and the planet.

In Dockside Reading, Isabel Hofmeyr traces the relationships among print culture, colonialism, and the ocean through the institution of the British colonial Custom House.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dockside customs officials would leaf through publications looking for obscenity, politically objectionable materials, or reprints of British copyrighted works, often dumping these condemned goods into the water. These practices, echoing other colonial imaginaries of the ocean as a space for erasing incriminating evidence of the violence of empire, informed later censorship regimes under apartheid in South Africa.

By tracking printed matter from ship to shore, Hofmeyr shows how literary institutions like copyright and censorship were shaped by colonial control of coastal waters. Set in the environmental context of the colonial port city, Dockside Reading explores how imperialism colonizes water.

Hofmeyr examines this theme through the concept of hydrocolonialism, which puts together land and sea, empire and environment.

When you next sit down at your local coffee shop, look around you: there may just be a professional hitman sitting at the next table. As author Mark Shaw reveals in this highly original and informative book, the ‘upper world’ sails perilously close to the underworld.

Hitmen For Hire takes the reader on a journey like no other, navigating a world of hammermen (hitmen), informers, rogue policemen, taxi bosses, gang leaders and crooked businessmen. The book examines a system in which contract killings have become the norm, looking at who arranges hits, where to find a hitman, and even what it is like to be a hitman – or woman.

Since 1994, South Africa has witnessed some spectacular underworld killings associated with various industries and sectors. Drawing on over a thousand cases, from 2000 to 2016, Shaw reveals how these murders have an outsized impact on the evolution of both legal and illegal economic activity.

In 1978, the activist and novelist Alex La Guma (1925–1985) published A Soviet Journey, a memoir of his travels in the Soviet Union. Today it stands as one of the longest and most substantive first-hand accounts of the USSR by an African writer. La Guma’s book is consequently a rare and important document of the anti-apartheid struggle and the Cold War period, depicting the Soviet model from an African perspective and the specific meaning it held for those envisioning a future South Africa.

For many members of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, the Soviet Union represented a political system that had achieved political and economic justice through socialism – a point of view that has since been lost with the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. This new edition of A Soviet Journey – the first since 1978 – restores this vision to the historical record, highlighting how activist-intellectuals like La Guma looked to the Soviet Union as a paradigm of self-determination, decolonisation and postcolonial development.

The introduction by Christopher J. Lee discusses these elements of La Guma’s text, in addition to situating La Guma more broadly within the intercontinental spaces of the Black Atlantic and an emergent Third World. Presenting a more expansive view of African literature and its global intellectual engagements, A Soviet Journey will be of interest to readers of African fiction and non-fiction, South African history, postcolonial Cold War studies and radical political thought.

Alex La Guma was a South African novelist, leader of the South African Coloured People's Organisation and a defendant in the Treason Trial, whose works helped characterise the movement against the apartheid era in South Africa.

Rorisang Thandekiso is one of South Africa’s most beloved media personalities. She has contributed to the arts industry in an authentic, memorable way. In Disciple Rorisang takes the reader deeper into her relationship with faith, describing her love for the Word of God and for Jesus. Disciple is an open-hearted, humorous, vulnerable look into the life of a young woman whose love for God spills over into the world.

Here is the Cape Town underworld laid bare, explored through the characters who control the protection industry, the bouncers and security at nightclubs and strip clubs.

At the centre of this turf war is Nafiz Modack, the latest kingpin to have seized control of the industry, a man often in court on various charges, including extortion. Investigative journalist Caryn Dolley has followed Modack and his predecessors for six years as power has shifted in the nightclub security industry, and she focuses on how closely connected the criminal underworld is with the police services. In this suspenseful page turner of an investigation, she writes about the overlapping of the state with the underworld, the underworld with the upperworld, and how the associated violence is not confined to specific areas of Cape Town, but is happening inside hospitals, airports, clubs and restaurants and putting residents at risk.

A book that lays bare the myth that violence and gangsterism in Cape Town is confined to the ganglands of the Cape Flats, wherever you find yourself, you’re only a hair’s breadth away from the enforcers.

Veteran journalist Anton Harber brings all his investigative skills to bear on his very own profession, the media. For two years he conducted dozens of interviews with politicians, journalists, policemen and 'deep throats', before piecing together two remarkable tales.

The first is a chilling story of police death squads, rogue units and renditions, and how South Africa's leading newspaper was duped into doing the dirty work of corrupt politicians. The second starts with a broken and discarded hard drive and evolves, with many near misses, into the exposure of the depths of the Guptas' influence over the ruling party.

Harber's two tales reveal the lows and highs of journalism during an era of state capture. His book is both a disquieting exposé of how easily the media can be duped by a conniving cabal for its own selfish ends, and a celebration of brilliant investigative reporting by brave and ethical journalists.

For most of its existence, the ANC Youth League has played a powerful role in the politics of the ANC, and therefore of South Africa. This book tells the history of the ANC Youth League, from its formation in 1944 to the present day.

The book explores the radicalising role played by its early leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and O.R. Tambo; the formation of the ANC Youth and Students Section in exile, first led by Thabo Mbeki; the return from exile in the 1990s and the leadership of Peter Mokaba; the controversies around the appointment of Julius Malema and his subsequent sacking; and the absence of Youth League leadership in the #FeesMustFall movement and current South African politics. Finally, the book considers the role that the Youth League should play in the future.

This is a fascinating glimpse into a vital and volatile institution in South African politics.

'When I’m dead, you make sure that ordinary people, ordinary rural women, must be at the forefront of my funeral. I want my rural women to be there at the forefront: people that know me well.’

With great care and meticulous research, Kally Forrest brings us the life of Lydia Komape, also known as Mam Lydia Kompe. Kally travels in Lydia’s footsteps, with family, friends, comrades and ancestors from Limpopo and Johannesburg to Cape Town where Lydia sat in Nelson Mandela’s parliament.

Her family’s shattering loss of land in the 1930s deeply impacted Lydia’s life choices. She was fiercely independent, yet bound by the collective, forceful but consultative, humorous and deeply serious.

Lydia closely identified with rural women, remarking, ‘We are so discriminated against, but we are made to work like donkeys. We do all the dirty work – you must go and plough, hoe, harvest, carry water, fetch wood, and men are just sitting drinking alcohol under the tree.’

This is a biography that will open your eyes and heart.

South Africans often are deeply polarised in our perspectives of the present and the past. Our ‘ways of seeing’ are fraught with division, and we fail to understand the complexities when we do not see what lies beneath the surface.

There is no denying that the Jacob Zuma presidency took a significant toll on South Africa, exacerbating tensions and exposing the deep fractures that already exist in our society along the lines of race, class and even ethnicity. The Zuma years were marked by cases of corruption and state capture, unprecedented in their brazenness, and increased social protests – many of which were accompanied by violence – aggressive public discourse, lack of respect for reason and an often disturbing resistance to meaningful engagement.

Importantly, those years also placed enormous pressure on our democratic institutions, many of which still bear the scars, and challenged the sovereignty of the Constitution itself.

As an analyst and governance specialist at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) for twelve years, February has had a unique perch. Turning and turning is a snapshot of her IDASA years and the issues tackled, which included work on the arms deal and its corrosive impact on democratic institutions, IDASA’s party-funding campaign, which February helped lead, as well as work on accountability and transparency.

Combining analytical insight with personal observations and experience, February highlights the complex process of building a strong democratic society, and the difficulties of living in a constitutional democracy marked by soaring levels of inequality. There is a need to reflect on and learn from the country’s democratic journey if citizens are to shape our democracy effectively and to fulfill the promise of the Constitution for all South Africans.

Patrick Watson is currently South Africa’s most innovative and versatile landscape architect. Known for designing extensive mega-sites, such as Sun City and an entire Indian Ocean Island, he is also the creator of exquisite small gardens in private homes and quiet spaces for reflection, such as the Apartheid Museum and the Garden of Hope at St George’s Anglican Church in Parktown, Johannesburg.

In all he does, he combines artistic intuition with extensive botanical knowledge and a deep concern for the conservation and restoration of nature. His projects are creative, fresh with inspiration, and often bold, and he uses plants, colours, landforms and space to create visual and emotional experiences.

Covering 23 gardens and landscapes, and richly supported by sensitive photography and some specially commissioned artworks, the book is a beautiful record of a remarkable local talent, a visionary whose art is informed by nature. It recognises and celebrates the combination of knowledge, skill and instinct that make up the man, and the radical influence he has had on his profession.

Rosie Motene's story is about a young girl born to the Bafokeng nation during the apartheid era in South Africa.

At the time, Rosie’s mother worked for a white Jewish family in Johannesburg who offered to raise the child as one of their own. This generous gesture by the family created many opportunities for Rosie but also a trail of sacrifices for her parents. As she grew, Rosie struggled to find her true identity.

She had access to the best of everything but as a black girl she floundered without her own culture or language. This book describes Rosie’s journey through her fog of alienation to the belated dawning of herself discovery as an African.

Ja, die ketodieet is al lankal bekend; jy het daarvan gehoor maar verstaan die konsep nie heeltemal nie en dink dis te duur. Of miskien het jy dit getoets maar is oorweldig deur ’n oorvloed dikwels teenstrydige inligting en het jy moed opgegee. Miskien volg jy dit noukeurig maar het jy nuwe inspirasie nodig. Daar kom in elk geval altyd nuwe inligting na vore. Ná die wegholsukses van sy eerste boek twee jaar gelede, Living the Ultimate Keto Lifestyle, het Hendrik Marais besluit dis tyd om die ketogeniese leefstyl aan selfs meer mense bekend te stel, terwyl hy aanhangers terselfdertyd ’n vereenvoudigde uiteensetting van die jongste neigings en ’n volledige stel maklike en smaaklike resepte wou bied.

Keto Lifestyle: Maklik is presies dit: ’n Gids vir die implementering van ’n ketogeniese dieet en periodieke vas – met maaltydplanne wat eenvoudig is om te volg – wat sinvol asook begroting- en beurtkragvriendelik is, en met al die truuks om tyd te bespaar. Jy sal mal wees oor die geurige resepte en selfs maniere vind om jou vriende te onthaal met spyskaarte wat by hierdie leefstyl inpas. Maar daar’s soveel meer: inligting oor voedingswaarde, en raad oor oefening en maniere om jou motivering te handhaaf.

In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town demanded the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist, racist business magnate, from their campus. The battle cry '#RhodesMustFall' sparked an international movement calling for the decolonisation of the world's universities.

Today, as this movement grows, how will it radically transform the terms upon which universities exist? In this book, students, activists and scholars discuss the possibilities and the pitfalls of doing decolonial work in the home of the coloniser, in the heart of the establishment. Subverting curricula, enforcing diversity, and destroying old boundaries, this is a radical call for a new era of education.

Offering resources for students and academics to challenge and resist coloniality inside and outside the classroom, Decolonising the University provides the tools for radical pedagogical, disciplinary and institutional change.

This year we are in for a treat: After 25 years, Madam & Eve is still going strong and are back with more hilarious cartoons looking back at another year of the crazy rollercoaster that is daily life and politics in South Africa. Madam & Eve cartoons appear regularly in the Mail & Guardian, The Star, The Saturday Star, Herald, Mercury, Witness, Daily Dispatch, Cape Times, Pretoria News, Diamond Fields Advertiser, Die Volksblad, EC Today, Kokstad Advertiser and The Namibian.

Only Zapiro can truly capture the craziness and the seriousness of state capture and the Zuma years. WTF is the award-winning and best-selling cartoonist’s definitive, unique and superbly funny record of this rollercoaster time in our history in words and more than 400 brilliant cartoons.

Zapiro’s career has been tightly entwined with the bewildering tale of Jacob Zuma for more than 20 years. He has sharply charted his rise and his fall and everything in between, including the corrupting presence of the Guptas and the destructive cancer of state capture. On two different occasions Jacob Zuma served Zapiro with unfulfilled lawsuits totalling R22 million, claiming his dignity had been infringed, and the cartoonist has been threatened in other ways by senior political figures because of his caustic and brilliant work. Zapiro first drew a showerhead on Zuma in 2006 as a comment on his preposterous evidence during his rape trial that he took a shower after sex to reduce the chance of getting AIDS. That showerhead image stuck in the public imagination, and in Zapiro’s cartoons, and has become a nationally known symbol of the former president.

WTF is sure to be another triumph for our best-loved cartoonist.

Imagine learning from South Africa’s best of the best in their respective fields – be it business, sport, politics, entertainment or philanthropy – and having access to decades of experience in strategic planning, business and change management, human resources development, and the nitty-gritty of building a personal brand that extends to your business and everyone you employ. Look no further than the 200 pages of WIN! Inspiring Interviews with SA’s Top 20 Leaders by Jeremy Maggs.

With 30 years’ experience in journalism, marketing and public speaking, Maggs chooses the best of the best he has interviewed over the years, and succinctly captures their winning ways, business challenges, some spectacular failures and secrets of their trade to reach their ultimate goals – being winners! The book looks at attaining all brands of success – whether it be how one leader runs a multi-billion-dollar company; how another inspires masses of people to follow a trend, or how an idea can spark the innovation of a product so basic yet so integral to a community’s prosperity.

As you read the book, you will realise there are no hard and fast rules to reaching the top rung of the success ladder – there are unique twists and turns, which enrich each leader’s experience; they are faced with make-or-break split-second decisions; some get a lucky break, while others work, fail and work harder to become the cream of the crop. There is a method for each and every business owner, entrepreneur, manager or franchise owner to make their business bigger, better and a bold example of winning success.

Leon Nell’s sixth book to explore another captivating part of South Africa reveals a bounty of treasures that give the West Coast, or Weskus as locals call it, its particular allure.

Beginning at Melkbosstrand just north of Cape Town, and ending where the Orange River meets the Atlantic Ocean, the book divides the coastal stretch into four discrete and easily explored regions. Coastal and inland towns are described, together with their main
attractions, offering glimpses into early human history, local culture and traditions, nature and wildlife, and modern-day economic pursuits.

• SOUTH encompasses the Cape West Coast Biosphere Reserve, various wildflower reserves, Darling, Evita se Perron and !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre
• CENTRAL covers Yzerfontein and the West Coast National Park, including Langebaan Lagoon, Eve’s Footprints, Postberg Flower Reserve and Saldanha
• NORTH explores the celebrated fishing industry at Velddrif, St Helena Bay and Elands Bay, and archaeological discoveries in the area
• DIAMOND COAST spans Doringbaai, Vredendal, Port Nolloth, Kleinzee and Alexander Bay.