Eight-year-old Teko Modise didn’t mean to compete with his father, it was just that he was a soccer natural and everyone could see it. His father, in a fit of childlike jealously, kicked him out of the house, and when Teko tried to come back he kicked him out again. So little Teko made a plan. Every day he attended school as normal, and at night he slept out on the streets with other homeless children. This book is the true story of his rise to fame, to becoming ‘the General’, one of the best footballers South Africa has produced, and will allow readers to understand the story behind ‘the Curse’.

At the peak of his career the world seemed filled with Teko. His face was on every major billboard, TV advert and magazine cover in the country. Little boys from suburbs to townships everywhere were lining up at barbershops asking for The Teko haircut. With a house in Sandton and driving an Aston Martin, Modise was about to make history in the upcoming Soccer World Cup of 2010. He had gone beyond being football royalty, he became a super star. The tabloids have called him an abusive lover, a cheating ex-husband, a neglectful father and an alcoholic egotistical footballer. But beyond these headlines is a story about a boy who played his way out of poverty on talent alone.

Be inspired by this story of a young man with a resilient spirit who kept moving forward chasing his dreams, who not only survived, but made it, and made it big. The Teko Modise story is proof that anything is possible.

Bones and Bodies is a highly accessible account of the establishment of the scientific discipline of biological anthropology. Alan G Morris takes us back over the past century of anthropological discovery in South Africa and uncovers the stories of individual scientists and researchers who played a significant role in shaping perceptions of how peoples of southern Africa, both ancient and modern, came to be viewed and categorised both in the public imagination and the scientific literature.

Morris reveals how much of the earlier anthropological studies were tainted with the tarred brush of race science. He evaluates the works of famous anthropologists and archaeologists such as Raymond Dart, Thomas Dreyer, Matthew Drennan and Robert Broom, and demonstrates through a wide array of sources how they described their fossil discoveries through the prism of racist interpretation. Morris also shows how modern anthropology tried to rid itself of the stigma of these early racist accounts. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ronald Singer and Phillip Tobias introduced modern methods into the discipline that disputed much of what the public believed about race and human evolution.

In an age in which the authority of experts and empirical science is increasingly being questioned, this book shows the battle facing modern anthropology to acknowledge its racial past but also how its study of human variation remains an important field of enquiry at institutions of higher learning.

In Years of Fire and Ash: South African Poems of Decolonisation, fifty years of protest poetry are brought together in a single volume by literary critic and lecturer Dr Wamuwi Mbao. The animating impulse behind this collection of old and new voices is ‘decolonisation’, a term which has regained prominence over the last few years. It allows us to perceive how different South African poets have placed their work in the world, and how that work might relate to the struggle for radical social transformation. How, then, does decolonization look like in the world of South African poetry? This anthology is an attempt to answer that question.

The poems express the thoughts and experiences of poets who experienced Apartheid, but also of those who address current political realities. This collection includes established voices as well as prominent Emmanuel Taban is one of contemporary poets.

The remarkable, and often touching, friendship between Winston Churchill and Jan Smuts is a rich study in contrasts.

In youth they occupied very different worlds: Churchill, the rambunctious and thrusting young aristocrat; Smuts, the ascetic, philosophical Cape farm boy who would go on to Cambridge. Brought together first as enemies in the Anglo-Boer War, and later as allies in the First World War, the men forged a friendship which spanned the first half of the twentieth century and endured until Smuts’s death in 1950. Richard Steyn, author of Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness, examines this close friendship through two world wars and the intervening years, drawing on a maze of archival and secondary sources including letters, telegrams and the voluminous books written about both men.

This is a fascinating account of two remarkable men in war and peace: one the leader of the Empire, the other the leader of a small fractious member of that Empire who nevertheless rose to global prominence.

Portchie is een van Suid-Afrika se suksesvolste kunstenaars, maar wie is die man wat agter die skilderye skuil? Waar kom die naam Portchie vandaan? En hoe en wanneer het Jan Hendrik Viljoen van die klein dorpie Tweeling in die Vrystaat, aangemeld om die wêreldbekende kunstenaar Portchie te word? Hierdie memoir kombineer Portchie se inspirerende verhaal met foto’s, staaltjies en selfs resepte. Dit vertel die storie agter die storie: onopgesmuk, sonder tierlantjies, maar met ’n tikkie flair.

Huiskos is Herman Lensing se sesde kookboek en volg op die uiters suksesvolle Dit Proe Soos Huis, wat in 2019 verskyn het en in 2020 benoem is deur die SA Boekpryse vir beste niefiksieboek.

Huiskos vertel – in sy eie woorde – die storie van Herman se 34 jaar op hierdie aarde. Anders as in sy ander boeke deel hy hierdie keer ook resepte wat hy by sy vriende leer ken het en by mense op vele reise deur Suid-Afrika.

Huiskos bevat meer as 80 resepte, van ontbyt tot hoofgeregte, van bykosse tot vleisgeregte, van koeke, koekies en beskuit tot nageregte (soos trifle, roomys en selfs basaarpoeding). Elke hoofstuk weerspieël Herman se liefde vir kos en vir mense, met staaltjies waarin jy jou kan verkneukel. Dis alles pretensielose resepte met bestanddele wat jy van Pretoria tot in Pofadder kan kry.

Huiskos is nes jy Herman se kombuis ken: kos wat almal kan saamkook.

Herman Mashaba rose from humble beginnings to become one of South Africa’s wealthiest and best-known entrepreneurs, as well as Mayor of Johannesburg.

His remarkable story begins in a small village in Gauteng, where we meet the cocky youngster who refused to settle for a future that offered nothing. Forced to drop out of university, the determined young man fought to establish the first black-owned haircare company in South Africa. Mashaba struggled every day of his life – against apartheid, with its demeaning laws, and against his competitors to grab market share for his business. In the process, Mashaba learnt lessons that few business schools teach today.

This is a story of survival, and of determination in adversity. It is also a love story between Herman and Connie, his wife of 35 years, who embarked on this journey together. Mashaba shows the importance of having a vision, daring to dream it, and then making it happen. This inspiring book will leave you with the question: “If he did it, why can’t I?”

Op 3 Oktober 1987 het Charlie-eskadron – die ystervuis van 61 Gemeganiseerde Bataljongroep – die kritieke geveg tussen die Suid-Afrikaanse Weermag en die Angolese magte op die Lombarivier in die suide van Angola gelei. Dié boek plaas die leser in die midde van die jong dienspligtiges wat na die Grensoorlog weggevoer is om hierdie geveg te gaan voer.

Langs die Lomba het hulle te staan gekom teen ’n Angolese mag met ’n getalsoorwig en beter wapentuig. Boonop was die terrein so dig bebos dat hul sig en beweging aansienlik ingeperk is. Die SAW se taktiese doktrine het duidelik gestel dat tenks teen tenks aangewend moes word. Tog moes die dienspligtiges die Angolese tenks aanvat in pantservoertuie met minder kragtige kanonne en dun pantser wat nie veel meer as gewone geweervuur kon afweer nie. Steeds is 47 Brigade van die Angolese magte amper uitgewis tydens die geveg aan die Lomba.

Scholtz se beskrywing van hierdie David-teen-Goliath-geveg neem die leser na die hart van die aksie. Danksy onderhoude met veterane en dagboekinskrywings dra hierdie eerlike, intense hervertelling die volle drama van die geveg oor. Dit is ook ’n diep menslike verhaal oor hoe individue reageer in die aangesig van die dood en hoe die oorlog hulle nooit uit sy kloue gelaat het nie, selfs nadat hulle teruggekeer het.

‘I share to normalise talking about those shameful, hurtful things we keep hidden. I share because shame loses its power when we find safe spaces to share our truth … and when women heal, generations heal.’

To her thousands of fans, Wisdom & Wellness founder, speaker and influencer Mpoomy Ledwaba is a symbol of strength and women empowerment. But going from university dropout to Forbes magazine’s list of 30 Under 30 wasn’t always easy – it took a lot of courage and a commitment to personal growth.

How Did We Get Here? is her coming-of-age story. Looking back on her upbringing, major milestones and the challenges she’s faced, Mpoomy takes us on her journey of self-discovery. Behind the Instagram likes and thousands of YouTube subscribers is a bright girl who sometimes bit off more than she could chew. This mother of two, who is married to an award-winning musician, didn’t always have a plan and rarely fitted the mould of ‘the good wife’.

In this frank account, Mpoomy writes openly about the hurt she’s experienced, the mistakes she’s made and some of the hard truths she’s had to learn about life, but also about how her faith has been a guiding light. As a firm believer in the power of stories, she uses her personal history to show how to live a purposeful life on all levels.

The Soul of a Lion, an engaging memoir by Willie Labuschagne, is an exhilarating journey which begins with the young conservationist’s unique experiences with wild animals. From his groundbreaking research on the desert cheetah’s behaviour and ecology to becoming an internationally respected consultant on environmental and wildlife-related issues, he holds the reader’s attention with all the skill of the master storyteller.

The numerous occasions when Willie faced potentially life-threatening situations with wild animals are vividly recounted, many of them wryly humorous while others evoke deep emotion. But not all animal encounters took place in the wild. A significant and poignant encounter that further inspired Willie’s approach to conservation occurred when, during his time as director of the Johannesburg Zoo, he and his family hand-raised a newborn lion cub that had been rejected by its mother. He recalls the countless obstacles put in his way by the bureaucratic nature of his own species during his tenure at the zoo. But despite numerous challenges he persisted in his goal of transforming and improving zoological institutions.

A moving force behind the changing nature of professionally managed zoological gardens, his book reminds us that, while many of the world’s zoos should be unconditionally closed, progressive modern zoos are becoming increasingly aligned to wildlife conservation: they are vital for ensuring the survival of threatened species.

Willie shares his entertaining and often moving life experiences with warmth and understanding, whether it is sleeping under the stars with the bushmen of the Kgalagadi desert or observing the traditions of the Zulu Royal House. His travels in the African landscape in particular are an exciting panorama of many distinctive habitats, from the relentless desert of the Skeleton Coast in Namibia to the pristine beauty of the Tsitsikamma Forest and the breathtaking vastness of the African bushveld.

Importantly, he is forthright in his view of the critical position of the world we live in and the future it holds for mankind and believes that we are all part of a custodianship which should do everything in its power to protect our fragile environment.

What would you do if you suddenly lost everything? If the business you’ve put your heart and soul into is gone overnight? This question became a reality for many entrepreneurs whose businesses were destroyed during the looting of July 2021.

Alef Meulenberg travelled into the heart of townships like Alexandra in Johannesburg and the deep rural settings of KwaZulu-Natal to follow ten entrepreneurs who built businesses from nothing, nurtured and grew them over the years, only to lose everything during this time.

In The Overcomers Alef provides us with each of these entrepreneurs’ stories – where they come from, what they do, what happened during the looting and how they recovered from such a devastating event. And, importantly, Alef writes about the dreams of these remarkable entrepreneurs and their plans to grow their businesses going forward. These stories about hardship, resilience, determination and hope are the backdrop for valuable lessons for all of us, in both business and life.

Let’s learn from those who have come out on the other side. Let us learn from the overcomers.

Anger, hurt, loss, rejection … these feelings are familiar to the families who, in the early 1970s, were forced from their homes in Harfield Village in Cape Town’s southern suburbs. Siona O’Connell brings their stories to light. She examines the lost ways of life, the sense of home and belonging.

David Brown’s images show what life was like in Harfield before the removals, and his images are echoed by recent photos of the same former residents.

This guidebook presents 75 day walks of 1km to 26km in South Africa's Maloti-Drakensberg Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Located in KwaZulu Natal and easily accessible from Johannesburg, Harrismith, Pietermaritzburg and Durban, the region boasts dramatic cliffs, gorges and waterfalls, abundant wildlife and 2,000 year old rock paintings.

The walks in this book can be undertaken at any time of year. The limitations imposed by adverse weather conditions can occur in any month. However, snow is most common in June and July and there are frequent and sometimes severe thunderstorms in summer. The key centres for the walks are the entrances to the individual areas of the Park and usually have nearby accommodation of all types. They include the Royal Natal National Park, Cathedral Peak, Monk's Cowl, Injisuthi, Giant's Castle, Highmoor, Kamberg, Lotheni, the Himeville and Underberg districts, plus Bushman's Nek.

An outrageous miscellany of lies, myths, untruths, fibs and fabrications that tell the woeful history of South Africa. Aimed at offending and entertaining everyone in equal measure, this will have South Africans sniggering and spluttering into their cornflakes. It will also pique their curiosity.

The lies come thick and fast, like a burst sewerage pipe. Way, way back the Europeans ‘discovered’ southern Africa and found a land that was largely uninhabited. Um, no. On the other hand, Africa was a paradise before the settlers pulled in. Not quite!

Back in the darkest of ages (the 1970s), citizens were told that there were Satanic messages if you played Beatles songs backwards. During the civil war in Angola, there were no South African troops in that country. National icon Hansie Cronje was a paragon of virtue and integrity … until he wasn’t. President Nelson Mandela told us that we, as a nation, were ‘special’.

Turns out we aren’t.

After hitting a brick wall in both his business and personal life in 2006, Pepe Marais discovered his purpose on which he rebuilt all aspects of his life over the course of the next fourteen years. The results of his purposeful approach to life have been nothing short of spectacular and in this, his second book, Pepe once again sets out to deliver on his personal purpose: to bring out the best in those around him.

The life lessons that Pepe provides in 20 Habits That Break Habits are based on Aristotle’s insight that we are what we repeatedly do, and that excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit. Through his own experience, Pepe has learnt that there are two kinds of habits: those that limit us and those that liberate us. And in order to eradicate a limiting habit, you simply have to replace it with a liberating one.

Throughout this book, Pepe shares some of his own most limiting habits that held him back over the course of his journey, and the liberating habits he replaced each of them with in order to create a significant breakthrough in his own life. From turning wine into water, to replacing television with the kitchen table, if a book could come with a warning sign, then this one should.

Because … it may just change your life!

Nataniël vier 20 jaar as Kaalkop-rubriekskrywer met hierdie nuwe versameling van sy gewilde SARIE-rubrieke: 107 Kaalkoppe geskryf vanaf 2012 tot 2021.

Eerlik, persoonlik, nugter, inspirerend, melankolies, hartseer, opgewonde, driftig, simpatiek, verbaas, dwars, reguit en vasbeslote mik hy na elke moontlike emosie.

Met die wêreld op sy kop was daar nog nooit ’n beter tyd vir ’n boek soos dié nie.

Are you ready to rise to the challenge of increasing the metabolic rate and success of your business? The Other End Of The Telescope is a high speed gallop through the absurdities and challenges of getting things done in large companies, and the inherent contradictions in leadership and organisational behaviours that prevent businesses from realising their potential and achieving greater success.

In this collection of thought provoking essays, Ian Russell draws on more than 25 years’ experience of leading and working in large organisations around the world to distil the key themes and challenges confronting big business today. The book tackles key topics such as organisational cholesterol, the loneliness of leadership, human capital strategy failures, performance destroying ‘head offices’ and the ‘myths’ of talent scarcity and the socalled Fourth Industrial Revolution, among others. Each essay pairs a deep understanding of the real world and lessons learned the hard way, with powerful and pragmatic insights on how big business can change the way in which it does things.

Contributions from other notable thought leaders Valter Adão, Richard Mulholland, Happy Ntshingila and Rapelang Rabana add unique voices and insights to Ian’s vibrant and straightforward views. Together they are exactly what is needed to jolt businesses and their leaders into doing things more successfully and thoughtfully. The lightness of Ian’s style makes this a highly readable book, but it does not dilute the impact of his incisive observations and insights.

Passionate, irreverent and challenging, The Other End Of The Telescope will make you think deeply about your business and your career – and your role in both.

We are all on the journey. The hero’s journey is for everyone, and we are the hero in our own story.

Being on the journey is the most human thing we can do – humanity will cease to grow or evolve if we follow the status quo. We live in a world of social media, hyper-connectedness, and convenience, but we are becoming less human the further down the path we go. Stepping into our own journey and finding the guidance and lessons to grow as a person is our destiny. Along the path, we find our mentors and face our trials. We are distracted, and we fail – we are human, after all. In the chaos, we eventually find the balance required to grow. This is a book about facing demons and meeting mages.

The Shepherd and the Beast is about the universal truth that binds us; we are all the same, just on different parts of the same mythological journey.

Tramayne Monaghan went on a journey of heroic proportions, learning how to be a leader from the best and learning lessons from the trials of beasts. Being thrust into leadership positions at a young age, these are the real-life lessons learnt and the steps the reader can take to absorb them.

This is the story of a man trying to find meaning in leading others. This is a story of becoming a leader while discovering the shepherd and the beast …

It is well known that the African National Congress was formed in 1912 and is considered the oldest political organisation on the African continent. What is often not widely known is that the person who founded it was one Pixley ka Isaka Seme, a thirty-year-old black South African from Inanda outside the city of Durban.

What is remarkable about Seme’s achievement in founding the ANC is not only that he succeeded where most had failed at forging black political unity. It is also the speed at which he did it. He had just returned to South Africa from the United Kingdom and the United States of America, where he had been a student since he was a teenager. In slightly over a year the founding conference of the ANC was convened and he was at its helm as the main organiser.

Seme also established a national newspaper, became one of the pioneering black lawyers in South Africa, bought land from white farmers for black settlement right at the time when opposition to it was gaining momentum, became a sought-after adviser and confidant to African royalty, and was considered a leading visionary for black economic empowerment. And yet, when he became president general of the ANC in the 1930s, he brought it to its knees through sheer ineptitude and an authoritarian style of leadership. On more than one occasion he was found guilty for breaching the law, which partly led to him being struck off the roll of attorneys.

This book discusses in detail Seme’s extraordinary life, from his humble beginnings at Inanda Mission to his triumphs and disappointments across the continents, in his public and private life. When Seme died in 1951 he was bankrupt and his political standing had suffered greatly. And yet he was praised as one of the greatest South Africans ever to have lived. For all this, he has largely been forgotten. This biography brings the remarkable life of this extraordinary South African back to public consciousness.

At the opening of South Africa's first democratic parliament in 1994, newly elected president Nelson Mandela issued a clarion call to an unlikely group: white Afrikaans women, who during apartheid occupied the ambivalent position of being both oppressor and oppressed. He conjured the memory of poet Ingrid Jonker as `both an Afrikaner and an African' who `instructs that our endeavours must be about the liberation of the woman, the emancipation of the man and the liberty of the child'. More than two decades later, the question is: how have white Afrikaans-speaking women responded to the liberating possibilities of constitutional democracy?

With Afrikaner nationalism in disrepair, and official apartheid in demise, have they re-imagined themselves in opposition to colonial ideas of race, gender, sexuality and class?

Sitting Pretty explores this postapartheid identity through the concepts of ordentlikheid, as an ethnic form of respectability, and the volksmoeder, or mother of the nation, as enduring icon. Issues of intersectionality, space, emotion and masculinity are also investigated.

After centuries of relative isolation, the Karoo – South Africa’s parched heartland – is a latecomer to the tourist industry. What was once viewed as a harsh and desolate place of limited attraction is rapidly gaining popularity with visitors who now make the Karoo their destination, keen to partake of its legendary charm, its extraordinary flora and the resurgence of wildlife that once again populates its plains.

Wild Karoo documents Mitch Reardon’s 4,000-kilometre journey of discovery through the region. The book focuses on:

• local nature conservation in all its facets
• the game, large and small – some recently reintroduced – plus birds, reptiles and invertebrates
• the unique, arid-adapted flora
• the landscape and geology
• the history and lifestyle of the people who have made a home here
• plans to combine public and private protected land to create wildlife corridors between isolated parks, re-establishing old migration routes and so reversing some of the effects of human settlement

Beautifully written, and illustrated with evocative photographs, this book is a must read for anyone interested in travel, wildlife and the environment.

How to Steal a City is an insider account of this intervention, which lays bare how the administration was entirely captured and bled dry by a criminal syndicate, how factional politics within the ruling party abetted that corruption, and how a comprehensive clean-up was eventually conducted.

It is written as a gripping real-life thriller, taking the reader deeper and deeper into the rotten heart of the city. As a former senior government official and local government “fixer”, Crispian Olver was no stranger to dealing with dodgy politicians and broken organisations. Yet what he found was graft that went far beyond the dodgy contracts, blatant conflicts of interest and garden-variety kickbacks he had seen before. It had evolved into a web far more sophisticated and deep rooted than he had ever imagined, involving mazes of shell companies, assassinations, criminal syndicates, and compromised local politicians. The metro was effectively controlled by a criminal network, closely allied to a dominant local ANC faction. What he found was complete state capture—a microcosm of what has been happening in South Africa’s national government.

But there was a personal price to pay. Intense political pressure and threats to his personal safety took a toll on his mental and physical health. He had to have a full-time bodyguard, and never maintained a regular routine. He eventually lost much of his political cover. Olver ultimately had to flee the city as the forces stacked against him started to wreak their revenge.

This is his story.

In October 2015, the Gupta brothers offered Mcebisi Jonas the position of minister of finance in exchange for R600 million. Then deputy minister of finance, Jonas turned down the bribe and a period of deep introspection followed for him. How did we reach this point, and what did the future hold for South Africa’s democracy and the economy?

In After Dawn, Mcebisi Jonas analyses the crisis at the heart of our current system, which places politics at the centre of policymaking and implementation at the expense of growth. In this important and authoritative book, Jonas first unpacks and analyses the current badlands of the South African economic and political landscape. In the second half, Jonas proposes a series of workable and practical solutions for transitioning South Africa into a growing, job-creating country including:

• Putting inclusive growth at the centre of economic policy;
• rapidly expanding new technological capacities and knowledge to transition to a twenty-first-century economy;
• expanding human capabilities at scale;
• path-changing trade-offs to catalyse the next phase of South Africa’s development;
• nurturing a corruption-free, high-performance state built on meritocracy and innovation; and
• changing the nature of politics.

Time is of the essence and the window of opportunity is narrowing for all South Africans to work together towards the South Africa we all imagined was possible in 1994.

Tales of Two Countries is Ray Dearlove’s third book. He takes the reader through his childhood in apartheid-era South Africa and the turbulent years before Nelson Mandela assumed the presidency in 1994.

Living in Australia for more than thirty years brought its own share of interesting people, events and opportunities. There are many stories about the raw challenges of moving countries. It has some very moving and some very humorous moments, all told in Ray’s discerning and direct style.

Forewords by Tony Park, Jean-Claude van Damme and Andrian Gardner.

Suid-Afrika is groot genoeg vir ’n leeftyd se reise. In Voetspore in Suid-Afrika 2 kry die Voetsporespan weer die geleentheid om ons land se natuurskoon en gasvryheid te beleef.

Hulle drie maande lange reis begin in Pafuri, in die noordoostelike hoek van Suid-Afrika. Van daar af is dit verby Klaserie, Dullstroom, die Waterberge, die suid-Vrystaat, die Groot-Karoo, die Sederberge, die Weskus, oor die Hottentots-Hollandberge en tot aan die suidpunt van Suid-Afrika: Agulhas. Vrystaatse vlaktes, grootste Drakensberge, Bosveld, Kaapse strande – noem maar op – daar is ’n oorvloed om te geniet. Die langpad in Suid-Afrika roep …

Benewens pragtige foto’s van die mooiste dele van ons land bevat hierdie reisgids ook:

• Name en telefoonnommers van gidse in elke streek
• Akkommodasiebesonderhede
• ’n Paklys
• Afstande tussen dorpe
• Inligting oor beskikbaarheid van vulstasies en gesondheidsorg
• Wetenswaardighede