Embark on a visually stunning journey through Cape Town and experience the spirit of the Mother City first-hand! Cape Town rates as one of the most beautiful cities worldwide - and rightly so. Situated between two oceans and a massive mountain, the Mother City close to the Cape of Good Hope unites urban flair and countryside idyll. But it's not just Cape Town's location that is unique: the potpourri of cultures and a fascinating melange of old and new make the metropolis at Africa's southern tip so special. This illustrated book captures the diversity in exciting pairs and takes you directly to Cape Town's sights and most interesting places. Expert texts and large-format photos arouse wanderlust and curiosity about the city at the foot of the Table Mountain and inspire even locals to go on discovery tours. Like no other, Alain Proust portrays the different faces of his home of choice. With impressive landscape photos and panoramas he shows the beauty of nature, takes a look at the streets, the alleys and the people of Cape Town. With artistic sensitivity and an extraordinary sense for detail he captures social differences as well as the colours and flavours of South African cuisine. Text in English and German.

Four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion Alain Prost is one of the best racing drivers of all time. Having discovered karting at the age of 14 during a family holiday, Prost progressed through motorsport's junior ranks, winning the French and European Formula Three championships, before joining the McLaren Formula One team in 1980 at the age of 24. In his six seasons with McLaren, Alain Prost won 30 races and three driving titles and in 1985 he became the first French World Champion. In 1986 he became the first back-to-back champion since Jack Brabham 26 years earlier. In 1987, his 28th Grand Prix victory beat Jackie Stewart's 14-year-old record. However, in 1988 his brilliant new team mate Ayrton Senna won eight races and the driving title. Thus began the sensational rivalry that conspired to push two of the sport's greatest drivers to unprecedented heights of success and controversy, and the most bitter feud in Formula One history.

Despite being South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria has often played a supporting role to bold and brash Johannesburg and Cape Town’s cosmopolitan charms. However, when it comes to architectural heritage, the ‘Jacaranda City’ is well-endowed.

From the skyline-dominating Union Buildings and Voortrekker Monument, to the imposing edifices that make up its administrative precincts, Pretoria might almost be deserving of a second moniker: the city of sandstone, brick and granite. But when you look beyond the impressive façades, soaring columns and linear planes of buildings that were intended to convey power and authority, you’ll find light-filled interiors embellished with decorative touches that are only hinted at from the pavement. Murals, mosaics, domes, galleries, stained glass windows, gleaming brass and impressive woodwork are often hidden from view behind doors that are closed to the public. Even those museums, buildings and places of worship that are open to all have architectural and design features that are easily overlooked unless they’ve been pointed out.

The history of the city and, often, the country too, has been played out in many of the places featured in Hidden Pretoria. This story of our shared heritage deserves to be captured for a new generation so that they recognize the value in the built environment and the need to preserve the past in order to protect the future.

The Karoo is big sky country; a land of vast plains punctuated by flat-topped mountains, conical hills and secluded valleys, a land of scrubby bushes and hardy trees, where pioneers carved roads out of rock to set down roots in an unforgiving environment.

Here dreams are born, legends are made, and outcasts find sanctuary. It is also an ancient place, whose story is revealed through geology, fossils and artefacts, and whose human lineage predates any written history. Today, the people who inhabit it must manifest the same fortitude that sustained those who left their footprints in the primieval mud.

In Hidden Karoo you will find all this, and more. Through a series of superb photo-essays, this majestic place is revealed as a land where conservation and neglect are seldom far apart, where one town boasts splendidly restored buildings, while along a dusty road lie forgotten villages waiting for... something. Could it be a renewal, or a slow death? There’s nothing novel about the movement of people from country to city, and the Karoo mimics other parts of the world where rural areas become derelict as they are depopulated.

Hidden Karoo presents a snapshot of the region, offering a glimpse into towns and villages, farms and churches, public buildings and private homes, all against a backdrop of awe-inspiring landscapes. Through words and pictures, it prompts us to consider what was, what is and, perhaps, what might be. One constant about the Karoo is change. A book can do no more than capture a moment in time or depict fragments of a place, but in doing so, it bears witness to the past and offers the hope that there may yet be a future for this unparalleled part of our country.