100 Best South Africa Books of All Time (Updated for 2026)

1

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah

5.0

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often ab

Recommended by Bill Gates, Heather Zynczak, Irina Nica, and 3 others.

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

As a longtime fan of The Daily Show, I loved reading this memoir about how its host honed his outsider approach to comedy over a lifetime of never quite fitting in. Born to a black South African mother and a white Swiss father in apartheid South Africa, he entered the world as a biracial child in a country where mixed race relationships were forbidden. Much of Noah’s story of growing up in South Africa is tragic. Yet, as anyone who watches his nightly monologues knows, his moving stories will often leave you laughing. [source]

Heather Zynczak

So excited for our latest speaker announcement for #PSLIVE19! Trevor Noah! I am a huge @TheDailyShow fan! And his book -Born a Crime -and life story are amazing. Can't wait! Join us! https://t.co/N6ykJq7TOy https://t.co/r0dIx5RFVI [source]

Irina Nica

I also pay attention to any book recommendations my friends post on Facebook. I started reading Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime after I saw Radu Marcusu, CEO of Upswing, recommending it. He swore by it that is was funny -- and it was! Until the last chapter. I remember listening to the audiobook on a train and crying my eyes out. So yeah. That happened. [source]

2

Long Walk To Freedom

Nelson Mandela

4.7

Preview Summary

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country.

Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring p

Recommended by Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Bianca Belair, and 1 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

Bianca Belair

For #BHM I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 21st Book: Long Walk to Freedom -Nelson Mandela Read about his journey from childhood to the struggles of living under apartheid to becoming a freedom fighter & leader of his country. He is inspirational! https://t.co/bdvZu0kbh0 [source]

3

Disgrace

J.M. COETZEE

4.5

After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding.

For a

Recommended by Justin Cartwright and Kevin Bloom.

Justin Cartwright

The book is a sort of farewell note to South Africa – a Goodbye, I’m off. [source]

Kevin Bloom

This book was written in the late 90s and although it is very difficult – especially with writers like J M Coetzee – to link the work to the man, my personal reading of the book is that it is a work of profound disappointment and sadness. It is all about a fifty-something professor, David Lurie, who teaches at a Cape Town university. He has an affair with a young student – Melanie. He gets hauled before a disciplinary panel and refuses to defend himself. [source]

4

Cry, the Beloved Country

Alan Paton

4.5

Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when

Recommended by Cecile Richards.

Cecile Richards

It’s a novel – I know that was sort of cheating a little bit. [source]

5

The Power of One (The Power of One, #1)

Bryce Courtenay

4.4

In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams, which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstiti

Recommended by Ev Williams.

6

My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience

Rian Malan

4.4

A classic of literary nonfiction, My Traitor's Heart has been acclaimed as a masterpiece by readers around the world. Rian Malan is an Afrikaner, scion of a centuries-old clan and relative of the architect of apartheid, who fled South Africa after coming face-to-face with the atrocities and terrors of an undeclared civil war between the races. This book is the searing account of his return after e

Recommended by Heather Brooke, Kevin Bloom, Murtaza Mohammad Hussain, and 1 others.

Heather Brooke

Perhaps the most important memoir that has ever been published by a white South African. A man who stared into the irreconcilable inner turmoils that are implicit in the condition of African whiteness. [source]

Kevin Bloom

Rian was commissioned by Random House to go and write the story of the history of his clan, but he realised 100 pages in that the story was actually a memoir and it was about his struggle. [source]

Murtaza Mohammad Hussain

This is an amazing book I’d never heard of. I feel it should be read by all Americans but even more so people from countries like Israel that are governed according to a system of racial caste https://t.co/0zSBlWTsY2 [source]

7

Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography

Mark Mathabane

4.3

Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto. Yet Mark did what no physically and psychologically battered "Kaffir" was supposed to dohe escaped to tell about it.

Cover unavailable

8

Waiting for the Barbarians

J.M. Coetzee

4.3

For decades the Magistrate has been a loyal servant of the Empire, running the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement and ignoring the impending war with the barbarians. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he witnesses the Empire's cruel and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Jolted into sympathy for their victims, he commits a quixotic act of rebellion that brands him an enemy of the st

Recommended by Imraan Coovadia.

Imraan Coovadia

Waiting for the Barbarians was the Coetzee book that I was always most attached to – I think it’s the Coetzee book that most South Africans are attached to. Coetzee takes the mood of the 1980s state of emergency – when people were being detained and disappearing and there was a fear of communist or black madness on the borders – and he makes it more interesting by creating this partial allegory of some unnamed empire. The whole point of the book is contained in the title. It’s a bit like The Importance of Being Earnest. It’s a book you can’t imagine with a different title. It’s about a magistrate. He works for the empire, you don’t know what the empire is and you don’t know what century it’s taking place in. The magistrate is trying to administer law and order, he’s trying to be a figure of some kind of justice. And all the time there’s fear that the barbarians are about to invade and take down the empire. All sorts of draconian measures and violations of decency are carried out in the name of emergency. Needless to say, it ends unhappily. There is always a personal subtext in writing and part of the interest in this book is that it’s hard not to see the magistrate, a failed liberal, as a version of John himself. It’s quite a beautiful book, spare and controlled and strange. The opening scene, where he’s talking about seeing his interrogator’s sunglasses for the first time, is unforgettable. Especially if you know that African security police loved wearing sunglasses. I don’t know why. [source]

9

Life and Times of Michael K

J. M. Coetzee

4.3

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience - the need for an interior, spiritual life, for

Recommended by Samantha Harvey.

Samantha Harvey

An absolutely devastating read from the first page, but you can’t put it down. It’s a terrible and beautiful story about a man whose mother is dying. [source]

10

Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa

Antjie Krog

4.3

Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reser

Recommended by Kevin Bloom.

Kevin Bloom

This is an astounding work of nonfiction. Antjie is one of South Africa’s most important Afrikaans poets. This was her first full book-length work of English prose. She worked as a journalist for the South African Broadcasting Corporation at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and she went around the country listening to testimony of victims of apartheid and families of people who had been killed by the apartheid security police. And this book is critical for an understanding of South Africa. [source]

11

Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa

Martin Meredith

4.3

Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced first upon the world's richest deposits of diamonds, and then upon its richest deposits of gold. What followed was a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land,

12

A Dry White Season

Andre Brink

4.3

As startling and powerful as when first published more than two decades ago, André Brink's classic novel, A Dry White Season, is an unflinching and unforgettable look at racial intolerance, the human condition, and the heavy price of morality.

Ben Du Toit is a white schoolteacher in suburban Johannesburg in a dark time of intolerance and state-sanctioned apartheid. A simple, apolitical man, he beli

13

No Future Without Forgiveness

Desmond Tutu

4.2

The establishment of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a pioneering international event. Never had any country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy both by exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors. At the center of this unprecedented attempt at healing a nation has been Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom Pre

Recommended by Richard Branson.

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. [source]

14

The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

Lawrence Anthony

4.2

Lawrence Anthony devoted his life to animal conservation, protecting the world's endangered species. Then he was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand. His common sense told him to refuse, but he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them.

In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the year

Cover unavailable

15

Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation

John Carlin

4.2

A thrilling, inspiring account of one of the greatest charm offensives in history--Nelson Mandela's decade-long campaign to unite his country, beginning in his jail cell and ending with a rugby tournament.

In 1985, Nelson Mandela, then in prison for twenty-three years, set about winning over the fiercest proponents of apartheid, from his jailers to the head of South Africa's military. First he earn

Recommended by Alec Russell.

Alec Russell

John Carlin’s book focuses on this extraordinary sporting event, the Rugby World Cup final in 1995. Rugby was, in South Africa, a game primarily for whites. Some black South Africans played, but it was very much a game dominated by the Afrikaners. [source]

16

I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

Steve Biko

4.2

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Like all of Steve Biko's writings, those words testify to the passion, courage, and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their ch

17

July's People

Nadine Gordimer

4.2

For years, it had been what is called a “deteriorating situation.” Now all over South Africa the cities are battlegrounds. The members of the Smales family—liberal whites—are rescued from the terror by their servant, July, who leads them to refuge in his village. What happens to the Smaleses and to July—the shifts in character and relationships—gives us an unforgettable look into the terrifying, t

18

A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

4.2

Recommended by Colleen Murphy and Jessica Stern.

Colleen Murphy

Gobodo-Madikizela gives invaluable insight into the psychology of perpetrators, the psychological impacts on victims of horrific atrocities, and how we think about possibilities for moving forward as a community post-atrocity. [source]

Jessica Stern

This is a complicated and moving book about the nature of good and evil. Pumla is a South African psychologist who spent a lot of time in prison interviewing people like Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned apartheid death squads. He is currently serving 212 years in jail for crimes against humanity. He directed ‘the blood, the bodies and the killing’ against apartheid’s enemies. She walks us through her recognition, “that good and evil exist in our lives and that evil, like good, is always a possibility”. [source]

19

The Covenant

James A. Michener

4.2

James A. Michener’s masterly chronicle of South Africa is an epic tale of adventurers, scoundrels, and ministers, the best and worst of two continents who carve an empire out of a vast wilderness. From the Java-born Van Doorn family tree springs two great branches: one nurtures lush vineyards, the other settles the interior to become the first Trekboers and Afrikaners. The Nxumalos, inhabitants of

20

A History of South Africa

Leonard Thompson

4.2

An exploration of the history of South Africa, from the earliest known human inhabitation of the region to the end of the 20th century. For this third edition, the author adds two new chapters on the transfer of power and South Africa under the presidencies of Mandela and Mbeki.

21

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill

Candice Millard

4.2

From New York Times bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt, a thrilling narrative of Winston Churchill's extraordinary and little-known exploits during the Boer War

At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He

22

Spud

John van de Ruit

4.2

The record-breaking, bestselling Spud arrives in paperback

JOHN ?SPUD? MILTON takes his first hilarious steps toward manhood in this delicious, laugh-out-loud boarding school romp, full of midnight swims, raging hormones, and catastrophic holidays that will leave the entire family in hysterics and thirsty for more!

Recommended by Imraan Coovadia.

Imraan Coovadia

In our country, even the white writers have unpronounceable names. It’s about a South African boarding school, a pseudo British school – like the one I attended, which pretended it was Harrow – where life is regulated by rules, hierarchy and a mix of proud and humiliating traditions. People in South Africa, particularly white South Africans, love these schools. They get rid of their children as soon as possible, in my case at the age of nine, to send them to these schools. Spud is about an underdog white kid who gets up to the usual tricks at one of these schools. Spud is funny but I think its popularity demonstrates nostalgia for the old order that these schools represented. [source]

23

A Beautiful Place to Die (Detective Emmanuel Cooper, #1)

Malla Nunn

4.2

Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed.In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border bet

24

The Grass Is Singing

Doris Lessing

4.2

Set in South Africa under white rule, Doris Lessing's first novel is both a riveting chronicle of human disintegration and a beautifully understated social critique.

Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer. Little by little the ennui of years on the farm work their slow poison, and Mary's despair pro

25

Devil's Peak (Benny Griessel, #1)

Deon Meyer

4.2

From rising South African thriller writer Deon Meyer, a gripping suspense novel about revenge, forgiveness, and the race to catch a trained killer. A young woman makes a terrible confession to a priest. An honorable man takes his own revenge for an unspeakable tragedy. An aging inspector tries to get himself sober while taking on the most difficult case of his career. From this beginning, Deon Mey

26

Agaat

Marlene Van Niekerk, Michiel Heyns

4.1

Set in apartheid South Africa, Agaat portrays the unique relationship between Milla, a 67-year-old white woman, and her black maidservant turned caretaker, Agaat. Through flashbacks and diary entries, the reader learns about Milla's past. Life for white farmers in 1950s South Africa was full of promise — young and newly married, Milla raised a son and created her own farm out of a swathe of Cape m

Recommended by Jonny Steinberg.

Jonny Steinberg

It’s about an old white woman and her young black maid, Agaat – about their relationship and what happens between them. That’s the basic story but there are extraordinary things happening allegorically. If you look at the cultural artefacts that these women are fighting over, are communicating over, they are bastion symbols of Afrikanerdom – farming, because the white women farm, and tapestry and sewing, which was the domain of the Afrikaner white woman. These are the things that Agaat has taken over. There’s something very subtle and complicated going on at an allegorical level. What’s happening is that these white artefacts are being lost, are being taken over by black people. That’s the one side of the story, losing these things to a black person. But the other side of the story is that to be free and to be black is to be stuck with white artefacts, using them against white people. There is a very murky and quite cynical idea of what freedom means in South Africa today. Read 2 Another Country by Karel Schoeman Read [source]

27

Thirteen Hours (Benny Griessel, #2)

Deon Meyer

4.1

The finest novel yet from the undisputed king of South African crime writing, winner of the 2011 Boeke Prize in South Africa and shortlisted for the 2010 CWA International Dagger for Best Translated Crime Fiction.

28

Age of Iron

J. M. Coetzee

4.1

In Cape Town, South Africa, an old woman is dying of cancer. A classics professor, Mrs. Curren has been opposed to the lies and brutality of apartheid all her life, but has lived insulated from its true horrors. Now she is suddenly forced to come to terms with the iron-hearted rage that the system has wrought. In an extended letter addressed to her daughter, who has long since fled to America, Mrs

Recommended by John Carlin.

John Carlin

The author is JM Coetzee, the Nobel prize-winning author and, in my view, one of the top five living writers in the English language. Age of Iron is quite a short book – you could probably read it in a couple of hours. It’s set in mid-1980s South Africa, a time of tremendous political ferment. Mandela was imprisoned in 1964 and what followed for the next 10 years was a grave-like quiet of resignation by black people. In 1976 the first simmerings of rebellion occur and by the mid-1980s you had clashes daily in practically every township all around the country. You had the black political movement in full-on insurrectionary mode. It’s against that background that the novel is set. But Coetzee doesn’t go out and give you vivid descriptions, he’s never overtly political, he’s concerned much more with conveying a moral atmosphere. [source]

29

The Heart of Redness

Zakes Mda

4.1

In a new novel by one of the premier writers of the ''new'' South Africa, an exile returns from America--where he fled during the apartheid regime--to find his newly democratic country in a shambles.

Recommended by Jonny Steinberg.

Jonny Steinberg

Yes, The Heart of Redness is set in the early post-apartheid period and it’s about a black man who is in exile and he comes home and finds that he isn’t sufficiently connected to the new elite to do well. He goes off to a rural province in the Eastern Cape in pursuit of a girl to try and make a life there. This story is intertwined with another story, an old very famous historical story in South Africa which took place in the mid-19th century. A young prophetess, Nongqawuse, prophesied that if all black people killed their cattle, the black ancestors would rise up and chase white people out of Africa and they would be free. Her prophesy was heeded and thousands upon thousands of people killed their cattle and ended up starving to death. It was a psychotic moment in South African history and had a terrible lot of repercussions in terms of how black people greeted colonialism. It was a deep deep tragedy which resonated down the ages and has so much relevance at every moment of South African history. Mda takes this psychotic story and makes something playful, difficult and uncomfortable about it. In the present Eastern Cape to which his character returns, people are divided into believers and non-believers and the believers are those who believe that the prophecy was correct and the non-believers think she was a superstitious fool and they want to modernise South Africa. Mda plays with categories and in the end he does not show who is right and who is wrong, whether he is on the side of tradition or of modernisation. The modernisation people are pretty trashy and want to build a casino. The traditional people have something rooted deep about them. So he takes this very difficult moment of South African history and makes a very opaque parable out of it, something that makes you think. Read 4 Black Hamlet by Wulf Sachs Read [source]

30

The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Mahatma Gandhi's Autobiography with a Foreword by the Gandhi Research Foundation

M. K. Gandhi

4.1

It is not my purpose to attempt a real autobiography. I simply want to tell the story of my numerous experiments with truth, and as my life consists of nothing but those experiments, it is true that the story will take the shape of an autobiography.

...Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification, the observance of the law of Ahimsa mu

Recommended by Barack Obama, Tim Cook, Cory Booker, and 2 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

According to the president’s Facebook page and a 2008 interview with the New York Times, this title is among his most influential forever favorites. [source]

Tim Cook

CEO/Apple

I have two books going right now: One is the Bobby Kennedy book “Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon,” by Larry Tye that just came out. The other is quite an old book. It’s a Gandhi book “Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth” that I got interested in because we went to the Gandhi museum when we were in India recently. I tend to like nonfiction and particularly reading about people and how they lived and how they fought, and what motivated them and their philosophy and so forth. [source]

Cory Booker

A profound read. [source]

31

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words

Bianca Marai

4.1

Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a nine-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural vi

32

When the Lion Feeds (Courtney, #1)

Wilbur Smith

4.1

Part of the 'Courtney' series

'Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.' The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Sean and his twin-brother Garrick grew up on their father's farm in Natal. The first part of the book deals with his childhood and youth

Recommended by Turtle Bunbury.

Turtle Bunbury

Yes, it is the first of the Courtney sagas. Lots of school boys get hooked on Wilbur Smith, and there are of course grown men who love them too, so he seems to go across the board. I started reading him when I was about 14 or 15, and now the series runs to about 12 or 13 books. I thought it was brilliantly clever. It is like a soap opera where every book is the next chapter of the story. [source]

33

Youth

J. M. Coetzee

4.1

The second installment of J. M. Coetzee's fictionalized "memoir" explores a young man's struggle to experience life to its full intensity and transform it into art. The narrator of Youth has long been plotting an escape-from the stifling love of his overbearing mother, a father whose failures haunt him, and what he is sure is an impending revolution in his native country of South Africa. Arriving

34

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

Jonas Jonasson

4.1

Just because the world ignores you, doesn’t mean you can’t save it . . .

Nombeko Mayeki was never meant to be a hero. Born in a Soweto shack, she seemed destined for a short, hard life. But now she is on the run from the world ‘s most ruthless secret service, with three Chinese sisters, twins who are officially one person and an elderly potato farmer. Oh, and the fate of the King of Sweden - and th

35

Tsotsi

Athol Fugard

4.1

Tsotsi is a real find, by one of the most affecting and moving writers of our time (Financial Times)-- and the novel is now being reissued to coincide with the release of a feature film, which is already being compared to 2004's runaway hit City of God.

One of the world's preeminent playwrights, who could be a primary candidate for either the Nobel Prize in Literature or the Nobel Peace Prize (Mel

36

The Bang Bang Club

Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Archbishop Desmond Tutu

4.1

Most people, upon hearing gunfire, would run away and hide. Conflict photojournalists have the opposite reaction: they actually look for trouble, and when they find it, get as close as possible and stand up to get the best shot. This thirst for the shot and the seeming nonchalance to the risks entailed earned Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Ken Oosterbroek, and Kevin Carter the moniker of the Bang-Ba

37

Kringe in 'n Bos

Dalene Matthee

4.1

Saul Barnard is 'n houtkapper met 'n rustelose siel - hy wil vreemdes uit die Bos hou en die vernietiging van die Bos probeer keer. Dan is daar 'n legendariese olifantbul - Oupoot - wat losbreek van sy trop ... Oupoot en Saul het 'n vreemde band tussen hulle . In die groen skemerwêreld van die Outeniekwa loop hulle kringpaaie. Saul Barnard, deur sy mense verwerp en deur gewetenlose houtkopers tot

38

Fiela se Kind

Dalene Matthee

4.1

Die bruin vrou Fiela Komoetie het haar wit vondelingkind Benjamin met liefde en trots grootgemaak, tot die dag dat die sensusmanne hom kom haal het.

Jare later is dit Benjamin / Lukas self wat worstel met die vraag: wie is ek?

39

Coconut

Lara Lee

4.1

40

Biko

Donald Woods

4.1

Subjected to 22 hours of interrogation, torture and beating by South African police on September 6, 1977, Steve Biko died six days later. Donald Woods, Biko's close friend and a leading white South African newspaper editor, exposed the murder helping to ignite the black revolution.

41

The Wilderness Family: At Home with Africa's Wildlife

Kobie Kruger

4.1

Everyone warned Kobie Krüger that being the wife of a game warden at a remote ranger station in South Africa's largest national park would be an arduous move. The heat was unbearable, malaria would be a constant danger, her husband would have to be away for long stretches, there were no schools or nearby doctors for their three daughters, and of course the area teemed with wild animals. Yet for Ko

42

The Housemaid's Daughter

Barbara Mutch

4.1

Barbara Mutch's stunning first novel tells a story of love and duty colliding on the arid plains of Apartheid-era South Africa

When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there —her fiance Edward, whom she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a small town in the harsh Karoo desert,

43

The President's Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power and Out of Prison

Jacques Pau

4.1

Investigative journalist Jacques Pauw exposes the darkest secret at the heart of Jacob Zuma’s compromised government: a cancerous cabal that eliminates the president’s enemies and purges the law-enforcement agencies of good men and women.

As Zuma fights for his political life following the 2017 Gupta emails leak, this cabal – the president’s keepers – ensures that after years of ruinous rule, he r

44

Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

W. E. B. Du Bois

4.1

The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time.

Recommended by Imani Perry.

Imani Perry

W.E.B. Du Bois was the father of American sociology and one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. His classic text, The Souls of Black Folk, was published in 1903. Black Reconstruction in America came thirty years later. [source]

45

The Woman Next Door

Yewande Omotoso

4.1

Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbours. One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility which they prune with a zeal that belies the fact that they are both over eighty.

But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. And gradually the bickering and sniping sof

46

Tandia (The Power of One, #2)

Bryce Courtenay

4.1

Tandia sat waiting anxiously for the fight to begin between the man she loved the most in the world and the man she hated the most in the world.

Tandia is a child of Africa: half Indian, half African, beautiful and intelligent, she is only sixteen when she is first brutalised by the police. Her fear of the white man leads her to join the black resistance movement, where she trains as a terrorist.

Wi

47

Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life

J. M. Coetzee

4.1

Coetzee grew up in a new development north of Cape Town, tormented by guilt and fear. With a father he despised, and a mother he both adored and resented, he led a double life—the brilliant and well-behaved student at school, the princely despot at home, always terrified of losing his mother's love. His first encounters with literature, the awakenings of sexual desire, and a growing awareness of a

48

Zoo City

Lauren Beukes

4.1

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.

Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the crimi

49

Burger's Daughter

Nadine Gordimer

4.1

As a depiction of South Africa, this novel is more revealing than a thousand news dispatches as it tells the story of a young woman cast in the role of a young revolutionary, trying to uphold a heritage handed on by martyred parents while carving out a sense of one's self.

50

Blessed Are the Dead (Detective Emmanuel Cooper #3)

Malla Nunn

4.1

Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper returns in this powerful, atmospheric novel about two communities forced to confront each other after a murder that exposes their secret ties and forbidden desires in apartheid South Africa, by award-winning author Malla Nunn.

The body of a beautiful seventeen-year-old Zulu girl, Amahle, is found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, h

51

7 dae (Bennie Griessel, #3)

Deon Meyer

4.1

Ek sal elke dag 'n poliesman skiet, tot julle die moordenaar van Hanneke Sloet aankla.

So lui die dreigbrief aan die SAPS. En dan begin die jagtog. Bennie Griessel is die een wat die dossier moet heropen. Die saak is 40 dae oud, die spoor is koud. Daar's geen motief nie, geen leidrade nie, net 'n reeks naakfoto's, 'n hoogs ingewikkelde saketransaksie, en onmenslike druk van topbestuur, die media en

52

The Fever Tree

Jennifer McVeigh

4.1

Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father’s sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa. 1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men—one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only when the rumor of a

53

In the Heart of the Country

J. M. Coetzee

4.1

Stifled by the torpor of colonial South Africa, and trapped in a web of reciprocal oppression, a lonely sheep farmer seeks comfort in the arms of a black concubine. But when his embittered spinster daughter Magda feels shamed, this lurch across the racial divide marks the end of a tenuous feudal peace. As she dreams madly of bloody revenge, Magda's consciousness starts to drift and the line betwee

54

Welcome to Our Hillbrow: A Novel of Postapartheid South Africa

Phaswane Mpe, Ghirmai Negash

4.1

Welcome to Our Hillbrow is an exhilarating and disturbing ride through the chaotic and hyper-real zone of Hillbrow—microcosm of all that is contradictory, alluring, and painful in the postapartheid South African psyche. Everything is there: the shattered dreams of youth, sexuality and its unpredictable costs, AIDS, xenophobia, suicide, the omnipotent violence that often cuts short the promise of y

Recommended by Imraan Coovadia.

Imraan Coovadia

Hillbrow is a notorious suburb of Johannesburg. Johannesburg, as far as I can tell, is the most notorious city in the world. Hillbrow is Johannesburg’s Johannesburg. People in Johannesburg are scared to go to Hillbrow, even those that live there. [source]

55

Sizwe's Test: A Young Man's Journey Through Africa's AIDS Epidemic

Jonny Steinberg

4.1

At the end of a steep gravel road in one of the remotest corners of South Africa's Eastern Cape lies the village of Ithanga. Home to a few hundred villagers, the majority of them unemployed, it is inconceivably poor. It is to here that award-winning author Jonny Steinberg travels to explore the lives of a community caught up in a battle to survive the ravages of the greatest plague of our times, t

56

If You Want to Make God Laugh

Bianca Marais

4.1

From the author of the beloved Hum If You Don't Know the Words comes a rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries.

In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threa

57

The White Lioness (Kurt Wallander, #3)

Henning Mankell

4.1

The execution-style murder of a Swedish housewife looks like a simple case even though there is no obvious suspect. But then Wallander learns of a determined stalker, and soon enough, the cops catch up with him. But when his alibi turns out to be airtight, they realize that what seemed a simple crime of passion is actually far more complex—and dangerous.

Combining compelling insights into the sini

58

An Instant in the Wind

Andre Brink

4.1

59

Jock of the Bushveld

Percy FitzPatrick

4.1

Jock of the Bushveld, published in 1907, has been read and enjoyed by millions of children and is now a classic among animal stories. It remains as fresh and exciting as it was when it was first written and is dedicated by Fitzpatrick to '...those keenest and kindest of critics, best of friends and most delightful of comrades the likkle people!'

Jock's owner was a young transport rider in the rugge

60

The Conservationist

Nadine Gordimer

4.1

Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewarsship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm.

Recommended by Justin Cartwright.

Justin Cartwright

The book teaches you that your priorities are not necessarily the priorities of the land or the people that you find yourself in. That’s what makes it a very good book I think. [source]

61

Blood Safari (Lemmer #1)

Deon Meyer

4.0

When the rich and famous visit South Africa, their first port of call is often Body Armor, the personal security company offering two types of protection: the big and intimidating muscle men called Gorillas or the lean and hungry former government body guards, referred to as Invisibles.

Lemmer is a freelance Invisible. The tiny and beautiful Emma le Roux, a brand consultant from Cape Town, wants t

62

Master Harold...and the boys

Athol Fugard

4.0

The role that won Zakes Mokae a Tony Award brought Danny Glover back to the New York stage for the Roundabout Theatre's revival of this searing coming of age story, considered by many to be Fugard's masterpiece. A white teen who has grown up in the affectionate company of the two black waiters who work in his mother's tea room in Port Elizabeth learns that his viciously racist alcoholic father is

63

Recipes for Love and Murder (Tannie Maria Mystery, #1)

Sally Andrew

4.0

Meet Tannie Maria: A woman who likes to cook a lot and write a little. Tannie Maria writes recipes for a column in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette.

One Sunday morning, as Maria savours the breeze through the kitchen window whilst making apricot jam, she hears the screech and bump that announces the arrival of her good friend and editor Harriet. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet

64

The Boer War

Thomas Pakenham

4.0

More than two hundred illustrations, photographs, and maps combine with an abridged edition of the author's critically acclaimed The Boer War to chronicle the events, personalities, causes, and consequences of the war. History Bk Club.

65

What We Lose

Zinzi Clemmons

4.0

From an author of rare, haunting power, a stunning novel about a young African-American woman coming of age—a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, family, and country

Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother’s childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tr

66

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story

Linda Sue Park

4.0

A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families a

67

The Pickup

Nadine Gordimer

4.0

When Julie Summers's car breaks down on a sleazy street in a South African city, a young Arab mechanic named Abdu comes to her aid. Their attraction to one another is fueled by different motives. Julie is in rebellion against her wealthy background and her father; Abdu, an illegal immigrant, is desperate to avoid deportation to his impoverished country. In the course of their relationship, there a

68

Let The Dead Lie (Detective Emmanuel Cooper, #2)

Malla Nunn

4.0

The second in a crime series set in 1950's South Africa when apartheid laws were first introduced.

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, 1953. Forced to resign from his position of Detective Sergeant and re-classified as 'mixed race' after an incident involving a young black woman, Emmanuel Cooper winds up powerless and alone in the tough coastal city of Durban, mixing labouring with surveillance work for his old

69

The Cobra and Scarab: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

Deon Meyer

4.0

Hidden for centuries by the shifting sands of the desert, scrolls are unearthed by an archeologist who believes his dream of discovering riches has finally come true. But his hopes of returning to England in glory are shattered when a Bedouin reveals that the ancient text does not hold monetary value, but instead shares the unknown truths of the beautiful Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, the treacheries

70

The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912

Thomas Pakenham

4.0

White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent
from 1876 to 1912

Recommended by Alec Russell and Sam Kiley.

Alec Russell

I first went to South Africa in an extraordinary, tumultuous time, just before the end of apartheid. It was May 1993, and no one was quite sure what way the country was headed. So my first year there was spent covering the very traumatic final year of white rule and the rise to power of the ANC, and then I stayed on for another four years covering Mandela’s presidency as a foreign correspondent. [source]

Sam Kiley

You can’t understand anything about contemporary Africa without reading that book. [source]

71

White Dog Fell from the Sky

Eleanor Morse

4.0

An extraordinary novel of love, friendship, and betrayal for admirers of Abraham Verghese and Edwidge Danticat

Eleanor Morse’s rich and intimate portrait of Botswana, and of three people whose intertwined lives are at once tragic and remarkable, is an absorbing and deeply moving story.

In apartheid South Africa in 1976, medical student Isaac Muthethe is forced to flee his country after witnessing

72

Jump and Other Stories

Nadine Gordimer

4.0

In these sixteen stories ranging from the dynamics of family life to the worldwide confusion of human values, Nadine Gordimer gives us access to many lives in places as far apart as suburban London, Mozambique, a mythical island, and South Africa. In "Some Are Born to Sweet Delight, " a girl's innocent love for an enigmatic foreign lodger in her parents' home leads her to involve others in a trage

Cover unavailable

73

Period Pain

Coloring Crew

4.0

Kopano Matlwa stole South Africa's heart with her debut novel Coconut. With almost 25 000 sales this award-winning title cemented her position as one of South Africa's bestselling authors. With her follow-up novel, Spilt Milk, Kopano continued to amaze us with her ability to intimately address complex political issues through relatable characters. This year she brings us her best novel yet, Period

74

Thirteen Cents

K. Sello Duiker

4.0

Every city has an unspoken side. Cape Town, between the postcard mountain and sea, has its own shadow-side lurking in its lap: a place of dislocation and uncertainty, dependence and desperation, destruction and survival, gangsters, pimps, pedophiles, hunger, hope and moments of happiness. This book therefore is an extraordinary and unsparing account of the coming of age on the street in Cape Town

75

A Rainbow in the Night: The Tumultuous Birth of South Africa

Dominique Lapierre

4.0

In 1652 a small group of Dutch farmers landed on the southernmost tip of Africa. Sent by the powerful Dutch India Company, their mission was simply to grow vegetables and supply ships rounding the cape. The colonists, however, were convinced by their strict Calvinist faith that they were among God's “Elect,” chosen to rule over the continent. Their saga—bloody, ferocious, and fervent—would culmina

76

Koevoet!: Experiencing South Africa's Deadly Bush War

Jim Hooper

4.0

Koevoet! has been an global bestseller since its release over 20 years ago. This new edition goes far beyond the original in capturing the courage, fear and intensity of South Africa's deadly bush war. Never before had an outsider been given unrestricted access to Koevoet, the elite South West African Police counterinsurgency unit - also known as Operation K and officially as the South West Africa Police Counter Insurgency Unit (SWAPOL-COIN). Author Jim Hooper spent a total of five months embedded with the semi-secret and predominantly black 'Ops K', which climaxed with one of the most vicious and determined infiltrations ever mounted by the communist-backed South West Africa People s Organization (SWAPO). Crossing regularly into Angola in pursuit of the insurgents, he saw friends die next to him and was twice wounded himself. This updated edition, drawing on the recollections and diaries of the men he rode with, will fascinate yet another generation of readers. In assembling this work, Jim Hooper had the opportunity to re-connect with so many of the men who allowed this outsider to ride with them. All of which brought a new intensity and poignancy. It also reminded Jim Hooper how privileged he was to have been witness to Koevoet's war. This stunning work is a tribute to Koevoet and the legend they created."Hooper is a careful reporter, but also a born writer; his vivid word-pictures drag you in and hold you. He skillfully conveys his initially unwelcoming reception by an operational unit; the long, frustrating grind of search operations in punishing terrain and climate; the extraordinary bush skills of the Ovambo policemen; the shock of sudden contact, and its aftermath." Martin Windrow "Jim Hooper's account of South Africa's successful "Ops K" in Namibia against South West Africa's People's Organization guerrillas should be required reading. The classic narrative is as timely today as it was twenty years ago." Charles D. Melson, Chief Historian, U.S. Marine Corps University."This expanded edition is a skillfully woven mosaic of personal accounts from those involved and what he experienced during combat with Koevoet. The use of new material from those he rode with lays bare the realities of war, the fears and emotions that ebb and flow in the heat of combat, and the courage one finds to bring the battle to the enemy" Piet Nortje, Author of 32 Battalion"Koevoet describes in great detail the men, both black and white, and their mine-protected cross-country vehicles which were years ahead of anything in use by other western forces, the dedicated helicopter support units and the tactics used to bring an elusive guerrilla force to battle." Paul French, Author of Shadows of a Forgotten Past: To the Edge with the Rhodesian SAS and Selous Scouts.REVIEWS ...a valuable first-hand account of South African counter-insurgency operations in what was then South-West Africa and should be read by anyone interested in the southern African conflicts of the late twentieth century. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research

77

The Girl From the Train

Irma Joubert

4.0

Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks.

As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They intend to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl’s unscheduled train reaches the bomb first.

Gretl is the only survivor. Though spared from the concentratio

78

You Will Be Safe Here

Damian Barr

4.0

“There is pain on these pages and poetry too. I left this book bruised yet somehow better for it.” – Tayari Jones.

“Brutal, haunting, redemptive and...beautiful.” – Jojo Moyes.

This extraordinary debut set in South Africa reveals legacies of abuse and redemption exploring the extraordinary strength of the human spirit - from the Boer War in 1901 to brutal camps for teenage boys now. There is alway

79

Dead Before Dying

Deon Meyer

4.0

Someone in Cape Town has chosen a conspicuous murder weapon -- a century-old German handgun, with ancient bullets that tear through flesh and bone. Three men who have nothing in common are found murdered, and the string of vicious killings pushes the city toward panic. Captain Mat Joubert is left scrambling for answers in a case that might be his last chance to prove that his life's slow spiral wi

80

Conversations With Myself

Nelson Mandela

4.0

Nelson Mandela is widely considered to be one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age. Now, after a lifetime of taking pen to paper to record thoughts and events, hardships and victories, he has bestowed his entire extant personal papers, which offer an unprecedented insight into his remarkable life.

A singular international publishing event, Conversations with Myself draws on Mandela

81

Icarus (Benny Griessel, #5)

Deon Meyer

4.0

South Africa’s preeminent crime fiction writer, Deon Meyer is internationally acclaimed for his razor’s-edge thrillers, unforgettable characters, and nuanced portrayals of contemporary life in his native country. The fifth pulse-pounder starring Captain Benny Griessel, a lead detective in South Africa’s priority crimes unit, delves into the country’s burgeoning tech and wine industries.

A week befo

82

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

Paul Theroux

4.0

In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances.

Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What r

83

The Story of an African Farm

Olive Schreiner, Dan Jacobson

4.0

The Story of an African Farm By Olive Schreiner A classic story of rural life in 19th Century South Africa, it is a searing indictment of the rigid Boer social conventions. The first of the great South African novels chronicles the adventures of three childhood friends who defy societal repression. The novel's unorthodox views on religion and marriage aroused widespread controversy upon its 1883 p

84

A Man of Good Hope

Jonny Steinberg

4.0

When civil war came to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in January 1991, two-thirds of the city’s population fled. Among them was eight-year-old Asad Abdullahi. His mother murdered by a militia, his father somewhere in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that scattered the Somali people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the world.

This extraordinary book tells Asad’s stor

Recommended by Ian Goldin.

Ian Goldin

It’s the story of a kid, a Somali refugee. [source]

85

Elizabeth Costello

J. M. Coetzee

4.0

Since 1982, J. M. Coetzee has been dazzling the literary world. After eight novels that have won, among other awards, two Booker Prizes, and most recently, the Nobel Prize for literature, J.M. Coetzee has once again crafted an unusual and deeply affecting tale. Told through an ingenious series of formal addresses, Elizabeth Costello is, on the surface, the story of a woman's life as a mother, sist

86

In a Strange Room

Damon Galgut

4.0

A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these thr

87

Triomf

Marlene van Niekerk

4.0

Mol Benade, her brothers Treppie and Pop, and son Lambert live in a rotting government house, which is the only thing they have, other than decaying appliances that break as soon as they're fixed, remembrances of a happy past that never really existed, and each other-a Faulknerian bond of familial intimacy that ranges from sympathetic to cruel, heartfelt to violently incestuous. In the months prec

88

Summertime

J.M. Coetzee

4.0

Summertime is an inventive and inspired work of fiction that allows J.M. Coetzee to imagine his own life with a critical and unsparing eye, revealing painful moral struggles and attempts to come to grips with what it means to care for another human being.

A young English biographer is researching a book about the late South African writer John Coetzee, focusing on Coetzee in his thirties, at a time

89

Ghost Boy: My Miraculous Escape from a Life Locked Inside My Own Body

Martin Pistorius

4.0

They all thought he was gone. But he was alive and trapped inside his own body for ten years.

In January 1988 Martin Pistorius, aged twelve, fell inexplicably sick. First he lost his voice and stopped eating. Then he slept constantly and shunned human contact. Doctors were mystified. Within eighteen months he was mute and wheelchair-bound. Martin's parents were told an unknown degenerative disease

90

Foe

J. M. Coetzee

4.0

With the same electrical intensity of language and insight that he brought to Waiting for the Barbarians , J.M. Coetzee reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe—and in so doing, directs our attention to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself.

In 1720 the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe is approached by Susan Barton, lately a castaway on a desert island. She wants him to tell her story, a

91

The Good Doctor

Damon Galgut

4.0

The internationally acclaimed novel, is the story of an idealistic medical graduate who arrives at an isolated South African hospital to take up a year's community service

92

Heart of the Hunter

Deon Meyer

4.0

Tiny Mpayipheli, a giant man with a gentle demeanor, once earned his living as a government gun for hire. Now leading a quiet, ordered life in the countryside, he is reluctantly summoned back into the game when a trusted old friend is kidnapped. With just seventy-two hours to deliver the ransom, with an army of security forces deployed to stop him, and with a diabolical double agent perilously clo

93

Whitethorn

Bryce Courtenay

4.0

From Bryce Courtenay comes a new novel about Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English.

The world is also on the brink of war and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high moun

94

My Early Life, 1874-1904

Winston Churchill, William Manchester

4.0

Here, in his own words, are the fascinating first thirty years in the life of one of the most provocative and compelling leaders of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill.

As a visionary, statesman, and historian, and the most eloquent spokesman against Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill was one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century. In this autobiography, Churchill recalls his childhoo

Recommended by Sonia Micu.

Sonia Micu

When it comes to biographies, I have cherished My Early Life by Winston Churchill for a long time, as the book that had it all for a profane reader like myself. It is beautifully written and Churchill’s writing style is highly entertaining. Plus, it gives you a glimpse into the early years of a flawed (yet brilliant) character. [source]

95

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #1)

Alexander McCall Smith

4.0

Precious Ramotswe has only just set up shop as Botswana's No.1 (and only) lady detective when she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. However, the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witch doctors.

96

The Man in the Brown Suit (Colonel Race, #1)

Agatha Christie

4.0

Newly-orphaned Anne Beddingfeld is a nice English girl looking for a bit of adventure in London. But she stumbles upon more than she bargained for! Anne is on the platform at Hyde Park Corner tube station when a man falls onto the live track, dying instantly. A doctor examines the man, pronounces him dead, and leaves, dropping a note on his way. Anne picks up the note, which reads "17.1 22 Kilmord

97

Mafeking Road: and Other Stories

Herman Charles Bosman

4.0

These slyly simple stories of the unforgiving South African Transvaal reveal a little-described (and rarely romanticized) world of Afrikaner life in the late 19th Century. Like our own Mark Twain, Herman Charles Bosman wields a laughing intolerance of foolishness and prejudice, a dazzling use of wit and clear- sighted judgment. Spun by the plainclothes local visionary and storyteller Oom Shalk Lou

98

Koors

Deon Meye

4.0

Nico Storm and his father Willem drive a truck filled with essential supplies through a desolate land. They are among the few in South Africa--and the world, as far as they know--to have survived a devastating virus which has swept through the country. Their world turned upside down, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father's protector, even tho

99

Philida

Andre Brink

4.0

This is what it is to be a slave: that everything is decided for you from out there. You just got to listen and do as they tell you. You don't say no. You don't ask questions. You just do what they tell you. But far at the back of your head you think: Soon there must come a day when I can say for myself: This and that I shall do, this and that I shall not.

It is 1832 in South Africa, the year befo

100

Dead at Daybreak

Deon Meyer

4.0

When Johannes Jacobus Smit, an antiques dealer, is found burned with a blowtorch and killed execution-style with a single shot to the back of the head, former cop Zatopek "Zed" van Heerden is called in to investigate the unusual circumstances of the murder. Zed is still obsessed with the betrayals of his own past but must fill in the blanks of this victim's life. Who tortured and killed Smit, and