The joys and importance of reading
OVER the years, and recently with increasing force, the importance of reading has impressed itself on me; not just any reading, but books. One of my favourite novels is Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth. Its main […]
From The Thornveld
There is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
OVER the years, and recently with increasing force, the importance of reading has impressed itself on me; not just any reading, but books. One of my favourite novels is Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth. Its main […]
The prolific Scottish writer M.C. Beaton (Marion Chesney) described libraries as ‘palaces of dreams’. Looking back over fifty years of working life and four careers, they all had their highlights. But only libraries carried a […]
Kaizer Nyatsumba, Corporate Newsman: A Life of Integrity (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2025) Autobiography, however nuanced, always involves a degree of self-indulgence. And all autobiography is by definition one-sided. This one tells the story of a […]
Jeff Wicks, The Shadow State: Why Babita Deokaran had to Die (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2025) WHETHER South Africa is already, or is becoming, a mafia state is a matter for debate. Corruption on a grand […]
THREE major human rights problems stand out in South Africa today: an extreme and intensifying imbalance in wealth; the corruption and incompetence that exacerbate this; and violence perpetrated on women and children. The recently released […]
Yunus Carrim, Attacking the Heart of Apartheid: The ANC’s MK Special Operations Unit (Cape Town: Penguin, 2025) MK’s Special Operations (Ops) unit emerged from a long debate within the ANC in exile about the role […]
Max Hastings, Sword: D-Day Trial by Battle (London: William Collins, 2025) D-DAY ‒ Operation Neptune followed by the start of Operation Overlord and final nail in the coffin of Nazi Germany ‒ was a triumph […]
THE EARLY 1990s were a time of acute instability in South Africa; but also of great hope. Structural change was yet to start, but many of the apartheid regime’s proscriptions, such as censorship, were falling […]
Karin Mitchell, The High Treason Club: The Boeremag on Trial (Cape Town: Penguin, 2025) THE TRIAL lasted nine years, occupied 1 280 court days, involved over 200 witnesses and produced a transcript of 60 000 pages. Twenty-three […]
Ted Botha, Hollywood on the Veld: When Movie Mayhem Gripped the City of Gold (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2025) RARELY can the central character of a book appear so elusive. The American Isidore William Schlesinger (IW) […]