Lounge Book of the Month
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
by Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson, author of the brilliant, bestselling Empire has taken on the financial world for his latest book. With typical clarity and verve, he shows how the evolution of money and the development of credit and debt have been as important as any technological innovation throughout the history of civilization. From ancient Babylon to the silver mines of Bolivia, from the funding of the Italian Renaissance to the stock-market bubble that caused the French Revolution, he shows how history as we perceive it is inextricably linked to the development of money and the financial world.
As well as the historical aspect though, he demonstrates several key lessons – the most important (and most timeous) one being that every bubble bursts, eventually, and that sooner or later greed flips into fear. This book is a great read and relevant to everyone, and could not have been better timed.
Tell Me A Story…
A Mercy
by Toni Morrison
A powerful, tragic masterpiece from the Nobel Prize-winning author, set during the 1680s, when the slave trade was still in its infancy. Jacob, an Anglo-Dutch trader, has a small-holding in the harsh American north. Despite his distaste for dealing in ˜flesh’, he takes a small slave girl, in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner. This is Florens, who can read and write, and will be useful on the farm. She is hungry for love, and endeavours to find it wherever it presents itself. This is an ambivalent and disturbing story of family in a violent world – where acts of mercy have completely unforeseen circumstances.
Greed
by Elfriede Jelinek
Kurt Janisch is an ambitious but frustrated country policeman. Things for him are not going as well as he would like, but at least his job brings him into contact with a lot of women – lonely, middle-aged women, with a bit of property perhaps…. Then matters go from bad to worse, the women fall for him, someone sees too much, knows too much and, before you know it, there is a body in the lake and a murderer must be caught. From the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature winner comes this dark and powerful reflection on ageing – “Jelinek’s work is brave, adventurous, witty, antagonistic and devastatingly right about the sorriness of human existence.” Guardian.
The Ghost of Munich
by Georges-Marc Benamou
On September 29th, 1938, the fate of a country was sealed at Munich. Hitler, Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain and the President of France, Édouard Daladier, negotiated the handover to Germany of the Sudetenlands – and with it the betrayal of a nation by the great powers of Europe. Chamberlain claimed “Peace with honour“. Daladier returned to France a hero, the man who had saved France from another disastrous war with Germany. Yet he knew he had failed. Based on historical research, this book takes us, scene by scene, hour by hour, through the fateful day at the conference table, his departure from Munich and his triumphant but ultimately tragic return to Paris. This novel has the sharpness of a film, the drama of a tragedy, and the truth of history.
Home
Marilynne Robinson
By the 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead – this latest takes place in the same time and Iowa town, and tells the story of Jack, prodigal godson of John Ames, the much-loved narrator of Gilead. Jack has come home after 20 years to make peace with a past littered with trouble & pain. A bad boy from childhood and an alcoholic who cannot hold down a job, Jack is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and his traditionalist father. A moving and unforgettable book about families, faith, love and tragedy.
The Widows of Eastwick
by John Updike
More than three decades have passed since those memorable events described in The Witches of Eastwick and the three women – Alexandra, Jane and Sukie, have left town, remarried and become widows. They travel the world in solitude, dealing with their grief, until they decide, just once more, to return to Eastwick for the summer. While the diabolical Darryl Van Horne is long-gone, the town holds much magic and enchantment for them. However, there are those among the townsfolk who still remember them, and wish them ill, and they must deal with the traces of their wrong-doing, and the advances of old age.
The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001
by Sue Townsend
Adrian Mole has entered early middle-age, and is now ˜the same age as Jesus was when he died’. His current worries include: indestructible head-lice; his raging jealousy when his accomplished half-brother Brett unexpectedly arrives on his doorstep; moral decline in The Archers; his desperate attachment to two therapists; his mild addiction to Opal Fruits; a small earthquake in Leicester; and, perhaps most significantly, the dawn of a new millennium. Another delightful volume of the confused and comic antics of Adrian Mole, whom we have known and loved since the age of 13 and 3/4.
And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks
by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
In 1944 Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were taken into police custody following a murder. One of their friends, Lucien Carr, had stabbed another, David Kammerer, whose sexual advances he’d seemingly grown tired of rejecting. Carr, still bloodstained, had come to each of them and confessed. Kerouac helped dispose of the weapon, and neither of them went to the police – for this they were arrested. Months later the two writers collaborated on this book – a fictionalised account of the week leading up to the murder. They wrote alternate chapters as fictional characters, and portrayed a hardboiled world of friends moving through each other’s apartments, killing time drinking, talking and taking drugs, living haphazardly and drifting towards a bloody crime. The book offers a remarkable insight into the lives of two great writers.
All In The Mind: A Novel
by Alastair Campbell
Yes, it’s really him. The foul-mouthed, backstabbing, media-baiting spin doctor to Tony Blair has written a novel! And it’s really very good! Martin Sturrock desperately needs a psychiatrist. The problem? He is one. Emily is a traumatised burns victim; Arta a Kosovan refugee; David a long-term depressive; and Ralph an MP who lives in terror of his drinking problem being exposed. Every month they spend an hour revealing their secrets to Professor Martin Sturrock. Little do they know that his mind is not the reassuring place they assume it to be – and now his life is falling apart and, as his ghosts come back to haunt him, the only person he can turn to is a patient. Set over a life-changing weekend, this novel delves into the human psyche to create a gripping portrait of the strange co-dependency between patient and doctor.
“A brilliant debut novel…a compelling and unforgettable experience.” Stephen Fry
Brevity & Wit: Short Stories of the Month
The First Person & Other Stories
by Ali Smith
Ali Smith may have won the Whitbread (now Costa) for her novel The Accidental, but it is as a short-story writer that she really excels. Her previous collections were little jewels of deceptively simple, but minutely observed encounters, told with understated pathos and gentle humour. They were also, often, about the nature of storytelling itself. As the title suggests, her latest collection homes in even more on this latter preoccupation, but without getting in the way of some great storytelling. And there is an edge of anger and frustration bubbling under the surface of these stories that is much more pronounced than before. In short, this collection is immediately and satisfyingly recognizable as Ali Smith, but without being merely more of the same old, same old.
Afrikaanse Hoekie
30 Nagte in Amsterdam
deur Etienne van Heerden
Etienne van Heerden is terug met ˜n groot roman. 30 Nagte in Amsterdam mag dalk sy fokus vind in 30 nagte in die lewe van een karakter (die trapsuutjierige dog vaal Henk de Melker), maar die tapisserie waarop die 30 nagte geweef word is veel groter, meer kleurvol en ryker. Henk is in Amsterdam om sy Tant Zan se boedel op tee is, en in die proses herontdek hy ook weer ˜n deel van himself wat hy reeds verlore geag het. Die vertelling wissel tussen Henk se wedervaringe in Amsterdam, en die storie van die besondere Zan – en albei verweefde stories is ontroerend, en pragtig geskryf.
The Whole Truth
Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell
Why do some people achieve so much more than others? Can they lie so far outside the ordinary? What is the secret of their success? In the new book from the author of Blink and The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell examines the commonality between those who have found success in their chosen field – be it business, finance, sport, science or music. He argues that, when we look for what they have in common, we are asking the wrong questions, and the answers hinge on a few crucial twists in people’s life stories – on the culture they grow up in, and the way they spend their time. Gladwell has a history of getting right to the heart of the point he wants to demonstrate, and opening readers eyes to a truth they did not even know was there – this book will not disappoint.
Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola
by Mark Thomas
British comedian and activist, Mark Thomas – author of As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela - takes a trip in search of the real Coca-Cola – from Istanbul to Mexico city, he investigates the stories and the people that Coca-Cola’s iconic advertising campaigns don’t mention. Child labourers in the sugar cane fields of El Salvador; Indian workers exposed to toxic chemicals; Colombian union leaders falsely accused of terrorism and jailed alongside the paramilitaries who want to kill them. Provocative, funny and deeply troubling, this is an important book which provides and insight into one of the largest and most famous corporations on the planet.
Oscar’s Books
by Thomas Wright
An entirely new kind of biography, this book explores the personality of Oscar Wilde through his reading. For Wilde, as for many of us, reading could be as powerful and transformative an experience as falling in love. He devoured books, talked books, luxuriated in reading and lavished books on his friends. This book takes us on a fascinating and affectionate journey through this wonderful man’s library, and gives us a unique insight into his life and writing.
Payback: Debt and the Shadow of Wealth
by Margaret Atwood
In this unexpected look at the topic of debt – a very timely subject – the wonderful and always interesting Margaret Atwood explores the meaning of debt through the ages. Not only the practical debt of high finance, but a far deeper investigation into the idea of debt as an ancient and central motif in religion, literature and the structure of human societies. She investigates how the concept of debt has informed our thinking from pre-literate times to the present day – through the stories we tell each other, our concepts of sin and balance, what we owe to each other, and the way we form social relationships. A fascinating and very thought-provoking book.
Parky: My Autobiography
by Michael Parkinson
Meet Parky, the legend – the man who has met everyone – telling his story here for the first time. Michael Parkinson was born into very humble beginnings and rose to become one of the best-loved figures in the British media. In the pit village in Yorkshire where he was born, he lurked in the local cinema and dreamt of marrying Lauren Bacall. After bluffing his way onto several newspapers in London, he was eventually found out and went back to Manchester to work for the BBC. He ended up with his own talk show, which ran for many, many years, on which he interviewed Bing Crosby, Billy Connolly, Will Smith, Bette Davis, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Gwyneth Paltrow, Muhammed Ali, George Best, Michael Caine, Tom Cruise and…oooooh…the list just goes on and on. This is a simply charming book!
Killing My Own Snakes
by Ann Leslie
This is the extraordinary memoir of a Fleet Street legend, described as ˜one of the greatest foreign correspondents of our time’. Ann Leslie has been a star writer at the Daily Mail for over forty years, winning several British Press Awards. During this time she has been shot at by Bosnian snipers, been pursued by Mugabe’s secret police, was there when the Berlin wall came down and when Mandela was released. Her reporting has taken her all over the world, and she has met many of the key figures of our time – this is a fascinating and highly readable memoir.
My Godawful Life: Abandoned, Betrayed, Stuck to the Window
by Sunny McCreary
If something terribly, horribly, awfully, heartrendingly, inconsolably atrocious can happen, then it probably has already: to Sunny McCreary. And now he’s about to spill his guts…
The so-called ˜misery memoir’ has become something of a scourge on the literary scene: there are shelves and shelves of these books, all with the same white covers, forlorn pictures of little children in washed-out bluish photo’s and “handwritten” title fonts. And now comes the misery memoir to end all misery memoirs… one hopes! Sunny McCreary has written a brilliant and acerbic – not to mention hilarious – spoof: this book will certainly wring tears from your eyes… from laughing.
China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation
by Xinran
This groundbreaking work of oral history gives voice to a forgotten generation and reveals a secret history of twentieth-century China. Here the grandparents and great-grandparents of today sum up in their own words – for the first and perhaps the last time – the vast changes that have overtaken China’s people over the last century. The book is at once a journey and a memorial to those who have lived through war, persecution, invasion, revolution, famine, modernisation and Westernisation.
The Landmark Herodotus – The Histories
A new translation (from Andrea L. Purves) of one of the great classics, edited by Robert B. Strassler. This is an absolutely magnificent edition, illustrated throughout with artifacts and maps, and extensively annotated. Beautiful.
Soul Food
Fire: A World of Flavour
by Christine Mansfield
Chef Christine Manfield has a passion for food from around the world, and has travelled extensively to bring back recipes from China, Vietnam, Bali, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Catalonia, Morocco, Middle East, France & Italy among many others. This sumptuous celebration of good food consists not only of recipes, but anecdotes and tips about the places she visited. This is a gorgeous book, and would grace absolutely any kitchen.
Tortoises & Tumbleweeds
by Lannice Snyman
Closer to home, food guru Lanice Snyman’s new book is a celebration and exploration of her homeland and the southern tip of Africa. The book traces the origins of peoples and the food of the area, with dishes that define the South African table – a wonderful variety of the rustic and the refined, the wholesome and the hearty, the simple and the spicy – a fusion of flavours from our doorstep.
Beautifully produced and illustrated, full of flavour, this is worth a look both by the experienced cook and the novice who wants to explore local foods.
Harvest: Recipes from An Organic Farm
by Christine Stevens with Russel Wasserfall
When Christine Stevens arrived with her family on their new farm in the Western Cape in 2000, she envisaged an idyllic life of pottering in the garden and cooking in the kitchen. Reality soon set in, as she found herself having to start from scratch to create the organic farm she dreamed of, becoming self-sufficient, and providing her family with healthy, enjoyable meals. The result is this wonderful and mouthwatering book , full of easy, healthy and delicious recipes, plus ideas for the garden – and we love her philosophy of using fresh, seasonal produce from her own garden, combining good ingredients with a very practical, no-nonsense approach to getting good, healthy food onto the table for her family.
On The Lighter Side
The Thingummy
by Danny Danziger and Mark McCrum
This is a delightful book about everyday objects you just cannot name – things we ought to know the name for, things we think we know the name for, but actually we don’t. What IS the name of the hole in Swiss cheese? Or the seeds on the outside of a strawberry? Or the bit on the end of your shoelace? Read this book, and you will be able to proudly identify a dongle and an aglet, phloem bundles and a cutwater, do a burpee and provide your children with dragées – as well a their origin, use and history. Lots of fun!
50 Ways to F*** the Planet
by Mark Townsend and David Glick
This book lists all the ways that you can really mess with the planet, with helpful lists to show exactly what damage you can inflict. Described as “a wickedly amusing book” by Nick Cave, it is a mischievous take on environmental damage, with a very important underlying message.
“Quite possibly the voice of a generation…I cannot wait to start looting this for The Ecologist magazine.” Zac Goldsmith
Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learnt At School and Promptly Forgot
E. Foley & B. Coates
Remember at school when you knew all about split infinitives, sonnets, the periodic table, dinosaurs, Henry VIII, the water cycle, latin and lacrosse? And now you’ve forgotten most of it? What do you do when your children ask you why is the sky blue, or what planet comes after Jupiter? Well fret no more – here is a complete revision guide, on all the school subjects, with test papers and even a chapter about all the games you used to play at breaktime (remember Grandmother’s Footsteps?). This is a both informative and entertaining reminder, and will help you to equip you with the basics, impress the boss, and show the kids a thing or two.
Activist DVDs
We have recently taken on a small range of DVD documentaries about our planet. Covering diverse subjects such as food production/GM food, Wal-Mart, religion, Murdoch’s Fox News, plus a DVD of comedian and activist Mark Thomas. These are quality documentaries, for anyone who takes an interest in the world around them.
Author of the Month
Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan could be called the forgotten Beat. In his heyday in the mid to late ˜60′s he sold millions of copies of his rather strange books; now, unfortunately, he is slowly sliding out of print – which is a real pity, because no-one before or since has written quite like him. The closest he has to a modern successor is probably Haruki Murakami, who is an avowed fan, and has translated him into Japanese, and whose own style has been markedly influenced by Brautigan’s brand of gentle, surreal humour. For Brautigan is very, very funny indeed, even though the overriding impression of his work is that of a deep, but gentle sadness. Brautigan killed himself in the early 1980′s – not a kind decade for someone with his type of spirit – by then a hopeless alcoholic, in financial trouble and suffering acutely from depression. (His daughter, Ianthe Brautigan, has written a wonderfully affectionate and beautiful memoir about him and his suicide, entitled You Can’t Catch Death)
He was born and raised in extreme poverty in the forests, rivers, mists and rain of the American Northwest (which feature largely in his seminal early works Trout Fishing in America and the seminal short story collection Revenge of the Lawn), but spent his sunny heydays in the sunshine of flowerpower San Francisco and Big Sur. His works are wide-ranging, and are hard to categorise (one reviewer would go so far as to pronounce them “Brautigans” and refuse to categorise them any further!) but his real talent was for that simplest element of writing: the sentence. His characters were often bums, drunks and hoboes; his sentences shone and glittered and sparkled like rare jewels. He refused to talk about his own biography, and so will I, but here is all you need to know about him, in the words of the narrator of his fantastic In Watermelon Sugar:
“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.
If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was raining very hard.
That is my name.
Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong–”Sorry for the mistake,””and you had to do something else.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was a game that you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.
That is my name.
Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.
That is my name.
Perhaps you stared into a river. There was somebody near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.
That is my name.
Or you heard someone calling from a great distance. Their voice was almost an echo.
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Banned Book
Freedom From Fear And Other Writings
by Aung San Suu Kyi
The leader of her Myanmar’s opposition party, the National League For Democracy, and a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest when this book was published in 1991 in London and New York. None of her work is published or distributed in Myanmar, where she still lives, her house arrest having been extended in May 2008 for another year.