This Month’s Book Lounge Giveaway

The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama

by David Remnick

The rise of Barack Obama is one of the great stories of this century: a defining moment in American history, and one with truly global resonance. Until now, no journalist or historian has written a book that fully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama’s life or explores the ambition and conviction behind his journey to election. The Bridge – written by the editor of the New Yorker – offers a nuanced and unexpected portrait of the man who was determined to become the first African-American president.

“Brilliantly constructed, flawlessly written biography.”   Los Angeles Times

“This biography is superb – beautifully written and artfully constructed.”                    Economist

“…throughout his (Remnick’s) career as a journalist he has cranked out book-length reportage or astonishing quality and heft, and made it look easy…for anyone who needs a book on Obama by anyone other than Obama – and that should include Davied Cameron – this is the one.”           Book of the Week, The Times

“Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker magazine and a gifted writer, is almost alarmingly assiduous… Speaking to hundreds of friends and colleagues, he investigates and corrects Obama’s own accouth of his life, going through with an assured and elegant tone that clarifies rather than accuses or unmasks… 600 masterly pages.”   Daily Telegraph

“In placing Obama at the narrow point of a long and storied national narrative, Remnick highlights the massive importance – and improbability – of our moment in history.”   Time Out

We have 2 copies of this superb book to give away. To be entered in the draw please email us on booklounge@gmail.com. The draw will take place on 10th July 2010.

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan for these.

Fantastic Fiction

Tony and Susan

by Austin M. Wright

Fifteen years ago, Susan Morrow left her first husband Edward Sheffield. One day, comfortable in her home, and her second marriage, she receives, entirely out of the blue, a parcel containing the manuscript of her ex-husband’s first novel. He writes asking her to read the book; she was always his best critic, he says. As Susan reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of his character Tony Hastings, a maths professor driving his family to their summer house in Maine. And as we read with her, so are we. As the Hastings’ ordinary, civilised lives are disastrously, violently sent off course, Susan is plunged back into the past, forced to confront the darkness that inhabits her, and driven to name the fear that gnaws at her future and will change her life. Tony and Susan is a dazzling achievement: simultaneously a riveting portrayal of the experience of reading and a page-turning thriller, written in startlingly arresting prose. It is also a novel about fear and regret, revenge and aging, marriage and creativity. It is simply unique.

Other Lives

by André Brink

An artist comes to his studio in the afternoon. On his doorstep he sees a woman with curly hair and a dark complexion. She is a total stranger to him, yet she embraces him; she knows him intimately. As he steps past her, two strange children rush to his feet, yelling ˜Daddy!’ But he has never seen them before. On the other side of Cape Town, a white man pulls himself out of bed and toward his mirror, where a black face looks back at him. A concert pianist falls passionately in love with the celebrated singer he works beside but whom he is not allowed to touch. Then one night there is a shift in their worlds, and suddenly the past invades the present in a catastrophic confrontation. In each of the three parts of André Brink’s novel characters discover that below the familiar surface of their lives lurk other, disconcerting lives which are revealed under the pressure of changed circumstances.

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

by Jonathan Coe

Maxwell Sim seems to have hit rock bottom. Estranged from his father, newly divorced, unable to communicate with his only daughter, he realises that while he may have seventy-four friends on Facebook, there is nobody in the world with whom he can actually share his problems. Then a business proposition comes his way – a strange exercise in corporate PR that will require him to spend a week driving from London to a remote retail outlet on the Shetland Isles. Setting out with an open mind, good intentions and a friendly voice on his SatNav for company, Maxwell finds that this journey soon takes a more serious turn, and carries him not only to the furthest point of the United Kingdom, but into some of the deepest and darkest corners of his own past. In his sparkling and hugely enjoyable new book Jonathan Coe reinvents the picaresque novel for our time.

“Cunningly plotted, extremely well-written and very, very funny.”          Daily Telegraph

“Coe’s book is as funny and as well written as you’d expect: even the banality of Maxwell’s mind is rendered deadpan, with wonderful lightness.”                 Prospect Magazine

The Pleasure Seekers

by Tishani Doshi

It all started in August 1968 when Babo became the first member of the Patel family to leave Madras and fly on a plane all the way to London to further his education. His father should have known there would be trouble: on the morning of the departure he had his first and only dream, in which strange ghosts threw poison-tipped arrows and all his family was lost…But off Babo went, and now here he is, in a flat off the Finchley Road, untraditionally making love to a cream-skinned girl from Wales, Siân Jones, who he fell head over heels for as soon as he saw the twirl of red ribbon in her hair. Theirs is a mixed-up love in a topsy-turvy world, and their two families will never be the same again.

The Lonely Polygamist

by Brady Udall

Golden Richards, husband to four wives, father to twenty-eight children, is having the mother of all mid-life crises. His construction business is failing, his family has grown into an overpopulated mini-dukedom beset with insurrection and rivalry, and he is done in with grief – due to the accidental death of a daughter and the stillbirth of a son, he has come to doubt the capacity of his own heart. Brady Udall, author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, and one of America’s best young fiction writers, tells a tragicomic story of a deeply faithful man who, crippled by grief and the demands of work, religion and family, becomes entangled in an affair that threatens to destroy his family’s future. Like John Irving and Richard Yates, Udall’s characters engage us to the fullest as they grapple with the nature of need, love and belonging. A beautifully written comic masterpiece, keenly observed and ultimately redemptive, The Lonely Polygamist is the story of an American family – with its inevitable dysfunctionality, heartbreak and comedy – pushed to its outer limits.

“It’s funny, but not simply a comic novel; Udall has some wonderful observations about the dynamics of family life.”                      The Times

King Death

by Toby Litt

British author Toby Litt, voted as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003 is perhaps best known for naming his books in alphabetical order. It started in 1996 with his first collection of short stories published under the title Adventures in Capitalism. His eleventh book King Death has just hit the shelves and his writing seems to have returned to the somewhat darker fascinations of some of his earlier works like the well-loved deadkidsongs. Litt is something of literary chameleon, tackling the genres of crime, science fiction and chick-lit with equal verve. King Death is a London-based thriller meets love story and follows main characters Kumiko and Skelton as they try to make sense of a human heart glimpsed on a rooftop of Borough Market. Their investigations draw them closer and closer to the mysterious dissection lecturer at Guy’s Hospital – known behind his back as King Death. The emphasis is on plot and the story unfolds at breakneck speed.

Young Blood

by Sifiso Mzabe

Sipho is a “young blood”, a young man of the school-going generation caught up in a world of money, booze and greed. He lives in Umlazi, Durban – he is seventeen, has dropped out of school and helps out at his father’s mechanic shop during the day. But odd jobs underneath the bonnets of wrecked cars do not provide the lifestyle his friends have…

A fascinating look into the emotional landscape of car hijackers – by a fantastic, vibrant new voice in South African literature.

Sex & Stravinsky

by Barbara Trapido

The time is 1995, but everybody is linked by their past. Brilliant Australian Caroline can command everyone except her own ghoulish mother, which means that things aren’t easy for Josh and Zoe, her husband and twelve-year-old daughter. Josh has bizarre origins in a South African mining town, but now teaches mime in Bristol. Zoe reads girls’ ballet books and longs for ballet lessons; a thing denied her until, on a school French exchange, she meets a runaway boy in a woodland hut. Meanwhile, on the east coast of Africa, Hattie Thomas, Josh’s first love, has taken to writing girls’ ballet books from the turret of her fabulous house – that’s when she can carve out the space between the forceful presence of Herman and her crosspatch daughter Cat who, after some illicit snooping, is secretly planning a make-or-break essay on mask dancers in Mali. Hattie wakes from a dream of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and asks herself about the composer, ‘Do his glasses look sexy?’ His glasses are just like Josh’s glasses from two decades earlier. From far and wide, they are all drawn together; drawn to Jack’s place. Or is he Jacques? Or Giacomo? Beautiful, mysterious Jack, the one-time backyard housemaid’s child who, having journeyed via Mozambique and Senegal to Milan, is back exactly where he started – only not for long. In its mix of people from different spheres, the book throws up the complexity, cruelty and richness of the global world while, as a sequence of personal stories, it comes together like a dance; a masquerade in which things are not always what they seem.

Ilustrado

by Miguel Syjuco

It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River – taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Missing, too, is the only manuscript of his final book – meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the corrupt roots of power behind the Filipino ruling families. His student, Miguel, investigates, journeying home from a city still in shock from terrorist attacks to a country caught between reckless decay and desperate progress. To understand his mentor’s death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvador’s trajectory via his poetry, stories, interviews, novels, and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic: a generations-long saga of revolution, familial duty, political intrigue, and a people’s enduring struggle against their own worst tendencies. This is a clever, bravura, and exuberant debut novel from a new literary sensation.

The Slap

by Christos Tsiolkas

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly 3-year-old boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but this one slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. In his controversial novel, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2009, Christos Tsiolkas presents an apparently harmless domestic incident as seen from eight very different perspectives. The result is an unflinching interrogation of our lives today; of the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits…

“Nothing short of a tour de force. Tsiolkas outs a microscope to family life and presents us with a vision both of unflinching honesty and great tenderness. Here is a novel of immense power and scope, reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections and Don De Lillo’s Underworld.”                       Colm Tóibin

Imperfectionists

by Tom Rachman

The English-language newspaper was founded in Rome in the 1950s, a product of passion and a multi-millionaire s fancy. Over fifty years, its eccentricities earned a place in readers hearts around the globe. But now, circulation is down, the paper lacks a website, and the future looks bleak.

Still, those involved in the publication seem to barely notice. The obituary writer is too busy avoiding work. The editor-in-chief is pondering sleeping with an old flame. The obsessive reader is intent on finishing every old edition, leaving her trapped in the past. And the dog-crazy publisher seems less interested in his struggling newspaper than in his magnificent basset hound, Schopenhauer.

The Imperfectionists interweaves the stories of eleven unusual and endearing characters who depend on the paper. Often at odds, they are united when the focus of their lives begins to fall apart. Funny and moving, the novel is about endings the end of life, the end of sexual desire, the end of the era of newspapers and about what might rise afterward.

“The Imperfectionists is alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching, and it’s assembled like a Rubik’s cube…a cross between Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing adventure…(this) is so good I had to read it twice.”                                New York Times Book Review.

Magnificent Non-Fiction

Magnetic North

by Sara Wheeler

Smashing through the Arctic Ocean with the crew of a Russian icebreaker, herding reindeer across the tundra with Lapps and shadowing the Trans-Alaskan pipeline with truckers, Sara Wheeler discovers a complex and ambiguous land belonging both to ancient myth and modern controversy.  Magnetic North is a spicy confection of history, science, and reflection in which Wheeler meditates on the role of the Arctic: fragmented lands which fed imaginations long before the scientists and oilmen showed up (not to mention desperado explorers who ate their own shoes). Magnetic North tells of all this, plus gulag ghosts, old and new Russia, colliding cultures and bioaccumulated toxins in polar bears.

“You might get to travel in the Arctic yourself; if you don’t, this book is the next best thing.”      The Times

“A chilling and fascinating work.”          Guardian

“Carries lightly a depth of research that gives alarming edge to Wheeler’s engrossing histories.”     Financial Times

ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever

by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

From the founders of the trailblazing software company 37signals, here is a different kind of business book – one that explores a new reality. Today, anyone can be in business. Tools that used to be out of reach are now easily accessible. Technology that cost thousands is now just a few pounds or even free. Stuff that was impossible just a few years ago is now simple. That means anyone can start a business. And you can do it without working miserable 80-hour weeks or depleting your life savings. You can start it on the side while your day job provides all the cash flow you need. Forget about business plans, meetings, office space – you don’t need them. With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs who want to get out, and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable inspiration and guidance in these pages. It’s time to rework work.

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloots

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cancer cells – taken without her knowledge – became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first ‘immortal’ human tissue grown in culture, HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilisation, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Globish: How the English Language became the World’s Language

by Robert McCrum

What were the beginnings of the English language? Why has American culture spread so successfully and will it continue to do so even as the country’s power apparently wanes? Why are the West Indies no longer any good at cricket? What difference did slavery make to the way we speak English today? Packed with nuggets of information about language, culture, history and power, Robert McCrum (author and Literary Editor of the Observer) traces the way that the English language as twisted and turned in response to the way the world has changed, and how, even as the British Empire is long dead, the language extends its influence further and further in a globalised world.

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City

by Greg Grandin

In 1927, Henry Ford, the founder of the famous motor company and the richest man in the world, bought a 5,000 square mile-tract of land in the Brazilian Amazon. There he was going to build a rubber plantation. To the unkempt rainforest he would bring the principles of mass production – order, efficiency and productivity. He would harness the river itself in order to transplant capitalist civilisation to the dark heart of the jungle. But Ford wanted more than just rubber. Across the United States, small-town America was giving way to growing cities, consumerism and crass, brash new society. Ford wanted to create in the Amazon an America in his own image – Fordlandia, full of neat houses, straight roads and restrained Puritanism. By 1945 it was abandoned in ruins.

“Fordlandia is…a genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist’s sense of pace and an eye for character…engrossingly enjoyable.”                       Los Angeles Times

“With Fordlandia, Greg Grandin, a professor of history at New York University, tells a haunting story.”                    New York Times Book Review

The Man Who Left too Soon: The Biography of Stieg Larsson

by Barry Forshaw

His best-selling books are violent, terrifying, brilliantly written and have sold millions of copies around the world, but Stieg Larsson was not there to witness any of their international success. That he died in 2004 and his fame as an author is entirely posthumous demonstrates the dizzying speed with which his star has risen. But when one looks a little deeper at the man behind these phenomenal novels, it is clear that his life would be remembered as truly extraordinary, even if his Millennium trilogy had never been published. Larsson was a workaholic: a keen political activist, photographer, graphic designer, a respected journalist and editor of numerous science fiction magazines…and at night, to relax after work, he wrote crime novels. As the world now knows, by the time of his death at just 50 years of age he had completed The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third book featuring his hypnotic character, Lisbeth Salander. But his relentless personality and political convictions did not make his life easy. He famously reported about some dangerous neo-Nazi organisations in Sweden, which led to numerous death threats. In fact, since his death, officially caused by a massive heart attack, there had been much speculation that his enemies had a hand in his premature demise. This difficult man, brilliant and multifaceted, here receives a penetrating biography – and celebration of his remarkable life and books – from top crime fiction journalist Barry Forshaw

Bounce

by Matthew Syed

Everyone knows that David Beckham crosses the ball better than anyone else and that Tiger Woods never ˜chokes’. But what are the hidden factors which allow the most successful sports stars to rise above their competitors – and are they shared by virtuosos in other fields?

Ripped: How the Wired Generation Rvolutionised Music

by Greg Kot

A decade ago the vast majority of mainstream music was funnelled through a handful of media conglomerates. Now, more people are listening to more music from a greater variety of sources than at any time in history. And big corporations such as Viacom, Clear Channel, and Sony are no longer the sole gatekeepers and distributors, their monopoly busted by a revolution – an uprising led by bands and fans networking on the Internet. Ripped tells the story of how the laptop generation created a new grassroots music industry, with the fans and bands rather than the corporations in charge. In this new world, bands aren’t just musicmakers but self-contained multimedia businesses; and fans aren’t just consumers but distributors and even collaborators.

Some New Local Non-Fiction

Masked Raiders: Irish Banditry in Southern Africa, 1880-1899

by Charles van Onselen

For two decades before a railway system linked southern Africa’s principal cities in the mid-1890s, the world’s richest supplies of diamonds and gold were transported by coach and horses to distant ports for export. For Irish soldiers based at Fort Napier, Pietermaritzburg, the temptation of this fabulous wealth proved irresistible: they deserted by the score and, as members of the criminal ˜Irish Brigade’, embarked on a spree of bank, safe and highway robberies. Masked Raiders follows the wild exploits of legendary brigands like the McKeone brothers and ˜One-Armed Jack’ McLaughlin, who ravaged the subcontinent, from the mining towns of Barberton, Kimberley and Johannesburg to the borders of Basotholand, Bechuanaland, Mozambique and Rhodesia.

Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008

by Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer’s many novels include The Conservationist, joint winner of the Booker Prize, Get A Life, Burger’s Daughter, July’s People, My Son’s Story and The Pickup. Her collections of short stories include The Soft Voice of the Serpent, Something Out There, Jump and, most recently, Loot. She also edited the anthology of stories Telling Tales. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Behind the Badge: The Untold Stories of South Africa’s Police Service Members

by Andrew Faull

The police have played a central role in South Africa’s troubled past, are caught up in its crime-ridden present, and remain key to a more peaceful future. Despite this, most citizens know very little about the lives and experiences of the average cop in the 185,000-strong South African Police Service. This book is composed of excerpts from interviews with twenty-eight current and former members of the service who, for the first time, share their personal experiences of life behind the badge. There is mantra among the police: ˜What happens on the shift stays on the shift.’ In Behind the Badge, members talk openly about the experiences hidden behind this wall of silence. The book covers a wide range of themes, including reasons for signing up; training; transformation from SAP to SAPS; the case; lethal force; torture; corruption; ethics; experiencing loss; work and home life; the emotional toll; humour; sex and power.

Captured in Time: Five Centuries of South African Writing

edited by John Clare

The time has come to delve into the story of South Africa’s turbulent history – a story of exploration and conquest, rampant growth and war, oppression and ultimately, liberation. Captured in Time tells that story in a collection of extracts from the most illuminating, entertaining and significant works written about the country and its diverse people over almost five centuries.

The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa

by Denis Goldberg

Nelson Mandela’s comrade in the struggle, Denis Goldberg, spent 22 years in an Apartheid South African political prison from 1963 to 1985. In this memoir, Denis, the perennial optimist, writes about the human side of the often painful road to freedom; about the joy of love and death, human dignity, political passion, comradeship, conflict between comrades…and a very long imprisonment.

Something Beautiful

Illustrated Children’s Books

This beautiful book explores the history, design and influence of the children s books which have inspired and enchanted generations. It examines the history, development and design of children s books in great detail from the late seventeenth century to the present day. From progressions in colour printing and the emergence of new illustrative styles in the 1960s and 70s, to the iconic illustrations produced in the last ten years. Published in association with the Book Trust, Illustrated Children’s Books includes a foreword from the current Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne, and provides a rare glimpse into the history and provenance of the characters we all know and love. Wandering through the pages we find perennial favourites such as Winnie the Pooh, The BFG, Dogger, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the Gruffalo, Babar, Miffy and Captain Pugwash. Explored in terms of cover design, character illustration and book interiors, these much loved stories are brought back to life again in this richly illustrated, hardback compendium. Illustrated Children’s Books will bring memories of your favourites flooding back – regardless of your age – it is a bookshelf essential for designers, illustrators, parents and anyone wanting to take a sentimental look back at their childhood favourites.

Plenty

Yotam Ottolenghi

With his fabulous, highly successful London restaurants and bestselling Ottolenghi Cookbook, Yotam Ottolenghi has established himself as one of the most exciting new talents in the world of cookery and food writing. This exclusive collection of vegetarian recipes is drawn from his column ‘The New Vegetarian’ for the Guardian’s Weekend magazine, and features both brand-new recipes and dishes first devised for that column. Yotam’s food inspiration comes from his strong Mediterranean background and his unapologetic love of ingredients. Not a vegetarian himself, his approach to vegetable dishes is wholly original and innovative, based on strong flavours and stunning, fresh combinations. With sections devoted to cooking greens, aubergines, brassicas, rice and cereals, pasta and couscous, pulses, roots, squashes, onions, fruit, mushrooms and tomatoes, the breadth of colours, tastes and textures is extraordinary. Featuring vibrant, evocative food photography from acclaimed photographer Jonathan Lovekin, and with Yotam’s voice and personality shining through, Plenty is a must-have for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike.

Event Art

by Jacobo Krauel

This exquisite book collects together ephemeral architecture – sculpture and installations – as they are seen in their original habitat, be it gallery, street, building or park. Each one is a vision – some clever, some exuberant, some mysterious and other worldly – but together they demonstrate the unlimited wildness of the human imagination.

Imprint of the Month

Gallic Books

South African readers – like those in the rest of the world – have fallen head-over-heels for French author Muriel Barbery’s novels The Elegance of the Hedgehog and The Gourmet (aka Gourmet Rhapsody). Until recently, we had to import her books, but they are now available locally, courtesy of wonderful new publishing imprint Gallic Press, devoted entirely to bringing the best in new French literature to an English readership. Apart from Me. Barbery’s works, they are publishing the wonderful series by Francois Lelord, entitled Hector’s Journeys, which are much in the same vein as Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World, but with that inimitable French je ne sais quoi.  The first one – Hector and the Search for Happiness – is already well on its way to being a sleeper hit locally, and is soon to garner even more attention, courtesy of a major film to be made by the makers of The Last Station. In addition, they have brought us the wonderfully quirky Checkout: A Life on the Tills, Anna Sam’s witty and scabrous account of 8 years working behind the counter in a supermarché. There is also the wonderfully macabre and blackly funny The Suicide Shop by Jean Teulé, about a dismal family business threatened by a son and heir’s unwanted joie de vivre. Apart from all these wonderfully singular titles, they are also publishing a range of historical suspense thriller series, set in different periods of French history, from Andrea Japp’s Agnes de Souarcy Chronicle (set in Medieval France), through Jean-Francois Parot’s Nicolas Le Floch Investigates (D’Artagnan-era Royal France), Armand Cabasson’s Napoleonic Murders, Claude Izner’s Belle Epoque Victor Legris Mysteries to Fabrice Bourland’s The Baker Street Phantom, a Sherlock Holmes-related mystery set in the 1930′s. Certainly a name to keep an eye on!

Afrikaanse Hoekie

4 Briewe vir Jan Ellis

deur Steve Hofmeyr

Glo my, ek is net so verras soos enige van julle dalk mag wees om juis hierdie naam op ‘n Book Lounge nuusbrief te sien… maar dit waarheid is dat Steve Hofmeyr werklik ‘n puik klein boekie geskryf het! Dis ‘n redelike eenvoudige storie van ‘n seun in die klein Kleurling-woonbuurt van Diazville, wat verkeerdelik skuldig bevind word aan ‘n moord in die Sestigerjare, terwyl hy as posman aflos. Wanneer hy op Oukersaand veertig jaar later vrygelaat word, vind hy vier briewe in sy possak wat hy nie dié noodlottige dag kon aflewer nie. Deur die eenvoudige literêre struktuur ontsluit Jan Ellis die gebeure van daardie dag, en ook wie hy werklik is. Maar dis nie net die eenvoudige (Kers)storie wat die boekie die moeite werd maak nie. Eerder is dit die fyn oog en oor waarmee Hofmeyr oor hierdie gemeenskap skryf, en die werklike meegevoel en deernis wat hy vir sy eg menslike karakters skep. Hofmeyr het (miskien teen verwagting in) ‘n meesterwerk in die kleine hier geskep.

Books About Young People, But Not Just For Young People

The Prince of Mists

by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Max Carver’s father – a watchmaker and inventor – moves his family to a small town on the coast, to an old house that once belonged to a prestigious surgeon, Dr Richard Fleischmann. But the house holds many secrets and stories of its own. Behind it is an overgrown garden full of statues surrounded by a metal fence topped with a six-pointed star. When he investigates, Max finds that the statues seem to consist of a kind of circus troop with the large statue of a clown at its centre. Max has the odd sensation that the statue is beckoning to him. As the family settle in they grow increasingly uneasy: they discover a box of old films belonging to the Fleischmanns; his sister has disturbing dreams and another sister hears voices whispering to her from an old wardrobe. They also discover the wreck of a boat that sank many years ago in a terrible storm. Everyone on board perished except for one man – an engineer who built the lighthouse at the end of the beach. During the dive, Max sees something that leaves him cold – on the old mast floats a tattered flag with the symbol of the six-pointed star. As they learn more about the wreck, the chilling story of the Prince of the Mists begins to emerge.

Paper Towns

by John Green

Discovering John Green was the discovering of a games master. He sets the scene, entertains the reader and before you know it, you are sucked in, screaming “Bingo!” In Paper Towns we meet Quentin, a member of the new it’s-not-that-bad-to-be-a-geek group who has always loved his neighbour, Margo, from afar. When Margo disappears, Quentin believes it is his duty to find her. What appears on the surface to be a great mystery and adventure read also focuses on the connection between believed truth and actual fact. Green explores the way we perceive ourselves through the eyes of others, how we are often the product of criticism, rather than our true selves. Through the book, Quentin believes that Margo has left him clues in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and the reader gets to explore this great epic ode to the joy of life. John Green is a damn fine writer and has other books along the same vein. (PS. Green also mentions a band called the Mountain Goats in this book and do check them out – they have brilliant lyrics!)

Vamoose!

by Meg Rosoff

If you believe all babies are a blessing…what if your baby is non-homo sapiens? Meg Rosoff has written the most brilliant laugh-out loud short novella about a young couple who give birth to a beautiful boy moose. Everyone blames everyone’s family genes, but yet young Moosie keeps growing up at a rapid pace and needs to go to school! Rosoff gives a fresh look at parent-angst and the love of a parent that knows no boundaries (according to my mother). The book is part of Puffin’s 70-year anniversary reads and costs a mere R50, which makes it totally worth it! (If you like Meg Rosoff’s writing style, do ask about her other books, especially Just In Case. She dips into the heart of humankind and pens it down beautifully).

This is Very Very Funny

Awkward Family Photos

by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack

Based on the hit website, AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com – described as “painful, regrettable, horrifyingly awesome snaps of family bonding, you will laugh so hard that people in adjoining offices will ask what’s wrong with you” by Esquire – this book features never-before-seen photos and hilarious personal stories covering everything from uncomfortable moments with relatives, teen angst, sibling rivalry, and family vacations from hell. Cringe at the forced poses, bad hair, and matching outfits – all prompting us to look at our own families and celebrate the fact that we’re not alone. Nothing says awkward better than an uncomfortable family photograph!

“This is genius!” Graham Norton

“Being a test tube baby doesn’t seem such a bad idea after looking at these folks. I laughed till it hurt. To paraphrase Tolstoy… every family is freaky in its own way.”                David Byrne

Steve