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“I’ve been chortling all weekend over Bar, Bench and Bullshifters! It’s a superbly entertaining, well-presented collection of anecdotes, biographies and snippets about the Cape legal legends. Well done on a really fine publication which I’ll be sure to recommend to my judicial friends, advocates and students, past and present. I’m sure I can even weave some of the stories into my lectures. The book is a must as a gift. I’m proud to be associated with this little gem.” 

Professor Jonathan Burchell, University of Cape Town

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Sam Woulidge has been writing about her love for food while travelling the seven seas for years. She has been a columnist for Taste Magazine and we have all fallen in love with her and her love for good food.

All these great conversations and drool-tastic recipes are now available in Confessions of a Hungry Woman (which is the same name as Sam’s blog).

Please join us for an evening of sampling some of the treats from the book and come and listen to Sam talk to Karen Dudley, from The Kitchen, about food, life and other mysteries of the universe.

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For some of us books are such a part of our every day life that we forget that books and reading can also be part of stories.

Today we will read great  books about books and we will make our own stories. Join Danica on the carpet for a book loving story time.

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“A lyrical love story” — Desmond Tutu

“Will find readers among South Africans of all political persuasions … a winning combination of intrigue, tragedy and humour” — Jean Els (bestselling SA author)

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Tracy lifts a Botoxed lip, shakes her head, minces off on her Louboutins, descends the stairs like a cautious  antelope. Gabe is lying on his unmade bed with his arms crossed, glaring at the ceiling, iPod pummelling those so-fragile, once-perfect membranes in his ears. If you look at the maths of it, 3(½) ≠ us. Somewhere, there’s more, has to be more than the pieces of ourselves which we present to each other.

Chris Hayes is a Capetonian architect, about to turn forty. He has one leg, and a squirrel problem. He also has a beautiful wife obsessed with staying that way, a dyslexic teenage son, and a business partner on at him to cash in on BEE deals. But it takes a visit to his dying mother to give Chris the push to examine his nagging sense of discontent, and to lead him into a past he’s never considered and a future he doesn’t expect.

An Exceptionally Simple Theory (of Absolutely Everything) is about having everything you want and little of what you need. It’s about being adopted, yet putting down roots; about growing older, maybe growing up; and what might transpire when the rhythms of a suburban life are disturbed.

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What did South African AIDS activists contribute, politically, to early international advocacy for free HIV medicines for the world’s poor? Mandisa Mbali demonstrates that South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) gave moral legitimacy to the international movement which enabled it to effectively push for new models of global health diplomacy and governance. The TAC rapidly acquired moral credibility, she argues, because of its leaders’ anti-apartheid political backgrounds, its successful human rights-based litigation and its effective popularization of AIDS-related science.The country’s arresting democratic transition in 1994 enabled South African activists to form transnational alliances. Its new Constitution provided novel opportunities for legal activism, such as the TAC’s advocacy against multinational pharmaceutical companies and the South African government. Mbali’s history of the TAC sheds light on its evolution into an influential force for global health justice.

Mandisa Mbali is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. She is a Rhodes scholar and obtained her doctorate in Modern History at the University of Oxford, UK. Mbali completed postdoctoral training at Yale University, USA and has published a journal article and book chapters on post–apartheid AIDS activism and policy-making.

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When we see a ladybird in the garden we always find them so beautiful and fascinating. They are so tiny and pretty with their red wings and a very important part of keeping our gardens growing.

Today we will read some ladybird (bug) stories and make our own bugs to decorate our rooms with.

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Some of the best stories in children’s books have got a tiger in them. Tigers are part of the royalty of the animal kingdom and the largest cats we have on Earth.

Today we are reading stories about tigers who do all sorts of things. Tigers often appear on flags and symbols because of their strength. We will make our own tiger symbols today.

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The dog’s head, abnormally large, stares back at him. There’s something about the hairiness of the dog hairs and the oddly impassive gaze of the dark pin-hole eyes that doesn’t seem quite right. And where’s the rest of the dog-creature’s body? He knows who it is even before the deliberately-gruffened voice comes over the intercom. ‘Matt,’ says the dog-muzzle, ‘it’s me.Please open up.’

Mattheus Duiker, the only son of Benjamin Duiker, the former owner of Duiker’s Motors, opens the gate of their Cape Town mansion to his lover, Jack. Disguised as a wolf, Jack invades the intimate darkness in which Matt is waiting for his father to die and for his own life to take off.

Shiny-eyed at the prospect, the two young men sneak past the study where the old blind man, dwelling on melancholy attachments and sombre suspicions, sits listening for the footfall of death.

Eben Venter’s novel is an unsparing investigation into the relation between a father and his son, into the disenfranchisement of a man who can glean scant wisdom from the past to equip him for life in a rapidly changing dispensation. Passionate. Disturbing. A masterly unravelling of the fragile thread of feeling – Eben Venter at the top of his game.

Daar is iets aan die stil blik van die donker oe wat nie heeltemal reg lyk nie, en die oomblik dat die hees stem oor die luidspreker kom, weet Mattheus wat dit is. “Matt,” se die hondebek, “dis ek. Maak oop asseblief.”

Mattheus Duiker, seun van Benjamin Duiker, eertydse eienaar van Duiker’s Motors, maak die hek van die Kaapse herehuis oop vir sy minnaar Jack. Vermom soos ‘n wolf dring Jack die intieme donkerte binne waar Matt wag dat sy pa doodgaan sodat sy lewe kan begin. Blinkoog oor die vooruitsigte sluip die twee jonges verby die studeerkamer waar die blinde ou man, deurdrenk van droewe verknogthede en donker vermoedens, sit en wag vir die voetval van die dood.

Eben Venter se roman is ‘n diepsnydende ondersoek na die verhouding tussen pa en seun, na die ontreddering van ‘n man wat bitter min uit die verlede kan neem om hom toe te rus vir ‘n lewe in ‘n snel veranderende bestel. Intens. Ontstellend. ‘n Meesterlike ontrafeling van die dun lyn van gevoel – Venter aan die toppunt van sy vermoens.

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Aeroplanes are such a part  of your life if you live in a city. We hear them fly by and we can spot them in the sky. Some of us have families who live in other places, so we have to use a plane to go and visit them and there is always that moment when the plane takes off and your tummy is full of butterflies and your ears are full of noise, that is so exciting! Then we get to fly just like the birds do.

Today we will read stories about aeroplanes and talk about things like wings and taxing down the runway!

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