Much like people, some books come into your life when you really need them. Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult was one of those books for me. By default, it languished on my (rather substantial) To Be Read pile for a few months, after I was fortunate enough to attend a really lovely talk on the book by the author, and then I happened to pick it up at just the right moment, when what I needed most was catharsis. Continue reading
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For years one of the favourites (who happens to be the vocalist of the immense SA band, Sugardrive) and I have been saying how incredible it would be if Sugardrive, WONDERboom, Springbok Nude Girls and Prime Circle did a gig together. I still live in hope that a gig like that will happen one day, although it’s very unlikely, but last night the next best thing happened. Continue reading
The parental loves to tell the tale of how, when I was but a few months old, she was holding me on her hip while eating an ice cream and chatting to someone at a picnic – she took her attention off that ice cream for a moment and needless to say I faceplanted straight into it. A chocolatarian from the start, clearly, and one with a fine appreciation for ice cream. Continue reading
The saying goes that you should never judge a book by its cover, and of course that is true. But when I received Tracy Guzeman’s debut novel, The Gravity of Birds, for Christmas last year, the artwork was so exquisite it was like a second set of beautiful wrapping, and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. The (somewhat) mammoth To Be Read pile delayed that, but I cheated a bit and moved it a few places up the queue. I’m rebellious like that. Continue reading
Let me just be clear from the outset. The people we love are not supposed to die at the age of 36. And I’m not even talking about those sudden, awful accidents that rip people out of our lives unexpectedly, I’m talking about illnesses that allow for hopes to be raised before crushing them into oblivion. Illnesses that we think are only supposed to take the people who have finished really living their lives, not the ones who should still have bright and shiny days of love and laughter laid out before them in a seemingly endless row. It’s so unfair and unfathomable that it makes me want to scream. Continue reading
I fell in love with Barbara Kingsolver’s writing when I devoured what is probably her most famous novel, The Poisonwood Bible. It’s arguably one of the best books I’ve enjoyed, and none of the other works of hers that I have read (all except one of her novels) have ever disappointed. The Lacuna was certainly no different. Continue reading
One of my favourite things about South Africans is our sense of humour. We seem to have an endless capacity to laugh – at ourselves, at each other, at the situations we find ourselves in. Regardless of how tough things get, or how badly our politicians are behaving, you can be sure there will be someone finding the humour within moments. Too soon? No such thing in SA. Continue reading
It’s taken two years for me to be able to write this post. Let me just say this – 2013 was a bitch of a year. It started out with such promise, what with the happy occasion of the sister person moving back to South Africa on New Year’s Day, but then somewhere along the way it spiralled into a debacle of misery and loss. And the first loss happened on the 14th of January, when I had to make the crushing, but inevitable, decision to let the Alzheimer’s Cat go. Continue reading
A little while ago some friends and I decided we needed to take a break from the hustle and bustle of Jo’burg, which can get a tad much for us Durbanites at times, let me tell you. We knew we wanted to go to the Drakensberg, because let’s face it, it’s the best place in the world, but other than that, we weren’t too fixed on a destination. So I let Google work its wonders, and out popped Drakensberg Mountain Retreat. Retreat you say? Sold! Continue reading
The Garden of Burning Sand is Addison’s second book, and I was so thoroughly in love with his first, A Walk Across the Sun, that I simply had to get my hands on it. His debut novel, which tackled the difficult subject of human trafficking in a sensitive and insightful way, was simply beautiful, but The Garden of Burning Sand is even better. Continue reading
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