The Book Lounge Santa is back! Here to help you find the perfect present for your loved ones – and even the most difficult second cousin twice removed. Come in to the store and get our staff to help you choose, then relax with a coffee while we gift-wrap your presents.
But first, here is a small selection of some of the best to start inspiring you!
Fiction
The Wangs vs the World by Jade Chang
Charles Wang has just lost the cosmetics fortune he built up since emigrating to the US. Gone are the houses, the cars, and the incredible lifestyle. Faced with this loss, he decides to take his family on a trip to China and attempt to reclaim his ancestral lands.
But first they must go on a cross-country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the Upstate New York retreat of his eldest daughter, Saina. Charles takes his other two children out of schools that he can no longer afford and packs them into the only car that wasn’t repossessed-along with their wealth-addicted stepmother, Barbra.
But with his son waylaid by a much-older temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally, finally fulfilling his dream of China.
“[A] richly entertaining debut . . . smart and engaging.” Guardian
Thin Air by Michelle Paver
The Himalayas, 1935.
Kangchenjunga. Third-highest peak on earth. Greatest killer of them all.
Five Englishmen set off from Darjeeling, determined to conquer the sacred summit. But courage can only take them so far – and the mountain is not their only foe.
As the wind dies, the dread grows. Mountain sickness. The horrors of extreme altitude. A past that will not stay buried.
And sometimes, the truth does not set you free.
“A ghost story to chill and thrill…Like Touching the Void rewritten by Jack London, Thin Air is a heart-freezing masterpiece.” Amanda Craig, The Observer
Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak
Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground – an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past – and a love – Peri had tried desperately to forget.
The photograph takes Peri back to Oxford University. To her dazzling, rebellious Professor and his life-changing course on God. To her home with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about Islam and femininity. And finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart.
The Dispossessed by Szilàrd Borbély
A literary sensation on its original publication in Hungary, this hypnotic, hauntingly beautiful first novel from the acclaimed, award-winning poet and author Szilárd Borbély depicts the poverty and cruelty experienced by a partly-Jewish family in a rural village in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“No one has ever written so beautifully and at the same time so without pity about the suffering in the isolated provincial villages of Hungary…His sentences have a surgical precision, and their sustained rhythm only reinforces the power of what they evoke.” Nicole Henneberg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Slipping: Stories, Essays & Other Writings by Lauren Beukes
A Punk Lolita fighter-pilot rescues Tokyo from a marauding art installation. Corporate recruits harvest poisonous plants on an inhospitable planet. An inquisitive adolescent ghost disrupts the life of a young architect. Product loyalty is addictive when the brand appears under one’s skin.
Award-winning Cape Town author and journalist Lauren Beukes (Zoo City, Moxyland, Broken Monsters) spares no targets in this edgy and satiric retrospective collection. In her fiction and nonfiction, ranging from Johannesburg across the galaxy, Beukes is a fierce, captivating presence throughout the literary landscape.
“Lauren Beukes is one of the best we’ve got, and this fierce collection, showing the full breadth of her remarkable talent, is a pure dark joy.” Warren Ellis
Karolina’s Twins by Ronald H Balson
Lena Woodward, an elderly woman, enlists the help of both lawyer Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart to appraise the story of her harrowing past in Nazi occupied Poland. At the same time, Lena’s son Arthur presents her with a hefty lawsuit under the pretense of garnering her estate and independence for his own purposes. A tale of survival, love, and resilience in more ways than one.
“A heartbreaking tale of a mother’s love, friendship, and family in the face of increasingly brutal conditions and the constant threat of imminent death in Nazi-occupied Poland… compelling.” Library Journal
The Brother by Joakim Zander
From the author of the internationally acclaimed The Swimmer. Growing up poor, Yasmine vowed she would always protect her little brother from harm. She broke her promise on the day she left home, abandoning Fadi to his life in the Stockholm slums.
Now, five years later, Yasmine still carries the guilt of leaving him behind. Then she hears a rumour that he is dead, killed by a US drone in Syria. What happened to turn her sweet-natured brother into one of the CIA’s most wanted men?
“A prime slice of Nordic Noir. Zander is part of the influx of new blood into the genre, and this third novel is both forceful and subtle … What we have here are the two crucial ingredients of Scandicrime: powerfully orchestrated tension set against a strong dose of social commentary.” Independent.
Some notable 2016 titles…
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
Tjieng Tjang Tjerries & Other Stories by Jolyn Phillips
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Period Pain by Kopano Matlwa
Affluenza by Niq Mhlongo
The Yearning by Mohale Mashigo
The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain
Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa
The Girls by Emma Cline
The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
Pleasure by Nthikeng Mohlele
This Must be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
Gift
Vogue: The Shoe by Condé Nast
More than 300 fabulous images from a century of British Vogue, featuring remarkable styles that range from the humble clog to exquisite hand-embroidered haute couture stilettoes via fetishistic cuissardes and outrageous statement heels. The images are grouped into five thematic chapters devoted to dazzling Cinderella heels; Town & Country classics; Cult Style inspiration; the escapism of Summer Dreaming and the extreme heels of Fetish & Fantasia.
Unemployable: 30 Years of Hardcore, Skate and Street by Jason Boulter and Rodney Mullen
From the 1970s underground Melbourne skate scene to a company with a presence in over one hundred countries, Unemployable is the story of how three Australian brothers – Stephen, Peter and Matt Hill – founded one of the world’s biggest skate, street, and surf companies, Globe International. A story about following your dreams, Unemployable will resonate with a broad range of readers beyond a purely skate/surf/street audience.
Map Stories: The Art of Discovery by Francisca Mattéoli
Through this magnificent collection of historical maps, travel writer Francisca Mattéoli takes us on a geographical adventure, telling the stories of twenty-three places and voyages that inspired her, as they inspired the creation of these fascinating charts.
Discover some of the world’s most magical places and how they revealed themselves, from the lost trails of the first colonies of the American West to Amundsen’s exploration of the South Pole, and the rediscoveries of Petra and Angkor Wat. This unexpected volume will let the curious mind roam the contours of the planet, and discover how the world we know today was made, and un-made.
Let Them Eat Chaos by Kate Tempest
both a powerful sermon and a moving play for voices. Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but she counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time.
“Thrillingly good . . . Ms. Tempest stitches together words with such animate grace that language acquires an almost tactile quality, and the drama she unfolds . . . soars to operatic dimensions. . . . [An] hypnotically persuasive vision.” Charles Isherwood, New York Times
Gardenista: The Definitive Guide to Stylish Outdoor Spaces by Michelle Slatalla
Our homes’ outdoor spaces can and should be as welcoming and carefully considered as our living rooms; when treated as extensions of our homes, these spaces enrich our lives immeasurably. This book contains lushly photographed tours of 12 enviable gardens; planting guides for a variety of climates and colour palettes; do-it-yourself projects; easy-to-implement design ideas; plus advice from landscape professionals. Equal parts inspiration and expert intel, Gardenista is both a perfect starting point and an all-in-one manual when questions arise.
Atlas Obscura by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton
It’s time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world.
Atlas Obscura revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveller as the die-hard adventurer. Anyone can be a tourist. Atlas Obscura is for the explorer.
“I thought I had seen most of the interesting bits of the world. Atlas Obscura showed me that I was wrong. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to pack in your workaday life and head out to places you’d never have dreamed of going, to see things you could not even have imagined. A joy to read and to reread.” Neil Gaiman
Illustrated Dictionary of Southern African Plant Names by Michael Charters and Hugh Gascoyne Clarke
The Illustrated Dictionary of Southern African Plant Names is aimed at keen gardeners, plant collectors, amateur and professional botanists, academics, and many other people who wish to have an answer to the question: “What do generic plant names mean?” This easy-to-use dictionary enables readers to find out how plants have got their names. It provides a wealth of information that opens up a new world of understanding for all plant lovers. The book has nearly 5 000 entries and will include approximately 400 beautiful full-colour photographs of plants taken by top botanical photographers.
Fragments by Lionel Smit
Lionel Smit is a South African artist renowned for his larger-than-life portraiture works. Primarily a painter and sculptor, Smit is also no stranger to silkscreen printing and public installations in a variety of mediums.
Smit’s work has been exhibited in prestigious galleries and art fairs both locally and abroad. His work is currently on show in a solo exhibition at the Didrichsen Art Museum in Helsinki, while one of his monumental sculptures is proudly featured in New York City’s Union Square.
This absolutely beautiful book is a compilation of Lionel Smit’s paintings, sculptures and installations from 2009 to 2016. Includes full colour images of works beautifully displayed with details of the artworks and a written description about the artist’s journey.
Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay by Ben Katchor
The classic graphic novel by the landmark cartoonist is back in print for its twenty-fifth anniversary Cheap Novelties is an early testament to Ben Katchor’s extraordinary prescience as both a gifted cartoonist and an astute urban chronicler. Rumpled, middle-aged Julius Knipl photographs a vanishing city–an urban landscape of low-rent apartment buildings, obsolete industries, monuments to forgotten people and events, and countless sources of inexpensive food. In Katchor’s signature pen and ink wash style, Cheap Novelties is a portrait of what we have lost to gentrification, globalization, and the malling of America that is as moving today as it was twenty-five years ago.
“Ben Katchor s sublime collection chronicles the wanderings of Julius Knipl, a rumpled photographer-for-hire taking pictures of buildings in a gently surreal streetscape that vaguely resembles Manhattan s financial district of old. Knipl laments a fading world of dairy cafeterias, tchotchke salesmen and trophy manufacturers.” Wall Street Journal
Country Music Hair by Erin Duvall
Country music’s greatest mullets, bobs, beehives, and bouffants collected together in one entertaining volume, illustrated with dozens of color and black-and-white photographs.
“The higher the hair, the closer to god.”
Some follow the trends and others set them. Some have stylists on the tour bus and others rely on God and hair-spray. As Dolly Parton famously said, “People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair. I don’t know, I’m never there.”
“…this collection is a fabuously illustrated sociocultural commentary on how the Nashville sound is reflected through its hair.” Elle
The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany by Nic Compton
The rhythmic lullaby of ‘North Utsire, South Utsire’ has been lulling the nation’s insomniacs to sleep for over 90 years. It has inspired songs, poetry and imaginations across the globe – as well as providing a very real service for the nation’s seafarers who might fall prey to storms and gales. In 1995, a plan to move the late-night broadcast by just 12 minutes caused a national outcry and was ultimately scrapped.
The Shipping Forecast is the official miscellany for seafarers and armchair travellers alike. From the places themselves – how they got their names, what’s happened there through the ages – to the poems and parodies that it’s inspired, this is a beautifully evocative tribute to one of Britain’s best-loved broadcasts.
Signs of Our Times: From Calligraphy to Calligraffiti
Signs of Our Times covers six decades of an art trend led by artists from the Arab world and Iran. Starting in the early 1950s, this alternative and original approach to modernism began with artists who took inspiration from their own cultural sources and combined them with international aesthetics and concepts. This publication considers the work of 50 key artists, ranging from important pioneers of the calligraphic movement to those who use the written word in their work today. The artworks, in a variety of media, are also interspersed with poems and relevant literature, putting into personal and historical contexts the innovative use of words in art.
Some Notable 2016 titles
The Initiation by Mogorosi Motshumi
The Survivor’s Club by Lauren Beukes and Dale Halvorsen
Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
A History of Pictures by David Hockney and Martin Gayford
Patience by Daniel Clowes
Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sally Knight
Modern Rasputin by Rosa Lyster
Nomme 20 Delphi Straat by Shirmoney Rhode
Non-Fiction
Keeping On Keeping On by Alan Bennett
‘I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked ‘no threat’ and did I stab Judi Dench with a pitchfork I should still be a teddy bear.’
Alan Bennett’s third collection of prose Keeping On Keeping On follows in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful Writing Home and Untold Stories, each published ten years apart. his is an engaging, humane, sharp, funny and unforgettable record of life according to the inimitable Alan Bennett.
“Cleverer and funnier than any one person has a right to be … inexhaustibly fascinating; Bennett has an eager, enquiring mind and a sharp way with words that can break your ideas open.” Sunday Times
Do Humankind’s Best Days Lie Ahead? By Stephen Pinker, Matt Ridley, Alain de Botton and Malcolm Gladwell
Four of the world’s most renowned thinkers take on one of the biggest debates of the modern era.
“It’s just a brute fact that we don’t throw virgins into volcanoes any more. We don’t execute people for shoplifting a cabbage. And we used to.” – Steven Pinker
“The idea that because things have gotten better in the past they will continue to do so in the future is a fallacy I would have thought confined to the lower reaches of Wall Street.” – Malcolm Gladwell
Ties That Bind: Race and the Politics of Friendship in South Africa edited by Shannon Walsh and Jon Soske
What does friendship have to do with racial difference, settler colonialism and post-apartheid South Africa? While histories of apartheid and colonialism in South Africa have often focused on the ideologies of segregation and white supremacy, Ties that Bind explores how the intimacies of friendship create vital spaces for practices of power and resistance.
“Ties that Bind is an intriguing and long overdue book about race and friendship. It marks a time worldwide when virtual friendships are fast becoming the norm. And yet, after reading the chapters, one is left with a clearer sense of what it takes – or might take in the future – to actually be friends across race.”
Sarah Nuttall author of Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Post-apartheid
The Exodus Down South by Oswald Kuchera
The Exodus Down South wrestles with the horror and triumph of life as a migrant. Oswald Kucherera manages to capture the promise and brutality of hope. Kucherera writes candidly of his own journey from Zimbabwe to South Africa – his flight from a certain untenable future to an uncertain one. His journey is rich with stories and characters, compassion and comradeship, and the struggles of all migrants.
Get a Life: The Diaries of Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood began Get A Life, her online diary, in 2010 with an impassioned post about Native American activist Leonard Peltier. Since then, she has written two or three entries each month, discussing her life in fashion and her involvement with art, politics and the environment. Reading Vivienne’s thoughts, in her own words, is as fascinating and provocative as you would expect from Britain’s punk dame – a woman who always says exactly what she believes.
Fees Must Fall edited by Susan Booysen
This book maps the contours of student discontent a year after the start of the #FeesMustFall revolt. Student voices dissect coloniality, improper compromises by the founders of democratic South Africa, feminism, worker rights and meaningful education. In-depth assessments by prominent scholars reflect on the complexities of student activism, its impact on national and university governance, and offer provocative analyses of the power of the revolt.
The Face of Britain: The Stories Behind the Nation’s Portraits by Simon Schama
In the age of the hasty glance and the selfie, Simon Schama has written a tour de force about the long exchange of looks from which British portraits have been made over the centuries: images of the modest and the mighty; of friends and lovers; heroes and working people. Each of them – the image-maker, the subject, and the rest of us who get to look at them – are brought unforgettably to life. Together they build into a collective picture of Britain, our past and our present, a look into the mirror of our identity at a moment when we are wondering just who we are.
“Schama’s greatest gift is a sure eye for an extraordinary story…This isn’t what you get from conventional historians or conventional art writers, more’s the pity…Schama has written books which will still be bought and talked about a century from now and he hasn’t lost an ounce of zest or intelligence. Damn him…” Andrew Marr
Into a Raging Sea by Tony Weaver
The waters off South Africa’s coastline are regarded as some of the most dangerous on earth. Sudden changes in weather, rip currents and freak waves all play their part in putting humans in peril, which sometimes ends in tragedy. No matter the danger, however, the brave volunteers of the NSRI are always willing to risk their lives to save others. Setting out, often in ‘dirty weather’ and in dark and icy conditions, they do their utmost to bring the victims back safe.
This collection of short stories – thrilling, heart-stopping and moving – have been published to commemorate 50 years of Sea Rescue (1967-2017).
The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World by Michael Lewis
From Michael Lewis, the No.1 bestselling author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, this is the extraordinary story of the two men whose ideas changed the world.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky met in war-torn 1960s Israel. Both were gifted young psychology professors: Kahneman a rootless son of holocaust survivors who saw the world as a problem to be solved; Tversky a voluble, instinctual blur of energy. In this breathtaking new book, Michael Lewis tells the extraordinary story of a relationship that became a shared mind: one which created the field of behavioural economics, revolutionising everything from Big Data to medicine, from how we are governed to how we spend, from high finance to football.
“It’s good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like.” Malcolm Gladwell
The Book of Joy by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships – or, as they would say, because of them – they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.
In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu travelled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create this book as a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: how do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?
Some Notable 2016 titles…
Safe House: An Anthology of Creative Non-Fiction edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey
Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard by Sean Christie
We Write What We Like: A New Generation Speaks edited by Yolisa Qunta
Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexeivich
Make or Break by Richard Calland
Free Fall by Malcolm Ray
Fordsburg Fighter by Amin Cajee
East West Street by Philippe Sands
The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carré
Not Without a Fight by Helen Zille
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Good Cop Bad Cop by Andrew Brown
Student Comrade Prisoner Spy by Bridget Hilton-Barber
Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and Me by Marianne Thamm
My Own Liberator by Dikgang Moseneke
Letters of Stone by Steven Robins
History Matters by Bill Nasson
For the Food Lover
District Six Huis Kombuis
The District Six Huis Kombuis cookbook commemorates the rich fusion of food and cultural heritage in District Six through personal stories, recipes, historical images and craft work. The book is a culmination of memories and narrative. It weaves through the days of a typical week in District Six, focusing on traditional family recipes that were prepared with love and often limited resources. This is a visual celebration of the vibrancy and warmth of the community – who foraged, preserved, baked and cooked together. Portraits of 23 former District Six residents, accompany recollections of lives lived in a significant time. Artifacts, food and anecdotes bring the spirit of District Six alive again.
Monocle Guide to Drinking and Dining
Make the most of your food – and discover the best places to shop, drink and dine – with this brand new guide from Monocle. This is a handbook for anybody who enjoys simple, honest food but can do without the foam, fuss and trickery it’s often served with. It’s also about the other elements that make a great meal: honed hosting skills, sourcing the best produce and using the sharpest kitchen kit. Plus, Monocle offer a global hit-list of must-visit restaurants from Adelaide to Zürich and the freshest markets, shops and producers. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to turn their love of food into a livelihood.
The Chef’s Library: Favourite Cookbooks from the World’s Greatest Kitchens by Jenny Linford
All chefs love and cherish cookbooks, and increasingly, cookbooks have become treasured manuals of the trade, as well as beautiful art objects. The Chef s Library is the first attempt to bring together in a single volume a comprehensive collection of cookbooks that are highly rated and actually used by more than 70 renowned chefs around the world. Readers will discover the books that have inspired brilliant culinary talents such as Daniel Humm, Jamie Oliver, Sean Brock, Michael Anthony, Tom Kerridge and many others.
Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain
Brash, wild, original and badass. This is Anthony Bourdain’s interpretation of a normal cookbook.
As a restaurant professional, Bourdain spent his life on the fringes of normality – he worked while normal people played, and played while normal people slept. Since then he has settled (kind of) into family life and is cooking for the people he loves rather than people who pay. These are the recipes he turns to when called in for pancake service at sleepover parties or when preparing a violence-free family dinner.
With a striking Ralph Steadman illustration for the cover and photography that somehow manages to be both strangely beautiful and utterly grotesque, this cookbook – Bourdain’s first in ten years – is a home-cooking, home-entertaining cookbook like no other.
Leafy Greens Café: Recipes from Our Organic Garden by Antonia de Luca
Antonia de Luca has a love for seasonal, natural, vegan-friendly food. And goodies straight out the garden are even better. In The Leafy Greens Recipe Book, she shares recipes for the healthy and varied vegan delights she serves up at her popular Leafy Greens Café in Muldersdrift. From delectable strawberry cheesecake, to spinach croquettes and goji berry bars, The Leafy Greens Recipe Book has a recipe to suit every culinary mood or occasion.
Some notable 2016 cookbooks…
Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook
Reuben at Home by Reuben Riffel
Simplissime by Jean-François Mallet
Jan: A Breath of French Air by Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen
For Children and the Young at Heart
What’s Hidden in the Sea? by Aina Bestard
At first glance, all is still and quiet under the sea. But look closely through the glasses’ three coloured transparent sheets and amazing scenes unfold. As if by magic, fish and fauna come to life!
The Giant’s Necklace by Michael Morpurgo and Briony May Smith
A tense and thrilling ghost story from the internationally acclaimed author of War Horse. It all began with a necklace, made of glistening pink cowrie shells. A long, long necklace that had taken Cherry days – weeks – of careful, painstaking work. Cherry was determined it would be the longest necklace she had ever made; that it would be fit for a giant! But the end of the holidays had arrived. “You’ve only got today, Cherry,” said her mother. “Just today, that’s all.” Cherry didn’t mind, a day would be enough – she only needed a few more shells. So, amidst the taunts of her older brothers, she set out to search for them. Then the clouds grew dark and the waves grew large, and as the storm blew in, Cherry realised, to her horror, that she was cut off from the shore. From then on, events began to take a decidedly dark turn. One from which there was no turning back…
Pinocchio: The Origin Story by Alessandro Sanna
Told as a story of cosmic beginnings, this version of Pinocchio is about the formative energy and magic that reside in the wood that becomes the boy. This version is also about life on the molecular level and what it means to think about our composition as human beings from the point of view of energy and cosmic matter.
The Journey by Francesca Sanna
With haunting echoes of the current refugee crisis this beautifully illustrated book explores the unimaginable decisions made as a family leave their home and everything they know to escape the turmoil and tragedy brought by war. This book will stay with you long after the last page is turned.
“Sanna s crisp-edged, screenprintlike forms strike a careful balance between representing visceral dangers and offering tiny measures of hope. Given the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe and immigration debates in the U.S. and abroad, Sanna s story is well poised to spark necessary conversations about the costs of war.” Publishers Weekly
The Story Cure: An A-Z of Books to Keep Children Healthy, Happy and Wise by Ella Berthoud
From tantrums to tummy aches to teenage mood swings, there are times when a book is the best medicine of all. The Story Cure is a manual for grown-ups who believe that the stories which shape children’s lives should not be left to chance.
Story of Life: Evolution (Welcome to the Museum) by Katie Scott
Help children to understand the process of evolution with this stunning fold-out book, one of the Big Picture Press’ superb Welcome to the Museum series. It starts with the first single-cell organisms, 541 million years ago in the Pre-Cambrian era and ends with modern life forms in the Neocene and Quaternary eras. On the reverse there is information about developments in each period. Beautifully illustrated and full of detail, this really helps put evolution into context.
The Hair Fair by CA Davids
On the busiest street in a welcoming part of town stands a glorious hair salon, owned by Uncle Jamal and Mrs Brown.
The Hair Fair is a wonderful and warm celebration of ALL kinds of hair!
Ready Steady Mo! by Mo Farah and Kes Gray
From Olympic gold medal winner Mo Farah and bestselling author of Oi Frog, Kes Gray, comes a fun and action-packed picture book that will get kids reading – and running too!
So, what are you waiting for? Warm up, do the MOBOT, and then …
Run on the pavement
Run on the grass
Run in the playground
Perhaps not in class!
“This picture book, … will inspire kids to run everywhere, around the house, the park, across country — even into outer space.” Sunday Times
The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat
On one very special day an imaginary friend is born on an island far away. Here, he and his other imaginary friends play all day and each night they sit beneath the stars, hoping and waiting for their turn to be picked, to be imagined, by a real child. But this particular imaginary friend waits and waits, and still no child imagines him. So he does the unimaginable – he sets off into the real world.
“Bursting at the seams with charm” Huffington Post
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: 10th Anniversary Collectors by John Boyne illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
Bruno doesn’t like his new house. He had to leave all his friends behind in Berlin, and there are no children to play with here – until Bruno meets Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the wire fence near Bruno’s house, and who wears a strange uniform of striped pyjamas.
A stunning anniversary edition of John Boyne’s powerful classic bestseller, with illustrations from award-winning artist Oliver Jeffers.
The Moonlight Dreamers by Siobhan Curham
An inspirational, heart-warming book about four girls trying to find their place in the world. Siobhan Curham celebrates very different but like-minded friends in this captivating novel.
Amber craves excitement and adventure. Instead, she’s being bullied at school for having two dads, and life at home isn’t much better. Inspired by Oscar Wilde, Amber realizes that among the millions of people in London, there must be others who feel the same as she does; other dreamers – moonlight dreamers. After chance encounters with Maali, Sky and Rose, Amber soon recruits the three girls to the Moonlight Dreamers. It’s high time they started pursuing their dreams, and how better than with the support of friends?
The Graces by Laure Eve
Everyone said the Graces were witches.
They moved through the corridors like sleek fish, ripples in their wake. Stares followed their backs and their hair.
They had friends, but they were just distractions. They were waiting for someone different.
All I had to do was show them that person was me.
Like everyone else in her town, River is obsessed with the Graces, attracted by their glamour and apparent ability to weave magic. But are they really what they seem? And are they more dangerous than they let on?
This beautifully-written thriller will grip you from its very first page.
“The Graces.will have you turning the pages all night.” Irish Independent
There’s a Snake in My School by David Walliams and Tony Ross
From Number One bestselling picture book duo, David Walliams and Tony Ross, comes this ssssspectacularly funny picture book for children of 3 and up.
Miranda loves to be different, and on Bring-your-pet-to-school Day she introduces everyone to her very DIFFERENT pet…
Penelope the snake.
Miss Bloat the headmistress doesn’t think snakes should be allowed in school. But Penelope has other ideas…
Introducing a spectacularly slithery new picture book packed with mischief and mayhem from two superstars!
“Part Aesop, part Spike Milligan… this is rollicking stuff” – Big Issue
Games and Stocking Fillers
Top Trumps and Games
A favourite card game for all the family, in assorted from Adventure Time to Star Wars, from Frozen to Dinosaurs.
We also have a small selection of board games – from the traditional to the modern.
Truth Facts: The Truthiest Truths and Factiest Facts of Everyday Life by Mikael Wulff and Anders Morgenthaler
Playfully teasing readers even as it explores themes like perception vs. reality, this compendium of life’s truthiest facts prods us to laugh at ourselves, own up to our shortfalls, accept the strangeness of the world we live in, and continue on—happier and more connected to one another than ever before.
Keep Walking…This Doesn’t Concern You
Keep Walking, This Doesn’t Concern You brings together some of the internet’s laugh-out-loud and ridiculously stupid memes to help you make sense…
#parenting, #relationships, #winning, #fails, #work, #drinking and #lols whatever the occasion, you’ll never have to worry about expressing yourself again.
Ladybird Book of the Zombie Apocalypse…and others
This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them.
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.
Perfect stocking fillers and Secret Santa gifts – other new titles include
How it Works: The Student
How it Works: The Cat
How it Works: The Dog
How it Works: The Grandparent
The Ladybird Book of the Meeting
The Ladybird Book of Red Tape
The Ladybird Book of the People Next Door
The Ladybird Book of the Sickie
Rules for My Son/Daughter
Two beautifully presented collections of quotes featuring advice to our children – tips, tricks and wisdom to get them through the challenges of life.
Penguin Little Black Classics
Some of the best stocking fillers around – give your loved ones a slice of classic literature for only R35 each!
Secret Cape Town by Justin Fox and Alison Westwood
Table Mountain’s most exclusive hiking, a restaurant in a maximum security prison, the arboreal evidence of apartheid’s earliest manifestation, a woman disguised as a man for 56 years in order to be a doctor, a beach on top of Table Mountain, a fascinating secret collections of vintage and classic cars, a magical tree renowned for its spiritual healing properties, a heated pool on a military base that’s open to the public, a secret night-time nature tour, a hamster wheel for humans …
Far from the crowds and the usual clichés, Cape Town is still a reserve of well-concealed treasures that only reveal themselves to those who know how to wander off the beaten track, whether residents or visitors.
Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History by Matthew Parris
There’s no pleasure like a perfectly-turned put-down (when it’s directed at somebody else, of course) but Matthew Parris’s Scorn is sharply different from the standard collections. Here are the funniest, sharpest, rudest and most devastating insults in history, from ancient Roman graffiti to the battlefields of Twitter.
Encompassing literature, art, politics, showbiz, marriage, gender, nationality and religion, Matthew Parris’s sublime collection is the perfect companion for the festive season, whether you’re searching for the perfect elegant riposte, the rudest polite letter ever written, or a brutal verbal sledgehammer.
“The ideal stocking-filler – miniature in size and big on malevolence.” Francis Wheen, Mail on Sunday
Suzelle DIYary by Suzelle DIY
A creative do-it-yourself diary to DIY your way through any year! Write, doodle, make lists and plan your life in Suzelle style. Be inspired by DIY stickers, fun crafts and of course, some new tips and tricks from Suzelle’s sleeves.