Book of the Month November 2012

The artist in the garden : the quest for Moses Tladi / Angela Read Lloyd

Like Monet, who was his first inspiration, Moses Tladi was a gardener and an artist. Born in remote Sekhukhuneland, east of Pretoria, South Africa, the son of a medicine man who made a living by working in iron, and a mother who was a gifted potter. In his early childhood, Tladi herded cattle in the dramatic hill-country around his home.

It is not known how he encountered Herbert Read, but in the mid 1920s he found employment in Johannesburg as gardener to Read at his property in the fashionable suburb of Parktown. Read introduced Tladi to the collector and philanthropist Howard Pim, and together they promoted Tladi at public exhibitions from 1929 onwards.

The quest for Moses Tladi is a poignant and personal story relating to a wider world of art, family, home, love and loss against a background of the dramatic events that have encompassed all of us since the dawn of the new South Africa.

Source : The artist in the garden : the quest for Moses Tladi, 2009, Print Matters, Noordhoek, South Africa

Book of the Month October 2012

In this autobiography Mimi Coertse tells her story of exceptional talent, perseverance, personal suffering and international fame. We discover the toddler who wanted to be " the best singer in the world" ; the schoolgirl who was denied a soprano role because she was " too difficult" and of a novice who sang herself into a contract with the Vienna State Opera and quite overwhelmed this European city of music.

Mimi's achievements increasingly became a voice for South Africa. In the very darkest days of isolation she sang of and for her country, across all borders. Living to sing.

After literally coming in from the cold, Mini at last could become a mother and was soon campaigning for understanding between divided communities. She continues to seek out and develop new local singing talent, introduces astonished audiences to artists who have found their voices in a new South Africa.

A Life to Sing is the life story of a gifted woman who poured all her love and sorrow into her dream and her life's work. It's a story with as much drama, irony and pathos as the roles Mimi performed on stage. It's a voice that echoes log after the diva has left the theatre.

Source : Mimi Coertse, A life to sing : my story as told to Ian Raper, 2011, Rosslyn Press, Boordfontein, South Africa.

Book of the Month September 2012

Sandra McGregor, like many people passionate about Cape Town, was not born in the city. Her extraordinary sensitivity is the subject of this book and Dolores Fleischer, whose friendship has stimulated this record of Sandra's life, shares this passion.

Sandra has experienced an intense love affair with the mother city. Her most meaningful paintings are those she did in District Six, an inner part of Cape Town targeted in 1966 for forced removals and demolition by the apartheid government..

An artist in search of place and meaning, she experimented with different styles of painting, but it was here, motivated by her deep love for her friends in the District, that she felt fully human. She did her paintings not to make a political point, she sought no fame, power or notoriety, there was no commercial motive or cleverness in her actions. The reason for painting was simply her feeling of complete "oneness" with the place and her acceptance by the people. She captured for us what it was like to be a Capetonian in the days before the removals. The part of Cape Town she painted no longer exists, except perhaps in the Distric Six Museum and St George's Cathedral, her new home.

Dolores Fleischer has worked with Sandra to complete a circle of friendship of over seventy years. She has given us an unusual insight into the personal struggles of a woman born into privilege and contending with love and loss. Hidden from view is Dolores' own testimony of selflessness, kindness and love, those things that are about making us fully human.

Source:  Sandra McGregor : "onse artist" in district six / Dolores Fleischer

Book of the Month August 2012

Kruidjie roer my : die antieke helingskuns van die Karoo-veld. /Antoinette Pienaaar.

Toe Antoinette Pienaar, Afrikaanse sangeres en akrise, die eerste keer staan voor oom Johannes Willems, legendariese Griekwa-heler, sê hy: "Hier kom Juffrou nou eers aan".

Want toe het oom Johannes al byna veertig jaar lank drome gekry van die vrou met die rooi bakkie aan wie hy sy kennis sou oordra. Kennis wat terug tot in die antieke verskiet van oupa na kleinseun aangegee is..

Na sewe jaar se vakleerlingskap volg hierdie boek oor wat Karoo-kruie vir jou kan doen. Hoe dit jou kan roer - want in oom Johannes se benadering kort nie net jou liggaam heling nie, jou gees word saam gedokter.

In Kruijdie roer my hoor 'n mens die warm stem van Antoinette soos duisende luisteraars na haar gewilde rubriek Vrydagmiddae op RSG dit ken : vol begrip en deernis, altyd met 'n staaltjie en boweal die ruimhartige mededeling van haar kennis en oom Johannes se wysheid.

'n Boek vol mooi name, soos kokkoromoniet, rooivergeetwortels en louhout. En met 'n weelde aan foto's, stories, raad en indekse is dit 'n familieboek vir blaai, lees en naslaan.

Bron :  Pienaar , Antoinette , Kruidjie roer my : die antieke helingskuns van die Karoo-veld , 2008,:Umuzi, Roggebaai

Book of the Month June2012

'n Tikkie rooibos [edited by Gerda de Wet & Daleen van der Merwe]


Hierdie versameling uitsoekresepte, wat deur sommige van ons land se bekendste sjefs geskep is, weerspieël die beste van Suid-Afrika se kookkums.  Die goue draad wat deur die boek loop, is Rooibos - die wonderbestanddeel wat 'n gewone resep in 'n buitengewone een kan omtower.
Ervaar die merkwaardige verhaal van Rooibos.  Ervaar die ongelooflike geskenk van Rooibos deur meer as 100 resepte van 14 van Suid-Afrika se bekendste sjefs wat Rooibos as bestanddeel gebruik om die geur in kos uit te bring, kleur en diepte by te voeg, en gewone geregte in onvergeetlike disse te omskep.
Hierdie resepte wys jou hoe om uitsonderlike disse, drankies en lekkernye te herskep met 'n eg Suid-Afrikaanse bestanddeel - Rooibos.
Die kookboek is die resultaat van 'n jaar se werk agter die skerms om aan jou die beste van ons land se unieke kookkuns te bied.
Bron: [Gerda de Wet & Daleen van der Merwe redakteurs] 2009, 'n Tikkie rooibos, Rooibos Ltd., Clanwilliam

Book of the Month June 2012



Hierdie boek is die resultaat van 'n behoefte om hulde te bring aan die Boesmans van die Kalahari asook, om stories uit my bewaringslewe oor te vertel aan vriende en families. Dit gee die boek 'n styl van "bedstories met slapenstyd" wat ek vir my kinders sou vertel het wanneer ek van die veld af teruggekom het.. As navorser moes ek ook die unieke wetenskaplike geheime wat in die Kalahari opgesluit is , probeer ontrafel. Verder moet ek aan die leser verduidelik onder watter uniek toestande die Boesmans aan die suidpunt van Afrika oorleef het. Die faktore wat bygedra het dat ek die voorreg gehad het om in die Kalahari navorsing te kon doen kan byvoorbeeld nie verduidelik word sonder die geskiedkundige agtergrond van die gebied nie.

Ek moes gevolglik 'n keuse uitoefen in watter styl die boek geskryf word? Ek het die goue middeweg gekies om die wetenskap as doek te gebruik waarop ek my stories kon skets. Ek het sover moontlik die omgewing waarin die Boesmans in harmonie geleef het probeer skets. Die lywige lyste van dier- en plantsoorte agter in die boek sal voornemende besoekers aan die Kalahari in staat stel om goed voorbereid te wees wanneer hulle die gebied besoek. Ek deel my wedervaringe en heimweë as 'n "baie lang kampvuurstorie" met jou uit my wetenskaplike pen.

Lekker lees.

Fritz Eloff

April 2012   Bron : Eloff, Fritz  (in samewerking met Kobus du Toit) 2012, : Kinders van die duine : die lewe en omgewing van die Kalahari Boesman van weleer, Kejafa, Krugersdorp.

Book of the Month May 2012

A journal of a voyage to and from the Cape of Good Hope / Robert Henry Dingley


 One of the gems in Special Collections  is now exactly 200 years old.


It is a handwritten book entitled  A journal of a voyage to and from the Cape of Good Hope, with some sketches of the interior of that colony. Many of the sketches are in colour, giving one a vivid idea of life aboard ship in 1812. Its age, uniqueness and subject matter might make it the most valuable book in the library.


The name of the author who also made his own sketches, does not appear in the manuscript.  He was later identified as  Ensign Robert Henly Dingley, who spent three years at the Colony before returning to England.


A transcription of the manuscript was published in the Cape Times Annual of December 1930, a copy of which is held by the South African National Library in Cape Town.

Book of the Month April 2012

Dont' Joke ! the year in cartoons 1 September 2008 - 31 August 2009 /edited by Andy Mason and John Curtis

South Africa's cartooning maestros join forces with the new post-apartheid generation to tell the story of the most event-filled year since 1994. Hard-hitting and hilarious, Don't Joke! brings it all back in a rush of satires, parodies, caricatures and flights of fancy that'll rearrange your head.
Featuring nearly 400 cartoons by Zapiro, Madam & Eve, Fred Mouton, Brandan, Yalo, Jerm, Dr Jack, Mgobhozi and many more, Don't Joke! is living proof that South African cartooning has come of age.

Source : Don't Joke ! the year in cartoons 1 September 2008 - 31 August 2009 / edited by Andy Mason and John Curtis

Book of the Month March 2012

Kader Asmal : Politics in my blood a memoir / by Kader Asmal & Adrian Hadland with Moria Levy

Kader Asmal, lawyer and teacher, South African Cabinet minister,and the driving force behind the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, has been called man things - "small, bustling, curious, courageous, indefatigable" (Irish times) and "dapper, combative, witty, cantankerous, sarcastic, urbane precisely spoken" (Sunday Times). The son of a small-town shopkeeper from Natal, his life took him as far as exile in the UK, on to a senior position at Trinity College Dublin, and back to a free South Africa governed by an exemplary Constitution, which he helped device.
These memoirs are not only Asmal's personal journey. They are also the story of South Africa's transition from apartheid to freedom and democracy, in which he played a significant role, as a member of the ANC's Constitutional Committee and negotiating team and later as an MP and Cabinet minister under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. They provide testimony, too , to Asmal's lifelong dedication to freedom, equality and justice - ideals enshrined in the country's Bill of Rights, which he played a major part in writing.

Source : Kader Asmal : Politics in my blood a memoir / by Kader Asmal & Adrian Hadland with Moira Levy.

Book of the Month Jan/Feb 2012

Summa Angelica de casibus conscientiae by Angelo Carletti di Chivasso printed in 1491 in Strassburg by Martin Flach.


The first edition of the Summa Angelica appeared in the year 1476 and from that year to the year 1520 it went through 31 editions, 25 of which are preserved in the Royal Library at Munich. The "Summa" is divided into 659 articles arranged in alphabetical order and forming what would now be called a dictionary of moral theology. The most important of these articles is the one entitled "Interrogationes in Confessione". It serves, in a way, as an index to the whole work.

This incunabulum ( a book, pamphlet or broadside that was printed (not handwritten) before the year 1501 in Europe) was donated to the library by Prof. A. van Selms. It is the oldest book in die Library and is still in excellent condition, the binding intact and a few pages showing slight water damage.

Blessed Angelo Carletti di Chivasso was a noted moral theologian of the Order of Friars Minor ; born at Chivasso in Piedmont in 1411 and died at Coni, in Piedmont in 1495.

As noted in catholic hagiography, Angelo as Blessed Angelo was "known from early age for the holiness and purity of his life". He attended the University of Bologna where he received the degree of Doctor of Civil and Canon Law. It was probably at the age of thirty that he entered the Order of Friars Minor.