Book of the Month March 2013

Cyril Ramaphosa © 2007 / Anthony Butler

Cyril Ramaphosa is one of South Africa's is one of South Africa's most celebrated political leaders. He first came to prominence in the 1980's as general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and as a major force in the domestic struggle for political freedom. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, Ramaphosa was at the head of the reception committee that greeted him. As secretary-general of the ANC after its unbanning, he re-established the liberation movement as a mass political party. He is widely credited with playing a major role in the negotiations that led to the democratic settlement in South Africa, and in devising the country's new and internationally renowned constitution. Soon after this triumph, Ramaphosa left politics and became a successful businessman.

This commanding biography by Anthon Butler tells the story of Cyril Ramaphosa's life for the first time. It is based on rich interviews with many of the subject's friends and contemporaries, and it situates Ramaphosa's achievements and his shortcomings in the context of the often tumultuous historical events that surrounded him. Here is a frank appraisal of the achievements and limitations of one of South Africa's most enigmatic political figures.

Source : Cyril Ramaphosa © 2007 / Anthony Butler

Book of the Month Jan/Feb 2013

Voices from the forest : celebrating nature and culture in Xhosaland / Tony Dold & Michelle Cocks.

Michelle Cocks and Tony Dold have spent many years documenting the role that nature plays in the cultural and spiritual landscapes of the Xhosa people in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Voices from the forest presents, for the first time, this poorly understood theme in the context of sustaining cultural heritage and conserving biodiversity in South Africa..

The book is not only a record of knowledge about Xhosa people and their use of plants, but serves as a pointer to sustainable practices in the future. In our modernising world, cultural diversity is threatened by the loss of natural diversity, and finding ways of protecting the region's biodiversity and cultural diversity is of vital importance.

Voices from the forest includes a wealth of information on Eastern Cape plants and animals, Xhosa culture and the environment, which is not recorded as comprehensively, accessibly and authoritatively anywhere else. It is a unique and vital record of information. It also gives moving insights into the Xhosa people's hold on their culture, their sense of place and of their history. As a focussed social record, it is exceptionally valuable - and it also has a far wider application : what you learn from it, you know must also apply in different ways to countless other peoples whose way of living has been changed and uprooted.

Tony Dold is a plant taxonomist and ethnobotanist and is the curator of the Selmar Schonland Herbarium at the Albany Museum in Grahamstown. Michelle Cocks is a research officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University.

A husband and wife team, Tony and Michelle both grew up in rural Transkei. They are passionate about the link between different cultures and the environment, and for the past 20 years have documented and photographed indigenous plant use in the Eastern Cape. They believe their shared passion has birthed a new vision for the conservation of biological and cultural diversity and together they facilitate a schools education programme called " Inkcubeko nendalo - Bio-cultural Diversity Education Programme".   Source : Voices from the forest : celebrating nature and culture in Xhosaland /Tony Dold & Michelle Cocks.

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