BOOK SA - Reviews

Verdict: carrot

Now here’s a book looks a likely candidate for my 2010 “to read” list: SMS Uprising< which treats how cell phones are changing activism in Africa, complete with case studies. The book’s blurb at its Pambazuka homepage is certainly worth a look alongside this review from Anne Perkins:

But the optimists – and the activists like Christian Kreutz, who wrote the second essay in this collection – believe mobiles can extend participation, monitoring and transparency, decentralise networks and provide opportunities for local innovation.

Mobile has greater penetration than television (although not radio, with which it can work as a kind of poor man’s internet, with radio broadcasts soliciting citizen journalism to report on local events and conditions). The essential element is not high technology, but universality – and people on the ground who can frame questions, find or write software and then recruit users. SMS activists are the sons and daughters of the first generation of internet users – passionate about open source technology and shared experience.

Theory is one thing: but where these essays really come alive is in the descriptions of projects that have already worked.

• Complete review in the Guardian

• SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa homepage

Book Details

• SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa edited by Sokari Ekine
  EAN: 9781906387358
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Verdict: stick

What do you do when a genre is too broad to accurately categorize a book? You come up with an easy to handle sub-genre – see holocaust literature, apartheid literature, and 9/11 literature among others. So, to call this book tyrant literature would be tempting, but the paucity of active tyrants (thank heavens) means the future of this sub-genre may be a little limited. This book does contain a tyrant, but is more about Zimbabwe the country, and thankfully the corpus on this embattled African country is growing with the arrival of some new voices, such as Petina Gappah and Brian Chikwava.

Add to that list Irene Sabatini with her debut novel The Boy Next Door. This is the story of Lindiwe Bishop, a young black girl in newly-independent Zimbabwe who falls in love with Ian McKenzie, her white neighbour, an otherwise unremarkable adolescent, except he has been convicted of murder. Their love story, stretched over almost two decades, forms the main filament of the novel. In the background, Zimbabwe is falling apart socially and economically. The book contains no small commentary on Mugabe and his cronyism that brings this once prosperous country to the point of near collapse.

• Complete review at Bookmunch

Book Details

• The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
  EAN: 9780340918821
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Uitspraak: wortel

Die moderne sprokiesboek is uiteindelik hier.

Só verwys Riana Scheepers na Linda Rode se nuwe sprokiesboek, In die Nimmer-Immer-Bos. Dié boek bring sprokies van regoor die wêreld byeen (nie net Europese sprokies nie) en sluit ook van Rode se eie verhale in.

Scheepers noem Rode die “supervrou” van kinderliteratuur en is veral beïndruk deur haar “byderwetse en klanknabootsende taalvermoë”.

Die Bybel skryf in Spreuke oor ’n wonderlike vrou, die deugdelike Mevrou, in Spreuke 31. Hierdie vrou is voortreflik in alles wat haar kloeke hand vind om te doen: Sy is hardwerkend, regverdig, slim, energiek en vrygewig. As sy haar mond oopmaak, dan kom daar ­wyse woorde uit. Die Bybel sê dit nie, maar dié mevrou was ­seker nog ’n voortreflike kok en ­minnaar óók, en natuurlik was haar kinders nooit gruwelik nie. Kortom, sy was ’n supervrou.

In die Afrikaanse kinder­­litera­tuur het ons ook ’n vrou. Haar naam is Linda Rode. Slaan sy haar hand aan ’n teks, of dit nou in die rol van samesteller, redakteur óf ­skrywer is, dan kan die leser maar weet: die resultaat is ’n ­deeglike, slim, ener­gieke, vry­gewige, ­pragtige boek.

• Volledige resensie in Die Burger

Boekbesonderhede

• In die Nimmer-Immer Bos saamgestel deur Linda Rode, geïllustreer deur Fiona Moodie
  EAN: 9780624047674
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Verdict: big, big carrot

Chinua Achebe, one of Africa’s greatest writers, has received very little recognition from those who grant the world’s prestigious literary awards. The Man Booker’s lifetime award, its International Prize for fiction, was conferred on him as recently as 2007 but the grand acknowledgement, the Nobel Prize, eludes him still.

Yet, if world acclaim has been restrained, in Africa adulation has come in simple yet complete ways. In his native Nigeria Achebe (80) is affectionately known as the Eagle on Iroko. Two potent images: the majestic eagle, king of the birds of prey, and the iroko, a giant tree native to West Africa and considered to be sacred.

The Education of a British-Protected Child (Penguin), his new collection of essays, confirms his cultural and political importance to Africa and the rest of the world. Achebe’s oeuvre, comprising poetry, short stories, children’s books, essays and fiction, includes the much-adored Things Fall Apart, the majestic Arrow of God and the essay collection Hopes and Impediments.

• Complete review in the Mail and Guardian

Book Details

• The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe
  EAN: 9781846142598
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Verdict: mini-carrot

Kate Jowell had it all before she descended into the fog of Alzheimer’s: an eventful life of great personal achievement, the love and appreciation of some extraordinary people… It counted for little when this little-understood affliction hit her and those close to her.

• Complete review at IOL Tonight

Book Details

• Something On My Mind - Kate Jowell: Her battle with Alzheimer’s by Sharon Sorour-Morris
  EAN: 9781770200906
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Uitspraak: wortel

Goeie nuus vir almal wat waarde aan Afrikaans heg, is dat die tweede uitgawe van Spreekwoorde en waar hulle vandaan kom nou met 3000 spreekwoorde uitgebrei is tot 11000. Dit is ’n toename van meer as 37%.

Slegte nuus vir almal wat die eerste uitgawe besit, is dat die hersiene uitgawe die eerste onvolledig maak en dus liefs bygekoop moet word. Gelukkig is R320 vir 660 bladsye (minder as 50c per bladsy) ’n billike prys.

• Volledige resensie in Beeld

Boekbesonderhede

• Spreekwoorde En Waar Hulle Vandaan Kom deur Anton Prinsloo
  EAN: 9781868901012
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Verdict: carrot

One of South Africa’s most lauded non-fiction writers has high praise for new entrant on the scene Jacob Dlamini:

At the beginning of his new book, Native Nostalgia, Jacob Dlamini tells us that he is going to do something audacious, perhaps even dangerous: he is going to get nostalgic about his childhood. Why is that audacious, you may ask. Well, because Dlamini grew up in Katlehong, an apartheid township, and those who wax nostalgic about such places risk being condemned as “reactionaries or even apologists for apartheid”.

Native Nostalgia proceeds nonetheless, and the world it brings forth is delightful. Dlamini is a humdinger of a talent. He takes from his childhood a great jumble of objects - the radio that sits in his mother’s kitchen, the rats that infest the streets, the indigenous first names of the fancy, middle-class kids - and, almost at will, it seems, he makes them play. Into his life his mother’s radio brings a bloated ensemble of sounds, stories and ideas - the death of Marvin Gaye, the stubborn persistence of Gerrie Coetzee, the white, Afrikaans-speaking heavy weight world champion supported to the hilt by blacks. It is from Radio Zulu that the seeds of Dlamini’s political awaking come; there is an announcer who prefaces each piece of news with the words Bathi ngithi - “They say I must say this”.

• Complete review in the Sunday Times

• Native Nostalgia homepage

Book Details

• Native Nostalgia by Jacob Dlamini
  EAN: 9781770097551
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Verdict: carrot

In Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume, protagonist Jean Baptiste Grenouille is born on a stinking hot day in July, 1738, under a gutting table in a fish market in Paris. Abandoned amid the swarm of flies and offal and then orphaned, he subsequently legs his way through a succession of wet nurses, each of whom, in turn, refuses and rejects him in disgust because he “doesn’t smell human.”

According to the composite profile we get in Summertime, deceased writer “John Coetzee” gives off much the same inhuman whiff. The novel, about an academic, Mr. Vincent, who is undertaking research for a biography of Coetzee, consists primarily of interviews with five people – friends, lovers, cousins, colleagues – those Vincent deems “important” to the deceased during the 1970s.

• Complete review in The Globe and Mail

Book Details

• Summertime by JM Coetzee
  EAN: 9781846553189
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Uitspraak: wortel

SUID-AFRIKA beskik oor ’n groot aantal besonderse museums. Ongelukkig is daar nie veel van ’n museumkultuur onder die breë Suid-Afrikaanse bevolking nie en word die land se museums nie altyd na waarde geskat nie. Politici is ook geneig om museums (soos kultuur in die algemeen) vir eie gewin te misbruik. Dit is beslis ook nie toevallig dat dit ’n buitelander is wat die Suid-Afrikaanse museumbedryf op oorkoepelende wyse krities ontleed nie; die skrywer is die Amerikaner Steven C. Dubin.

Mounting Queen Victoria is oorspronklik in 2006 as Transforming museums: mounting Queen Victoria in a democratic South Africa gepubliseer. Die boek handel onder meer oor die wyse waarop die maatskaplike gebeure van ’n land of samelewing byvoorbeeld deur museum uitstallings uitgebeeld word. In die loop van sy analise werp Dubin lig op die teenstrydighede in die apartheidsamelewing van vroeër, op die rasse- en klasse-kompleksiteite van ons land se kulturele instellings en dus ook op die uitdagings waarvoor ons land se museums te staan kom – gesien in die lig van dié kulturele instellings se geskiedenis van flaters, suksesse en paradoksale handelinge. Hy dui ook aan dat geheue/herinnering (memory) ’n wapen kan word in die hande van ideoloë, politici en ander.

• Lees die volledgie resensie in Volksblad

• Mounting Queen Victoria: Curating Culture Change tuisblad

Boekbesonderhede

• Mounting Queen Victoria: Curating Culture Change deur Steven C Dubin
  EAN: 9781770097469
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Taralyn Bro and Mark Carrels review “some big reads for fans of non-fiction”, including Pippa Green’s Choice, Not Fate, Joost and Laugh it Off Annual 4:

Verdict: carrot

Trevor Manuel’s decision to buy himself a fancy car may have caused him some flack in recent weeks, but there is no denying that SA’s longest serving Finance Minister deserves a hefty pat on the back for steering SA’s economy through a tricky transition period.

From 1996, over the next 12 years he became the face of the Finance Ministry. His Budget speeches were measured, inspired and delivered with the confidence of a natural orator.

Verdict: carrot

Joost is not necessarily everyone’s favourite celebrity, but the book still makes for an interesting read. Gemmell paints a picture of a man who becomes so haunted by his lies and deceit – especially to wife Amor, his family and the public, that he decides the best way out of the mess is to tell it like it is. The ex-Bok scrumhalf finally reveals it all; his liaison – “that did not include intercourse” – and drug-taking incident with a girl “who had lured him”.

Verdict: stick

I won’t lie – this is a tricky review to write. While there’s nothing seriously wrong with Laugh if Off Annual 4: South African Youth Culture, having long been a fan of Laugh it Off’s brand of humour, I found this volume to have slightly missed the mark.

Perhaps I’m not cool enough, hip enough or cynical enough, but the illustrations, comics and short stories from over 50 contributors were so far left-field, I failed to catch a lot of what was trying to be said.

• Complete article in Daily Dispatch Online

Book Details

• Choice, not Fate: The Life and Times of Trevor Manuel by Pippa Green
  EAN: 9780143025337
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• Joost: The Man in the Mirror by David Gemmell
  EAN: 9781770220737
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• Laugh It Off: Annual 4 edited by Justin Nurse
  EAN: 9781770097735
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