Book extracts
Read an excerpt from Rahla Xenopoulos’s shimmering new novel The Season of Glass
It is past midnight and the stars are barely visible through the filth and fog of Seville when the doorway is opened, and she appears, illuminated by the moon.
Melktert in Orania with Betsie Verwoerd – Read an excerpt from 100 Mandela Moments by Kate Sidley
It is a picture that borders on the surreal – Nelson Mandela and Betsie Verwoerd chatting over tea and coffee, melktert and koeksisters.
‘The first thing Basjan did on arrival in the new land was to spit on it’ – Read an excerpt from Patagonia by Maya Fowler
The first thing Basjan did on arrival in the new land was to spit on it. It chagrined him that that was the first this land of grey dust got out of him, but it was necessary to rid himself of the taste of vomit. The salt water had been no help.
‘I remember exactly where I was when I heard that my father had died’ – Read an excerpt from The Pearl Sister
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died, I thought to myself as I stared out of the window and saw the complete blackness of night. Intermittently below me, there were small clusters of twinkling lights indicating human habitation, each light containing a life, a family, a set of friends …
‘Why didn’t you bring in the SWAT team, Duff?’ – Read an excerpt from Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth
Bestselling crime writer Jo Nesbo takes on Shakespeare’s bloodiest thriller: Macbeth.
‘You are the commanderess-in-chief of your own sexual revolution!’ Read an excerpt from Becoming Iman by Iman Rappetti
When I met the Mr to whom I would become Mrs, I had largely carried the fear of God and plagues in respect of sexual dalliances. Of course there was the understandable dabbling in discovery and lightly dodging the licking tongues of hellfire so I was untouched (in the biblical sense) when I finally let my ex-husband cross the frontier. He was the only one. The anointed.
Read an excerpt from Kate Mosse’s new book, The Burning Chambers, inspired by her trip to Franschhoek
Read an excerpt from Kate Mosse’s new book, The Burning Chambers, ahead of her events in Cape Town.
‘It was during one of the Kalahari’s raging February storms that Kytie Rooi committed a murder’ – Read an extract from Homeland by Karin Brynard
Read an extract from Homeland, the long-awaited translation of the number one bestseller Tuisland, Karin Brynard’s critically acclaimed and most ambitious novel to date!
Read an extract from Jonathan Kaplan’s book Winging It, detailing the emotional process he went through using surrogacy to become a dad
Then the doctor points to a thing sticking up. ‘Boy,’ she declares, and types the word on top there. I’m having a boy.
‘Hillbrow, 1967. The New York of Africa.’ Read an extract from John Hunt’s new novel The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in his Head
‘Hillbrow, 1967. The New York of Africa. Someone wrote that the place would soon have more people per square kilometre than Tokyo. Everyone quoted that article to everyone. Some even cut it out and kept it folded in their wallets.’
‘Ours is not to stand out but to survive.’ Read a short excerpt from An Image in a Mirror, the debut novel from Ijangolet S Ogwang
Nyakale. This has always been my name. It lost vowels and consonants and got rearranged into ‘Kay’ by my Grade Three teacher. ‘Easier to pronounce,’ she said.
‘I was born as apartheid was dying’ – Read an excerpt from What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
Read an excerpt from What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
How Converse All Stars have been appropriated by white people: Read an excerpt from Sorry, Not Sorry by Haji Mohamed Dawjee
Why don’t white people understand that Converse tekkies are not just cool but a political statement to people of colour?
‘There are eight million naked cities in this naked city’: Read an excerpt from Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York
Read an excerpt from The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead, out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.
Read an excerpt from Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV by Rajesh Sundaram
Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV is Rajesh Sundaram’s story of how he led a small team of Indian broadcast professionals and South African interns to launch the television news channel ANN7.
‘An ecological fable for modern times’: Listen to an excerpt from The Melody by Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author Jim Crace
Pan Macmillan has shared an excerpt from The Melody by Jim Crace, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Harvest.
Revealing the kind of ruler Nicholas II believed himself to be: Read an excerpt from Last of the Tsars
A short, slight man, Nicholas had succeeded his huge bear of a father, Alexander III, in 1894.
Twists that will shock even the savviest reader: Read an excerpt from The Chalk Man, the debut novel by CJ Tudor
Penguin Random House has shared an excerpt from The Chalk Man, the new novel by CJ Tudor.
Read an excerpt from The Feed – Nick Clark Windo’s electrifying, high-concept debut thriller
Nick Clark Windo’s debut novel The Feed is a unique, thought-provoking and utterly addictive thriller with a chilling premise at its core.
‘I think my real name is Samantha. I think I’m your daughter.’ Read an excerpt from She’s Not There by Joy Fielding
A gripping novel from a queen of psychological suspense and New York Times bestselling author, Joy Fielding.