Good news for you Stephanie Plum fans...

The library has recently bought Four to score by Janet Evanovich, another novel detailing the chaotic work and personal life of Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter. Enjoy!

Kaapstad Karma-polisie ontmoet die Bokke

Rugbyjoernalis Louis de Villiers se rowwe storie is in die biblioteek! Gaan lees die resensie op die Rapport-webblad http://www.rapport.co.za/Boeke/Nuus/Taal-wat-matrose-sal-laat-bloos-20120302 en neem dit gerus uit! Weet egter net vooraf dat die taalgebruik sensitiewe lesers se mae sal laat draai...

Not a fairytale by Shaida Kazie Ali

"Shaida Kazie Ali’s debut novel, Not a Fairy Tale won the University of Johannesburg Prize. "Her novel tells the story of two Indian sisters, Selena and Zuhra, different in appearance and personality, growing up in apartheid. Interviewer: "In the book you weave your own terrifying and at the same time terribly funny retellings of fairy tales into the narrative. Where does your interest in fairy tales come from?" AKZ: "Long before I could read, I was hooked on an American comic-book horror series called The Witching Hour . The narrators are three witches and I adored examining their sketches. Today, I recognise them as archetypes (maiden, mother, crone) and I scorn their stereotypical, sexist representation, but they were my introduction to the magic of stories. When I re-read fairy tales as an adult, I was irritated by the blatant misogyny and dichotomy of many of them in which women are either mute and cute princesses or evil old witches." Carolyn Meads Sunday Times | 19 June, 2011 04:45 Well worth reading!

Piekniek by Hangklip by Kerneels Breytenbach

"Hold thumbs that this one is translated because as the Michiel Heyns translation of Etienne van Heerden’s 30 Nights in Amsterdam proved, it can be done brilliantly while capturing all the nuances, even if with a slightly different flavour. What Breytenbach has done while buying into a current South African crime scenario with great gusto, as he draws on the widest field of players possible, is to give us a flourish of local references and a style that is contemporary and cheeky. His particular tale is about a robber who loses his mojo in the process of murder because he trips while shooting an elderly couple and kisses their distressed daughter on her mouth because of the fall. It’s about getting his mojo back, and to do that he has to find her and kill her too." [From Tonight March 29 2012 at 10:00am, by Diane de Beer]

Afrikaanse "Chick-lit": Vat 'n Gap deur Jana du Plessis

“Sy haal ’n snesie uit haar handsak, probeer die ergste nattigheid daarmee afvee. Met elke vee sê sy hard en duidelik in haar kop: Ek. Is. Jaz. Coetzee. En. Ek. Doen. Fashion. Sy sal nie toelaat dat hierdie aaklige mense op haar drome kom piepie nie.” Die aaklige mense is die Londenaars wat nie oor hul voete val om die portefeulje met al haar klere-ontwerpe te sien nie, wat op die tube teen haar stamp sodat sy koffie op haar duur baadjie mors. Dis haar eerste dag in die wêreldstad en in die kop van dié bedorwe rykmanskind sou sy soos ’n jong Kate Moss deur die strate stap en mense gaan haar smeek om vir hulle te kom werk. Haar eerste aaklige dag is nie haar laaste een nie. Daar is haar huismaat wat heeltyd vir haar wil bid, die moontlikheid dat sy dalk ’n waitress moet word en dan droog haar pa se geldkraantjie op. Jana du Plessis se heerlike debuut gaan baie bekend klink vir al die Saffas wat al in Londen gaan werk het. Ander jonges wat nog nie daardie paadjie alleen aangepak het nie, kan ook die boek koop. [Uit Huisgenoot: Boeke, Vermaak; 15/8/2011]

The War of Jenkins' Ear by Michael Morpurgo

Wonderful school story. A synopsis is provided by Carol on her website: "It all takes place at Redlands school, a British prepatory school - not a bad place as such schools go although Toby hates it. Toby Jenkins is a second year student there and though he dreads the moment when the new term starts, he's made a kind of grim adjustment to the mindless rules and conformity demanded here. It's Christopher, the new boy, who upsets it all. He seems completely unafraid of teachers or bullies and he tells Toby and Swann that he is Jesus Christ reborn. Neither the reader nor either of the boys is ever sure whether that's delusion or reality."

Blood Kin - Ceridwen Dovey

"Someday, comrades, an imaginative mind may yet conjure up for us an ideal of a benevolent dictator: a man of steel who amasses power so he can give it back to the people he usurped it from; a philosopher-king who rights wrongs, balances economic inequities and still has the good sense to relinquish his control, who gets the trains to run on time and promptly splits town on the 5:15. You know, a fiction. Until then, we’ll have to make due with the two garden-variety tyrants whose iron fists hang over the action of “Blood Kin,” Ceridwen Dovey’s precise and terrifying debut novel. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, for while the novel’s spell lasts, it can feel like the earliest, exhilarating days under a new administration, when a pliant populace is eager and willing to follow wherever a confident leader directs us. In an unspecified place and time, an autocratic ruler identified only as “the President” is overthrown in a coup led by an equally enigmatic figure who calls himself “the Commander.” The abrupt transfer of power is explained to us piecemeal through the alternating perspectives of three men in the President’s employ — his portrait artist, his chef and his barber — who are now held captive in the deposed leader’s summer residence, as they continue their work as prisoners of the Commander." [Image: http://ceridwendovey.bookslive.co.za/] (Excerpt from DAVE ITZKOFF's New York Times review in the Sunday Book Review, published on April 6, 2008).

Sestig dae in die Suid-Soedan - Franz Kemp

André le Roux resenseer die boek op Boekenbrug. Hier's 'n aanhaling: "Dit is ’n lekker dagboek van ’n grysbek-joernalis wat al alles ­gedoen het, behalwe om in die ­agterent van Afrika ’n TV-nuusdiens in Engels en Juba-Arabies aan die gang te kry. En toe gaan doen hy dit vir ’n encore op ’n ryke loopbaan."

New by Richard de Nooy: The big stick

Plot synopsis from www.richarddenooy.com: "Alma Nel leaves her home on the edge of the Kalahari to retrieve the body of her gay son in Amsterdam. Driven by guilt and grief, she resolves to reconstruct Staal's life and the events leading up to his death, undertaking a bizarre quest in a strange and surreal world. Guided by a coke-dealing Rastafarian, Alma opens a psychedelic can of worms, meeting many of Staal's friends and acquaintances - scissor queens, leather men, rent boys, daredevils. But not everyone is sympathetic towards Alma, and some of Staal's friends would prefer to keep their secret histories hidden in the darkrooms of the night. As her quest progresses, Alma discovers that a mysterious stranger is several steps ahead of her, trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Nominated for the AKO Literatuurprijs 2011". BOOKSLIVE review

Aanbevolen: Stoute meisjes overal

Beschrijving www.bol.com: "Al vijfentwintig jaar verzamelt antropoloog en jeugdauteur Marita de Sterck volksverhalen uit de hele wereld waarin vrouwelijkheid centraal staat. Haar zestig favorieten zijn hier gebundeld. Wil je weten wat de wolf echt uitvrat met het mooie, ongehoorzame meisje en wanneer de Schone Slaapster echt ontwaakte? Hoezeer niet alleen de wolf, maar ook de grootwaterslang, de tapir, de dolfijn, het varken of de maan belust zijn op vrouwenvlees? Hoe Assepoes, Sneeuwwitje, Roodkapje en het Beest zich gedragen op een ander continent? Hoe de mensen ontdekken hoe ze moeten vrijen? Waarom de geslachtsorganen vroeger onder de oksel zaten? Marita de Sterck beschrijft hoe overal ter wereld vrouwenlichamen worden bewoond en in taal worden gevat. Bloei is een verhaal dat vrouwen én mannen, meisjes én jongens zal ontroeren. Altijd en overal." NBD Biblion recentie

Recommended: Fanie Fourie's lobola

"The book is one of the best new South African works of fiction. It’s a sweet love story told honestly and endearingly, with all the warts of all the cultures of the main characters exposed in gory detail…
With so much new South African fiction dealing with the problems and pain we face daily, it’s a relief that someone has written a contemporary love story that deals with all the difficult issues we face as a nation."(Excerpt from bookslive.co.za)

Skreeusnaakse misdaadroman van LAPA

"Adeline Radloff (van Sidekick) span nou saam met sus Lili om ’n supermoderne Pulp Fiction-agtige misdaadverhaal met ’n stripper, sosiale vlinder en geskeide kelnerin in die hoofrolle te skep wat die Kaapse onderwêreld pak – een stad, drie rooikoppe, sewe dae (Lapa Uitgewers). Wees gewaarsku!" (Boeke 24: Kalahari.com)

Good read: The Red Tent / Anita Diamant

From Wikipedia.org:"The book was a New York Times bestseller, and is a perennial book club favorite. According to the Los Angeles Times review, "By giving a voice to Dinah, one of the silent female characters in Genesis, the novel has struck a chord with women who may have felt left out of biblical history. It celebrates mothers and daughters and the mysteries of the life cycle." The Christian Science Monitor wrote that the novel "vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, shepherds, farmers, midwives, slaves, and artisans...Diamant is a compelling narrator of a tale that has timeless resonance."

Wals met Matilda aanbeveel

Michiel Heyns resenseer Dan Sleigh se jongste roman soos volg in Beeld (2011-07-03): "Ná sy twee magtige historiese romans, Eilande en Afstande, pak Dan Sleigh nou ’n eietydse roman aan – en hy pak hom met mening.
Hy pak ook ’n boel ander instellings, mense en verskynsels: skrywers, uitgewers, koerante, die radio, die skole, politici; kortom, die hele Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing, met spesifieke verwysing na die vervlakking en verbastering van taalgebruik, en meer spesifiek die verval van Afrikaans.
Die boek is ’n lofsang en ’n elegie vir Afrikaans; dit is ook ’n uitbundige, opruiende, onbeskofte verlustiging in die lewenskragtigheid van die bedreigde taal." Lees die hele resensie.