The Library celebrates 1st annual National Book Week

The Library has been celebrating the 1st annual National Book Week (6-13 September 2010), by focusing on the fiction available in the library's collection and offering new books for sale on Level 3.

Peter Carey up for Booker Prize

London - Australian writer Peter Carey has moved closer to a literary hat trick on Tuesday by being named a finalist for fiction's prestigious Booker Prize, an award he has already won twice.

Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America - a US odyssey inspired by philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville - is one of six contenders for the £50 000 prize, which guarantees a glut of media attention and a big boost in sales.

Carey took home Bookers in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and in 2001 for True History of Kelly Gang. He would be the first writer to win the prize three times, but it is considered a long shot.

South Africa's Damon Galgut is also on the list. See the article on www.news24.com for favourites and other finalists

Literary bad boy in plagiarism row

Paris - Sexist, obscene, racist were the accusations thrown at Michel Houellebecq over his previous novels.

Now it's plagiarism, after France's best-known living writer allegedly cut and pasted chunks of Wikipedia into his new book.

(From www.news24.com)

We recommend: "The Native Commissioner"

"A few years ago, Shaun Johnson discovered in his cellar by the sea in Cape Town the collected papers of his own father, and the narrator in The Native Commissioner does the same. George kept every letter, every report, every scrap of paper, his whole life contained in one large cardboard box forgotten for 40 years. The places and towns described - Libode, the Transkei and Witbank - are places Shaun knew as a child. Shaun's father, like George Jamieson, was a Native Commissioner and, in the novel, George's son, coming upon this great treasure trove, pieces together his father's life, developing all the while a great affection and understanding of a man he barely knew. The Native Commissioner, which basically lets George's letters, reports and notes do the story-telling, works on all sorts of levels - as a picture of the last days of colonial rule, of the full awfulness of apartheid as practised on the ground, and of a voyage by a son almost entering his father's soul".
Ivan Fallon, The Independent (2006)

We recommend: Boston Snowplough

Review:
We’re in not-so-sunny South Africa in Boston Snowplough: specifically, the Natal Midlands during a snowstorm. The local constabulary asks petrol station proprietor David Roth to take his ancient grader on to the roads. Along the way to the Edendale turnoff Roth comes across a stranded bus, which, unbeknown to the driver, is carrying a couple of killers among its more ordinary passengers. He leaves half the passengers, including the killers, at a small rural settlement and brings the rest to the tearoom across the road from his petrol station. Roth’s a man with a secret — and we don’t discover what it is, the mission of the killers or the twist in Rabie’s tale, until close to the end of the book. We have a copy in the library!

Fiction Friday: We recommend "In a different time" by Peter Harris

“…a story about four soldiers in a liberation army caught and tried by a country which didn't recognise their struggle nor their right to fight, but was still intent on making them face its laws. …It sounds like the plot for a bestselling legal thriller and it's written like one. …In A Different Time is a page-turning account of a little known South African drama, but one that has stayed with Harris for more than 20 years . And even though he is the book's main narrator, he modestly tucks himself into the background as he honours the Delmas 4's courage”. (Review by Kevin Ritchie, Tonight)

Available via our catalogue

Stieg Larsson se "Mannen die vrouwen haten" - uitstekend!

Fantastiese misdaadroman wat op www.goedslecht.nl 98% behaal. Oorspronklik in Sweeds geskryf (2005), en die eerste titel van 'n trilogie waarvan die UP biblioteek gelukkig al drie aangeskaf het. Uit en uit die moeite werd! Kyk na: http://www.goedslecht.nl/books/2110/Stieg_Larsson_-_Mannen_die_vrouwen_haten/
(A. Warricker)