What If There Were No Whites In South Africa? - Ferial Haffajee
Albeit a controversial book title, Ferial Haffajee writes more of a personal account slash research memoir than what the title may tell a potential reader.
As a reader, you appreciate the internal struggle that seems to drive her writing - question after question after interview and of course, the ever present battalion of current facts.
Not my usual genre to review, and because of the unrelenting tenacity with which she pursued these answers - which was clearly very personal to the writer - I found myself trying to absorb its many concepts and notions. It became mesmerizing how powerful personal experience meets political insight and journo savvy can be.
Not exactly what you'd call a light read, but definitely poignant and thought provoking.
*Book sponsored by Pan Macmillan
Message from my books describes my take on some of my favourite books. Acting as a review and a wording of personal experience, this blog is a narration of the time either well spent reading, or just spent reading.
Tuesday 12 January 2016
Saturday 2 January 2016
Man at the Helm - Nina Stibbe
Delightfully narrated through anxious and insightful nine year old Lizzie Vogel, who, with her sister, desperately try to find their mother a new husband once their stuffy and austere father packs up and leaves the family for a relationship with a man after an embarrassing scuffle on the kitchen floor with their mother. Eventually evicted by their father from their fashionable city dwellings, they are shunted to a small town with a disappointingly low level of eligible bachelors which inspires the creation of the Man List. Mother, being a hopeless and pampered alcoholic, takes to play-writing every time another disappointment rocks her - a sure sign that things are bad- eventually succumbs to taking anti-depressants that make her tired and even less amenable. Convinced that only another man at the helm will cure their mothers depression and their fall from societal grace, the sisters strategically instigate meetings with potentials on the Man List. Woefully convinced that not only will the new man rectify mothers melancholy, but will also prevent their domestic decay into 'wards of court'. Dealing with unfriendly town residents and a series of unsuitable candidates while seeing to their little brother Jack, Lizzie amusingly narrates a matter-of-fact account of a children shouldering domestic responsibility.
A hilariously entertaining read, it really is one of those books you put down regrettably when it ends - it had me in stitches from the first page. Nina Stibbe nailed the frank and literal humour of an English child in the 1970's, and I lapped up every word until the end of the book.
Delightfully narrated through anxious and insightful nine year old Lizzie Vogel, who, with her sister, desperately try to find their mother a new husband once their stuffy and austere father packs up and leaves the family for a relationship with a man after an embarrassing scuffle on the kitchen floor with their mother. Eventually evicted by their father from their fashionable city dwellings, they are shunted to a small town with a disappointingly low level of eligible bachelors which inspires the creation of the Man List. Mother, being a hopeless and pampered alcoholic, takes to play-writing every time another disappointment rocks her - a sure sign that things are bad- eventually succumbs to taking anti-depressants that make her tired and even less amenable. Convinced that only another man at the helm will cure their mothers depression and their fall from societal grace, the sisters strategically instigate meetings with potentials on the Man List. Woefully convinced that not only will the new man rectify mothers melancholy, but will also prevent their domestic decay into 'wards of court'. Dealing with unfriendly town residents and a series of unsuitable candidates while seeing to their little brother Jack, Lizzie amusingly narrates a matter-of-fact account of a children shouldering domestic responsibility.
A hilariously entertaining read, it really is one of those books you put down regrettably when it ends - it had me in stitches from the first page. Nina Stibbe nailed the frank and literal humour of an English child in the 1970's, and I lapped up every word until the end of the book.
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