Columns / Media / Books

Nominally a thriller, Thursday Night Widows is less concerned with the 'whodunnit' aspects of plotting than with a psychological dissection of a social class obsessed with bickering and petty jealousies as the pillars of their world dissolve.

It takes a singular talent to make a book of 1,000 pages that is as hard to put down as it is to pick up. Despite its size, 2666 retains the agility of a thriller.

A graphic adaptation of the book by Studs Terkel by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle.

A grim but compelling reading – a fitting testament to all the women killed who had sex outside marriage.

An excellent first novel, teeming with memorable characters and dealing with momentous events; the sort of old-fashioned yarn in which the patient reader can become immersed.

A multi-layered tribute to the human spirit – beaten but not broken, and laughing drunkenly in the face of adversity.

A selection of post-election South African reading.

A collection of stories about childhood from a stellar cast of authors from around the world, with all royalties going to Save the Children. Edited by Richard Zimler and Rasa Sekulovic.

Like the best, most haunting bolero, Havana Fever is liable to linger in the mind well after its final phrases.

Short Writings from Zimbabwe, edited by Jane Morris.

The first ever Arabic detective novel to be translated into English

Sander L Gilman delves into culture to demonstrate that our belief that fat can be identified with a number of character flaws

Although Gandhi is a household name all over the world, Babasaheb Ambedkar, architect of the Indian Constitution and the first person to fight effectively for the rights of dalits (aka ‘untouchables’)

The Last Supper is an erudite and entertaining novel of boundless ambition in its concept and consummate skill in its delivery.

Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood

By Ryzard Kapuscinski

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Equatoria by Tom Dreyer

There is a company which manufactures and distributes concentrated sugary syrup and the way it conducts its affairs is the subject of Mark Thomas’ enormously readable book.

John le Carré's latest novel could hardly be more topical or timely, dealing as it does with the seamier reaches of international banking and the nether-world inhabited by the fugitive and the stateless.