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LitNet is n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf. |
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Exclusive Books sale, January 2006
Arja Salafranca
Anyone who goes to the opening night sales at Exclusive Books, open to Fanatics
members before the sale starts the next morning, knows they’re in for
a bun fight. It’s tough out there: the aisles are crowded, the people
big or wide and aggressive, and you fight for a place at the tables, perusing
the titles. You go armed: with attitude and determination, you’re going
to get the bargains dished up by the Exclusive Books team, but boy, you’re
also going to fight for them.
It says something for the popularity of books among readers in this country,
and the desire for a bargain, because these twice-yearly sales do present bookworms
with bargains.
This year the sale offers a variety. Some of the sale stock consists of markdowns
of existing stock, but half of the books are sourced for sale from overseas.
A team of book buyers had the pleasure of going to the Sale Book Fair in London
recently, and a large percentage of the books come from this source.
As usual there’s a wide range of fiction, children’s books, coffee-table
tomes and reference and history books. Invited to a press preview at Moyo’s
at the Zoo Lake I eagerly snatched up some gems that would have been well worth
it even if they hadn’t been on sale. Here’s a sample:
What we Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany,
edited and compiled by Eric Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband, presents a compulsively
readable glimpse into the lives of ordinary Germans under Nazi rule. Speaking
to both Jews and non-Jews the authors succeeded in showing what life was really
like under this barbaric system and it turns out it was, on the one hand, as
horrific as most imagine, but many also experienced ordinary, mundane lives,
especially if they were lucky enough not to be affected by Nazi horrors. The
big question, of course, is: Did ordinary Germans really know what was happening
in the camps to the Jews? And the answer is a complicated mix of yes and no.
(On sale for R51.)
- PJ O’Rourke is always acerbic and funny, and yet his writing
skirts so close to and sharply towards truths and opinions that others would
prefer not to acknowledge. His 2004 book of essays, Peace Kills, is
subtitled “America’s Fun New Imperialism”. O’Rourke
travelled to Kosovo in 1999, Israel in 2001, Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, as well
as to other world hotspots to highlight both American influence and events taking
place in these hotspots. The first essay is called “Why Americans hate
foreign policy” and is worth a read. (On sale for R53.)
- Another kind of travel writing is presented in Emma Larkin’s
Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop. Larkin
was born and brought up in Asia, has studied Burmese, and shows a deep understanding
of that country. Secret Histories is about a year spent travelling
the country, tracing the footsteps of Orwell in Burma – he lived there
in the 1920s – and meeting the people who live there now. (On sale at
R58.)
- Coffee-table books include the delightful fun décor book called
Kitsch Deluxe by Lesley Gillian. If you’re fed-up with a plain
white bathroom and toilet seat cover, take inspiration from this book and paint
it all, including the toilet seat, in swirling trails of bright paint. Or paint
large flowers on your dining room walls and cover your chairs in individual
bolts of bright cloth. Doesn’t do it for you? Well, then go out and get
an expensive red fridge and mount a picture of Spider-Man on the space above
the fridge. Containing some whacky ideas among the more sensible options, this
one is on sale at R76.
- Sahara: The Atlantic to the Nile is a sensitive and beautiful
monument to the land and people that populate this region. Beautiful yet austere
portraits of the land and people by Alain and Berny Sèbe are complemented
by Hachette Livre’s prose and verse. It’s on sale at R102. Other
coffee-table delights are Postcard Dogs (R34) and New Hotel Architecture
and Design (R123).
- On the fiction front there’s an omnibus of crime writer Ian
Rankin’s The Black Book and Mortal Causes at R47. Another
crime writer worth exploring is Swede Henning Mankel; his novel The Return
of the Dancing Master is on sale at R27. Justin Cartwright’s The
Promise of Happiness is going for R33. Ann Napolitano’s Within
Arm’s Reach tells the story of interconnected lives (R52) while American
literary master Tobias Wolfe’s Old School is on sale at R31.
The sale starts on Thursday, January 26th at 7.30 am. See you at the bunfight!
LitNet: 25 January 2006
to the top / boontoe
Send us your comments. Write to webvoet@litnet.co.za
and join our interactive opinion page! The letters page can be found here
© Kopiereg in die ontwerp en inhoud van hierdie webruimte behoort aan LitNet, uitgesluit die kopiereg in bydraes wat berus by die outeurs wat sodanige bydraes verskaf. LitNet streef na die plasing van oorspronklike materiaal en na die oop en onbeperkte uitruil van idees en menings. Die menings van bydraers tot hierdie werftuiste is dus hul eie en weerspieël nie noodwendig die mening van die redaksie en bestuur van LitNet nie. LitNet kan ongelukkig ook nie waarborg dat hierdie diens ononderbroke of foutloos sal wees nie en gebruikers wat steun op inligting wat hier verskaf word, doen dit op hul eie risiko. Media24, M-Web, Ligitprops 3042 BK en die bestuur en redaksie van LitNet aanvaar derhalwe geen aanspreeklikheid vir enige regstreekse of onregstreekse verlies of skade wat uit sodanige bydraes of die verskaffing van hierdie diens spruit nie. LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf.
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