To Be Read: Three fascinating books on current and historical topics. Photo: Charles Leonard
How big is your TBR pile? TBR can stand for “to be rude” or “to be real”, but here it is an acronym for “to be read”.
My bedside table is normally creaking under the weight of new TBRs. It has become worse — or rather better — as arts editor here at the Mail & Guardian.
More than once a week our doorbell rings and it is either a nice broom seller or a fresh delivery from one of the publishers. Here are three waiting for my eyes.
In The Syndicate of Twenty-Two Natives, Lindiwe Sangweni-Siddo offers an elegy to her father, Professor Stan Sangweni — an post-apartheid pioneer in the public service.
One of the few voices to make it out of Gaza into the Western media has been that of acclaimed Palestinian author Atef Abu Saif. His Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide shows the journey of a man who arrived in Gaza just a few days before 7 October, as a government minister, and ended the period, like most Palestinians, living in a tent in a refugee camp.Under apartheid, I was detained once and almost killed another time by Bophuthatswana security forces doing my job as journalist, so I am curious to read Lucas Mangope: A Life — journalist Oupa Segwale’s book about that Bantustan’s enigmatic leader.