The Cape Town edition of the Broken Monsters Charity Art Exhibition raised enough money to fund 21 000 children’s books through Book Dash. Lauren Beukes and the event organisers are hoping to double that number at the Johannesburg show, which takes place this week.

Over 120 local artists, designers, illustrators, architects and photographers – including Brett Murray, Conrad Botes, Kilmany-Jo Liversage, Liza Grobler and Roger Ballen – have been invited to customise pages from Broken Monsters in any way they please. The artworks are then sold for R1 500 each, with 100 percent of proceeds going to Book Dash. Each R1 500 pays for the printing of 150 books, which will be distributed to kids free of charge.

Beukes tells the Mail & Guardian: “It’s very humbling to have people engage with your work like this and put in such time, effort and generosity for a really great cause.

“The idea of collaboration ties into the themes of the exhibition. The whole point of reading is that it is a kind of telepathy and you bring your own experience, vision and your own perspective.”

The Joburg event takes place on Thursday, 26 November, at the Nando’s Central Kitchen in Lorentzville. Don’t miss it!

The Mail & Guardian reported on the success of the Cape Town event:

6pm strikes and the doors are opened as excited viewers flood into the space to locate their artwork. Held in a vacant shop, this year’s version affords more room to move around than the narrow Cape Town School of Photography space which housed the Shining Girls exhibition. What follows is a bit of a frenzy –albeit an extremely civil one – as works are quickly snatched up. The constraint of being limited to a single piece from a rapidly diminishing pool adds a sense of high stakes pressure to proceedings; hesitate and your work is gone. Of course this is all part of the fun.

• Complete article: Mail & Guardian

 
Follow the Broken Monsters Charity Art Show page on Facebook to stay updated, and join the events for furthers information on the exhibitions:

• Broken Monsters Charity Art Show Facebook Page

• Event: Broken Monsters Charity Art Show in Cape Town, 12 November

• Event: Broken Monsters Charity Art Show in Johannesburg, 26 November

Book details

• Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415202005
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
The Steve Biko Foundation and Umuzi would like to invite you to join a launch event celebrating The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga.

The Reactive is a poignant, life-affirming novel about secrets, memory, chemical abuse and family, and the redemption that comes from facing what haunts us most.

The event will take place on Thursday, 3 December, at 6 for 6:30 PM to 9 PM at the Steve Biko Centre in King William’s Town.

Don’t miss it!

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 3 December 2015
• Time: 6 PM for 6:30 PM to 9 PM
• Venue: The Steve Biko Centre
  2429 Mbeka Street
  Ginsberg
  King William’s Town | Map
• RSVP: rsvp@sbf.org.za, 043 605 6736
• More details: Mwelela Cele, 043 605 6736

Related stories

• The 2015 Etisalat Prize for Literature Longlist has been Released – Including 6 South Africans

• Masande Ntshanga Chats About the South African Literary Landscape and His Debut Novel, The Reactive (Podcast)

• Cover Revealed for the North American Edition of Masande Ntshanga’s The Reactive

Book Details

• The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781415207192
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
SJ Naudé, author of the award-winning collection of short stories The Alphabet of Birds, will be joining Ireland’s John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and Kirsty Logan, author of The Rental Heart & Other Fairytales, for an intimate short story salon in London next weekend.

The event, organised by The Word Factory, will see these three esteemed authors discuss and read their short stories on Saturday, 28 November. Tickets cost £12, or £8 if you are a student, senior citizen, unwaged or disabled.

The Word Factory will also be hosting a masterclass titled “Be Seen and Be Heard – and beat digital depression” on the same day. Host Kristen Harrison, a “publisher and digital agony aunt”, will teach participants how to build and maintain a web presence for their writing and showcase writers who have done so successfully. Tickets to this masterclass cost £38 and includes free entrance to the evening’s event with Naudé and co. Find out more.

Don’t miss this!

Event Details

• Date: Saturday, 28 November 2015
• Time: 1 to 4 PM – masterclass, 6 to 8 PM – salon
• Venue: Waterstones
  203-206 Piccadilly
  W1J 9HD London
  United Kingdom
• Speakers: SJ Naudé, John Boyne, Kirsty Logan, Kristen Harrison and the Visual Verse team
• Cost: £38 for the masterclass; £12, or £8 if you are a student, senior citizen, unwaged or disabled for the salon
• Buy tickets: Eventbrite

Book Details

• The Alphabet of Birds by SJ Naudé
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781415207130
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Alfabet van die voëls by SJ Naudé
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415201459
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Readers should expect the unexpected when approaching the fiction of Lauren Beukes. But the same applies to her non-fiction and, it would seem, to her book launches! Collaborating with the firebrand Nechama Brodie only escalates things.

The Book Lounge was the venue for the recent double launch of Maverick: Extraordinary women from South Africa’s past by Beukes and Brodie and The Cape Town Book by Brodie. It is just a few hundred metres from Parliament, where the recent Fees Must Fall protests took place, and reflecting this important moment in South African history Beukes and Brodie treated those who attended the event to a different kind of book launch.

Beukes and Brodie included some of the people involved in the Cape Town student protests in the discussion, and two authors and four activists made it an evening to remember. The six powerful personalities linked arms to raise awareness of how history is being written about even as it is being made on the streets outside. The activists described the tensions at UCT, where workers and management continued negotiations to end outsourcing. The seriousness of the situation was brought home when UWC erupted on the day following the launch, with the police reportedly dragging students out of their residences.

The night was remarkable in many ways. The launch of two terrific books, each one worthy of a solo launch, in combination with a bigger vision made for an event that afforded those present a rich opportunity to understand and engage with some of the issues currently dominating the country’s consciousness.

Earlier this year, Beukes teamed up with Brodie, insisting that she was the best person to co-author the expanded and updated edition of Maverick. The book, which features a number of the great and interesting women that populate South Africa’s past, was Beukes’ debut, first published in 2004. Brodie, who is the editor and co-author of the best-selling The Joburg Book and Inside Joburg, is the head of training, research and information at Africa Check, an independent fact-checking agency.

The gifted writer’s latest work is The Cape Town Book, which was also the raison d’etre for the unusual activities at the book launch. It was described by Louanne van Riet of The Book Lounge as “a beautifully rendered portrait of our strange and weird city that makes for essential reading for inhabitants and visitors to Cape Town”.

Readers will certainly find in the pages of these two books much to keep them thinking deeply about Cape Town and about South Africa’s powerful, feisty and courageous women.

Liesl Jobson (@LieslJobson) tweeted live from the event using the hashtag #livebooks:

• Not loading? View on Twitter

Facebook Album

• More snaps on Facebook

Also read

• History from a Different Angle: Nechama Brodie Commandeers a Red Bus to Launch The Cape Town Book

• History from a Different Angle: Nechama Brodie Commandeers a Red Bus to Launch The Cape Town Book

• Flashback Friday: Highlights from a Decade of Lauren Beukes’ Writing

Book details

• Maverick: Extraordinary women from South Africa’s past by Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415207543
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• The Cape Town Book by Nechama Brodie
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781920545987
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
Rahla Xenopoulos has recently published her third book Tribe. Cape Town was treated to two events celebrating the novel – Xenopoulos launched her book in conversation with comedian Ruby Wax at The Book Lounge and with wordsmith Jennifer Crocker at Kalk Bay Books.

Mervyn Sloman welcomed Xenopoulos, Wax and an audience full of friends, family and fellow writers to The Book Lounge. He called the book “Fabulous, wonderful, lovely,” saying it was the kind of book you devour in two days: “stuff the rugby”.

Xenopoulos began the event by reading a passage from her book describing the main character Jude’s experience of Ibiza in 1997 – a “hedonist’s holiday” – and the new friends who become the important members of members of the “tribe” explored in the novel.

Wax was hesitant to interrupt Xenopoulos’ reading with the planned discussion, but their lively conversation was as entertaining and the reading was enthralling. The author told the audience a little more about the character they had just heard about in her reading. She said that everybody knows some like Jude – someone sensitive and troubled “who comes into the world to die”. This was her opportunity to save that person.

Wax, who is the author’s longstanding friend, told the story of how they met. Xenopoulos was on her luxurious honeymoon and Wax was having the kind of hilarious disaster holiday where you have to rely on kind strangers (like Xenopoulos) for food and a toothbrush.

In addition to the fun and laughter that came with Wax threatening to sue Xenopoulos for plagiarism of the title “Tribe” (Wax says she too calls her group of friends “the tribe”) the conversation also incorporated thoughtful reflection on friendship, the legacy of Generation X and living with bipolar disorder.

It was an event tailored to fit the hip, thoughtful and heartwarming product of Xenopoulos’ pen.

Erin Devenish (@ErinDevenish811) tweeted from the event using #livebooks:

• Not loading? View on Twitter

The event at Kalk Bay Books was no less spectacular and much more intimate, with Xenopoulos speaking about this book as well as her previous work. Crocker held it up to the light, comparing it to the classic lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”.

Xenopoulos is an author who traverses the world of fiction and memoir with grace and conviction, and first revealed her remarkable capacity for self-reflection in her memoir, A Memoir of Love and Madness.

Her subsequent novel, Bubbles, was well-received by South African readers. Already, Tribe is garnering reviewers’ commendation for its candour and audacity.

It is well worth a read.

Liesl Jobson (@LieslJobson) tweeted live from the event using #livebooks:

• Not loading? View on Twitter

Facebook Album

• More snaps on Facebook

Related stories:

• Rahla Xenopoulos Chats About the Lost Idealism of Generation X and Her New Novel, Tribe

• Rahla Xenopoulos: “I Love Facebook – For a Writer, You Can Be Such a Voyeur without Leaving Your House” (Video)

• The Darkness Behind the Light: Kate Sidley Talks to Rahla Xenopoulos About Her New Novel, Tribe

Book details

• Tribe by Rahla Xenopoulos
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415203965
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
Are you curious about the actual recipe for murder?

Sally Andrew shared hers at the launch of Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery. Here it is, along with advice to not try it at home – rather read the book to see what Tannie Maria did with it!

RECIPE FOR MURDER

Ingredients

1 stocky man who abuses his wife
1 small tender wife
1 medium-sized tough woman
   in love with the wife
1 double-barelled shotgun
1 small Karoo town marinated
   in secrets
3 bottles of Klipdrift brandy
3 little ducks
1 bottle of pomegranate juice
1 handful of chilli peppers
1 mild gardener
1 fire poker
1 red-hot New Yorker
7 Seventh-day Adventists
   (prepared for The End of the World)
1 hard-boiled investigative journalist
1 soft amateur detective
2 cool policemen
2 lambs
1 handful of red herrings and
   suspects mixed together
pinch of greed

Method

Throw together all the ingredients into a big pot and simmer slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon for a few years. Add the ducks, chillies and brandy towards the end and turn up the heat
 

 
A jolly group composed of “rent-a-crowd” and avid fans joined Sally Andrew and Sandra Prinsloo at The Book Lounge on Guy Fawkes Day for the second Cape Town launch of Recipes for Love and Murder. The book was first launched in Kalk Bay, also with this dynamic duo on stage.

The event was short and sweet, with amicable banter between the author, actor and loving crowd. Here are some highlights from the discussion:
 

Andrew on finding the appropriate attire for book launches:

I’ve been living out in the Karoo for some years now, so I am a bit out of date with the latest fashion and styles and stuff, but after the last launch I went to the library in Ladismith and I looked through magazines and there between the Farmer’s Weekly and the jagtydskrifte I found some women’s magazines and they explained to me the importance of accessories [said pointing to her oven mits and red veldskoene]

Prinsloo on recording the audiobook:

I loved doing the audiobook. It was gruelling, there were long sessions in the studio, but I got so involved and I fell completely in love with Tannie Maria. I think I sort of felt that I had become her. The only problem was there was all this talk about Tannie Maria who is always dreaming up recipes to help people and I got so incredibly hungry in the studio. My stomach kept rumbling and the poor sound engineer was desperate in the end.

Andrew on the inspiration for her first novel:

Let’s just say I invented Tannie Maria to keep me grounded and to keep me laughing and to teach me how to love – not cook! I also really love the old-style cosy genre of Agatha Christie type of scenes, Dick Francis, Earl Stanley Gardner … so this definitely shaped the genre that I chose. And I was influence by the slow-moving, feel-good writers: Alexander McCall Smith, Herman Charles Bosman. And I do just love to play with words to try and evoke beauty and open-hearted emotions with the right combination of syllables.

Andrew on her intention with this book:

To be honest, when I examine my motives for this book, I do have some intentions of how I hope to affect readers. I am not sure if I would define them as political, emotional of spiritual intentions, but they are there between the lines. I feel that if intentions are overstated then they can be less effective. I’d rather they are evoked from the reader, as Peter van Straaten said opening an art exhibition recently: it’s not for the artist to tell the viewer what to think or feel about the art, the viewer, or in this case the reader, must discover for themselves what the writing means to them.

Listen to a recording of the event for more anecdotes and some classic Andrew silliness:

• Not loading? Listen on SoundCloud

 
For a taste of this immensely popular debut novel – of which rights have already been sold to 17 countries and translation contracts settled for 12 – watch this video of Andrew reading from her book:

• Not loading? View on YouTube

 
Also read:

• Klein Karoo Comes to Kalk Bay: Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder Launched with Sandra Prinsloo

• Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew Published in 17 Countries – and Counting

• Read an Excerpt from Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder – PLUS a Sample from the Audiobook, Read by Sandra Prinsloo

• ’n Troostante soos min – Sally Andrew gesels oor Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery

• Murder and Romance in the Karoo – Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew

Book details

• Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781415207574
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
The wonderful Rahla Xenopolous will be chatting about Tribe, her compelling new novel, at Love Books in Johannesburg.

The event will take place on Wednesday, 11 November, at 6 PM.

Xenopolous will be in conversation with poet Mbali Vilakazi.

Don’t miss it!
 

Event Details

• Date: Wednesday, 11 November 2015
• Time: 6:00 PM for 6:30 PM
• Venue: Love Books
  The Bamboo Lifestyle Centre
  53 Rustenburg Road
  Melville
  Johannesburg | Map
• Interviewer: Mbali Vilakazi
• RSVP: Love Books, info@lovebooks.co.za, 011 726 7408

Book Details

• Tribe by Rahla Xenopoulos
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781415203965
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
Umuzi, Struik Lifestyle and The Book Lounge would like to invite you to the launch of Maverick: Extraordinary women from South Africa’s past by Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie and of The Cape Town Book by Brodie.

The event will take place at The Book Lounge on Friday, 6 November, at 5:30 for 6 PM. The two authors will be speaking about their new books.

See you there!

Event Details

• Date: Friday, 6 November 2015
• Time: 5:30 for 6 PM
• Venue: The Book Lounge
  71 Roeland Street
  Cape Town | Map
• RSVP: booklounge@gmail.com, 021 462 2425

Book Details

• Maverick: Extraordinary women from South Africa’s past by Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781415207543
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• The Cape Town Book by Nechama Brodie
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781920545987
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

After the success of The Shining Girls Charity Art Show for Rape Crisis in 2013, Lauren Beukes has announced another similar event – this time in support of local children’s literacy charity Book Dash.

 
The Broken Monsters Charity Art Show will be an exhibition to launch Beukes’ latest book, Broken Monsters, and to raise funds for Book Dash.

Over 120 local artists, designers, illustrators, architects and photographers have been invited to customise pages from the book in any way they please. These will then be sold for R1 500 each with 100 percent of proceeds going to Book Dash. Each art work sold for R1 500 will pay for the printing of 150 books which will be distributed to kids free of charge.

The exhibition is once again curated by Jacki Lang, who was also involved in the 2013 event, and will be held in Cape Town on 12 November and Johannesburg on 26 November.

The Broken Monsters Charity Art Show is sponsored and supported by the Nando’s Art & Design.

 
Follow the Broken Monsters Charity Art Show page on Facebook to stay updated, and join the events for furthers information on the exhibitions:

• Broken Monsters Charity Art Show Facebook Page

• Event: Broken Monsters Charity Art Show in Cape Town, 12 November

• Event: Broken Monsters Charity Art Show in Johannesburg, 26 November

On her website, Beukes explained why she supports Book Dash, how the charity works and why stories are so important. She also shared some epic images to give you an idea of what to expect:

Literacy is critical. The reason our matrics are failing? Because they didn’t get the early childhood development they needed. Neil Gaiman gave an amazing talk a few years ago about the importance of reading and how US private prisons predict their future prison population 15 years from now based on a very simple algorithm: what percentage of 10 and 11 year olds can’t read.

Reading is also about understanding the world and who we are in it. Stories allow us to live other lives, to spend time in someone else’s head, to feel empathy.

Stories allow to be more than we are.

It’s a big theme in Broken Monsters – the doors in our heads. So BookDash felt like the perfect charity partner. What could be better than using a book to create accessible art to fund more stories with art that become accessible books in the hands of kids?”

• Complete article: Lauren Beukes

Book Details

• Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781415202005
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

 
Umuzi and The Book Lounge are pleased to invite you to the launch of Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew.

Set in the heart of the Klein Karoo, Recipes for Love and Murder tells the tale of a 50-something-year-old agony aunt who gets wrapped up in a murder investigation.

The event will take place on Thursday, 5 November, at 5:30 for 6 PM. RSVP by 3 November to avoid disappointment.

See you there!

Event Details

• Date: Thursday, 5 November 2015
• Time: 5:30 for 6 PM
• Venue: The Book Lounge
  71 Roeland Street
  Cnr of Buitenkant Street
  Cape Town | Map
• RSVP: booklounge@gmail.com, 021 462 2425

 
Related links:

• Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew Published in 17 Countries – and Counting

• Klein Karoo Comes to Kalk Bay: Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder Launched with Sandra Prinsloo

• Read an Excerpt from Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder – PLUS a Sample from the Audiobook, Read by Sandra Prinsloo

• ’n Troostante soos min – Sally Andrew gesels oor Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery

Book Details

• Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9781415207574
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!