Archive for the ‘Lifestyle’ Category
by Stuart on Nov 3rd, 2009
If you’re a fan of Ndumiso Ngcobo’s two books (and numerous blog posts), you’ll be happy to discover that, if you live in the Gauteng region, you can now tune in to KayaFM’s “Good Morning Gauteng” (http://www.kayafm.co.za/features.php?id=49) between 6am and 9am every morning to listen to him co-hosting the show with Kgomotso Matsunyane (http://www.whoswhosa.co.za/Pages/profilefull.aspx?IndID=5995).
Ndumiso and Kgomotso’s collaboration almost seem predestined. Commenting in a review of Some Of My Best Friends Are White, she predicted that he would prove to be “one of the most important commentators living in South Africa today. He says everything you ever thought but never quite had the brains to put together in a cohesive, funny argument.”
But, as Ndumiso explains it, it was his chapter “Music: The True Opium Of The Masses” from Is It Coz I’m Black? that secured him the gig. In particular the line: “I wish someone out there with some vision would offer me a DJ contract in a fine music station.”
Well done to Kgomotso and Kaya FM for having the vision…
And for those of us out of range, we’ll just have to do with online radio streaming for now (http://www.kayafm.co.za/latest/stream).
Book details
Book details
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by Stuart on Jul 1st, 2009
Food prices up, travel expenses up, unpaid bills, car payments in arrears, mortgage extended, no raise, no treats, no holiday… The official confirmation in May that South Africa is in recession came as no surprise to most of us struggling to keep the wolf from the door. And it certainly wasn’t a surprise for Charl ten Oever, whose well-timed Beat The Crunch! arrived in bookstores a few weeks later.
Billed as “Financial advice South Africans need to know”, Beat The Crunch! treads the line between offering genuinely useful money-saving advice and doing it in a simple and straightforward manner that it easily understandable for the average reader. Yes, finance and economics is mostly boring – and pretty much soul-destroying, come to think of it – but it is possible to distil vital information (that we really all shold know) into an easy-to-read 128 pages.
The result is a book described by the Sunday Times as “Indispensible advice for the man in the street to save money and survive the recession”.
Or, in plainer language from Sam Wilson at Women 24: “[An] extremely timeous book… Easy to understand, with pleasingly few words per page, this book is for the everyday South African, like me, who is crap at money and quite ostrich-like about it. We need blunt, straight-forward, easy-to-action advice… and this book gives it to you. A must for every book club and every secretly terrified debt-ridden type.”
At R95, the average reader should be able to cover the cost within about 10 minutes of opening the book…
(more…)
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by Stuart on May 6th, 2009
Let’s be honest, book signings are not always the most exciting events in the world, and most authors tend to anticipate theirs with at least some level of trepidation. What will I wear? What will I say? Will anyone arrive?
They also tend to balk at the idea of driving 5 hours to get there…
There were no such concerns for Alexander Parker, however, when he headed from Joburg to his signing at the Midlands Exclusive Books in Pietermaritzburg last week, because his transportation, courtesy of the delightful people at Aston Martin, was an envy-stirring, hand-bitingly good-looking DB9. In his book 25 Cars To Drive Before You Die, Alex describes the DB9 as “an epic beauty” and “an eater of kilometres, a devourer of continents” – and his venture down the N3 reminded him of this and more. By the time he reached Pietermaritzburg, he wasn’t too bothered about the signing, he said, because he would have happily turned around right then and there and cruised on back to the highveld if he had to.
As it turns out, Alex was met by scores of amazed shoppers as he steered his shiny ride into the Midlands Mall, the signing went off like a bomb and the trip home was as glorious as it could be.
Alex Parker signing books at Midlands EB
The author's ride
Slightly more professional photograph of an Aston DB9
Book details
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