Confession Collector
Some people attract trouble. Mira attracts secrets.
Complete strangers have always trusted Mira with their private stories. Most are harmless, but when someone shares the wrong confession, she is pulled into a mystery she never asked to solve.
Now Mira must uncover who is telling the truth and whether keeping this secret could place more than one life at risk.
MASODJA
Formed in 1916 as The Rhodesia Native Regiment, its Shona and Ndebele troops were blooded with honour in the East African campaign of the Great War, pitted against General von Lettow-Vorbeck and his askaris. Disbanded in 1919, the regiment was re-formed in 1940 during World War II as the Rhodesian African Rifles, seeing action in Burma. In the 1950s, the regiment distinguished itself further during the Malayan Emergency and in Egypt. During the 1960s and 1970s, the regiment was at the forefront of hostilities in the Rhodesian ‘bush war’. In the specialist Fire Force role, heli- and para-borne, the soldiers of the RAR were to earn themselves a fearsome reputation as counterinsurgency fighters par excellence.
ALMOST A LEGEND
Richard “Dick” Coleshaw played for Rhodesia in the years 1966–74. He was invited to several Springbok trials (in the days when they had trials) and played for now-extinct teams like the Quaggas, South African Country Districts and the Gazelles. But he never managed to pull on that green and gold jersey. (He was, though, selected by rugby journalist A. C. Parker for his Best Players Never to Make the Springbok Team.)
The Weary Boer War
The Boer War continues to prove controversial, with perspectives from both sides sometimes relying on incomplete or inaccurate information. In his book, The Great Boer War, Arthur Conan Doyle writes, “The highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half‑told story comes to be finished,” This book contributes to the ongoing discussion and provides additional context to the topic of the Boer War and the complexity and cruelty of all wars.
The book compares the Boer War to other conflicts, emphasizing its complexity and the universal brutality of war. Organised alphabetically, the book offers a thorough overview of the Boer War by presenting key facts, events, and clarifying misconceptions, beyond just tales or dictionary entries.
Red Rangers
Otch Otto has spent decades working in the reality of the “hard” environment filled with trauma and suffering: live rhinos with an upper jaw hacked off to retrieve a horn, poisoned carrion, crated pangolin, and tonnes of captured abalone and lobster. Depletion of natural resources is happening at alarming rates, driven by the planet’s greatest threat: human greed.
Including 30 black & white illustrations, diagrams, tables, maps
Carried on the Wind
Carried on the Wind is a collection of paintings and pencil works depicting the wildlife of southern Africa. It is not a journal or an exhibition of art; it is simply a reflection of an artist’s memoirs reaching back over half a century. It is the wish of the author to allow the reader, whether he or she has had the privilege of visiting our shores, to share in the marvels that this exquisite continent has to offer and gain a deeper understanding of the life that it carries.
Eating Bananas in Durban
After many years of planning, scheming, and skullduggery, President Kruger launched his invasions of British territory on 11 October 1899, sparking the Boer War and plunging southern Africa into almost three years of misery.
Donkey Days and a River
This non-fiction book takes the reader on an expedition that sees a boyhood fascination with the glamour of ‘adventure’ become a reality in later adult life. It takes the form of a solitary hike over two thousand kilometres down the course of the Orange River to the sea on South Africa’s West Coast.
On the Lomba, 1987
J. C. Olive 80422579 BG was conscripted into the SADF in early 1986. Some 18 months later, after his initial year’s training at the Potchefstroom Artillery School, in August 1987, he found himself as a driver with Sierra Battery, 61 Mechanised Battalion Group on the Lomba River, in southern Angola.
Deslocado Redemption
Deslocado is Portuguese for ‘displaced’. This is a story of redemption set in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique in the mid-1990s, a time of nervous energy, opportunity and fear, in a region that has only recently emerged from bitter colonial wars of independence and subsequent civil wars. The peace is delicate and rancorous, racial attitudes coagulate, and retribution is borne on the wind of change. It is here, in 1995, in the steaming Mozambican port city of Beira, a cauldron of venality and intrigue, that Mike, a white Zimbabwean and former soldier, meets Phoebe, a black prostitute.
Composite Warfare 2nd Edition
Following the bestselling first edition of this groundbreaking book, the face of conflict and war has undergone numerous changes. New and even more destructive technologies, the role of partisans, the logistical sustainability of forces, the increased weaponization of the media and diplomacy have all become commonplace.
The second edition is complemented by two forewords written by notable generals who once oversaw the author during operations. In the words of Brig Gen Alaxander, ‘Mobility of mind and manoeuvre and a grasp of the importance of the seven Pillars of State, as elucidated in Composite Warfare, are more essential to such thinking today than were the contents of Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom to revolutionary war theorists during the 20th century.’
They Make Cheese in Nimbin don’t they?
A family drama that spans decades and explores the unexpected twists and turns that make life worth living…
When Eva moves out to volunteer as a nurse in a Hamburg hospital during World War II and her husband Peter joins the navy, they escape a war that rages within the family home.
After Germany surrenders, as the country starts to rebuild, Eva and Peter try to fix the fissures that have appeared in their relationship by emigrating to Australia with their two daughters, hoping for a happier life.
Success follows them across the sea to their adopted homeland, but so too do traumas and memories of war-time life.
After Eva settles in Nimbin, a relaxed and alternative town with a celebrated counterculture, discoveries and life-changing surprises show her how things can change so quickly.
Bok To Bok
When the final whistle sounded to spark mass celebrations in South Africa, SuperSport commentator Matthew Pearce encapsulated the moment perfectly.
He roared:
“IT’S OVER!
THE SPRINGBOKS GO BACK-TO-BACK,
THEY GO BOK TO BOK!
THEY ARE THE FIRST TO FOUR!”
This book tells you how the Springboks did it, with Mike Greenaway’s analysis and the words of the players and coaches, perfectly complemented by the images of Steve Haag and other photographers.
Ratel One-Two
A teenager in the mid-80s, fresh out of high school, is conscripted into the South African Defence Force where he goes through the hardships and humour of infantry training. Innocent youngsters from all over the country are moulded into efficient killing machines and turned into platoons of mechanized infantry.
One Black Ear
As the family negotiates the twists and turns of their changing country and the challenges of reinventing the farm, and themselves, they find that they have to deal with unexpected situations. Some terrifying, some enlightening, they allow those in Caracal Ridge’s community the opportunity to fully appreciate each other.
The First Canary
“Family ties and bonds of brotherhood that span across decades lie at the heart of this story, and it is impossible not to become immersed in the lives of the characters and the events that play out.”
Between Embers
In the first book, Jen tries to find independence, while Zin discovers her family through magical powers. In this sequel, Jen and Zin settle into their new lives, but issues of trust, infidelity, distance and magical family ties threaten to get in the way of their Happily Ever After. While the first book relied on email style, the sequel includes character perspectives.
Bound By Fire
Bound By Fire follows two young South African women who meet as roommates at University. After a falling out, they end up on different sides of the world and communicate through email. The book touches on love, self-discovery, mystery and magic, with humour thrown in, making this is a light read for those looking for a little escapism.
A Colonial Boy
Against the backdrop of the embryonic bush war, apartheid, Vietnam, the civil rights movement and crushing sanctions, the boy grows up, with purple bauhinia blossom underfoot and the fragrance of unrest in the air. A Colonial Boy tracks the formative years of a child who is a keen observer of life and takes us on a wonderful journey that is at once innocent and ugly, funny and tragic, but always honest.
Roberts Bird Guide
This completely revised field guide to one of Africa’s finest birding spots, the Kruger National Park and adjacent Lowveld, is packed with new information on all of the more than 550 species that have been recorded to date. This includes updated text and distribution maps based on data from the Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2, hundreds of new illustrations, new sections with bird tracks and bird habitats and the latest rarity information. Incorporating information from literally hundreds of observers and contributors, this field guide sets a new standard for the region’s varied avifauna.
The War for Africa
‘The War for Africa: Conflict, Crime, Corruption and Foreign Interests’ is a hard-hitting account of the undeclared and invisible conflicts and wars that go almost unnoticed in the daily mainstream media. The impact of these economic, military, and political conflicts on the continent and its people is devastating.
THE RAW WAR
A narrative and analysis of 123 battles of the Boer War, including battles that were fought without bullets as unbeknown to many – battles are not only fought on the blood-stained battlefield.
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
Faced with numerous challenges resultant from intelligence inertia, information overload, agenda-driven intelligence, and so forth, African military intelligence organisations must revisit the art of HUMINT.
In Your Stride
In Your Stride: 100 Years of the Comrades Marathon, 1921 – 2021 , captures the story and the images of this remarkable event, spanning 100 years, which appeals not only to runners but to those captivated by the triumph of the human spirit.
Anglo-Boer War (South African War) 1899 – 1902
Even though the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 ended more than 110 years ago, no extensive study on the sites of remembrance of this war that covers the country as a whole and is based on methodological research has thus far been published.
Executive Outcomes
Executive Outcomes was already well known to several governments and private corporations before it exploded into controversy in 1993 after entering into a contract with Angola’s FAA to train a brigade-level force to decisively end their decades-old conflict with UNITA.
PROMOTION
Surviving the Ride
Mine-protected and mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles are today standard in the US, most major western armed forces and many other armies as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The South African Army was already routinely using mine-protected armoured personnel carriers and patrol vehicles forty years ago even if they looked primitive and ungainly.
Troepie Snapshots
This pictorial is a compilation of images obtained by the author while working on his first book—an oral history of pre-1994 South African Defence Force national service.
