Unimportance
Thando Mgqolozana (Jacana)
****
Book buff
In turns hilarious and plaintive, Thando Mgqolozana’s finely-crafted third novel follows SRC presidential candidate Zizi in the hours before he delivers his manifesto to an expectant crowd at a Western Cape university. Unimportance is filled with the quotidian tumults of student politics, carried by a series of distressing events that leads Zizi to re-evaluate the course of his life. The characters are flawed, reprehensible even; but also relatable, brimming with verve and juggling with refreshingly hybrid identities. The disarmingly self-aware Zizi in particular is an excellent conduit for the book’s empathetic explorations of the mechanics of ambition and the traumas of young adulthood.
- Nick Mulgrew @NichMulgrew
The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry
Gabrielle Levin (Little, Brown)
*****
Book buff
Prepare to fall head-over-heels in love with Mr Fikry and Co. as this novel captivates from the first sentence, and breaks your heart by the end. A.J. Fikry is the owner of the sole bookstore on Alice Island, a recent widower and grumpy bastard extraordinaire. But he is soon to encounter Maya, a baby abandoned in his bookshop. This story reminds you of why you prefer books to almost anything else, and why bookstores and libraries are such magical places. And it reminds us, as Mr Fikry says, “We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”
– Donnay Torr @SAPixi
Mr Mercedes
Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)
***
Book Thrill
Instead of trying to write an innovative hard-boiled detective thriller that dismisses the tropes, Stephen King embraces the cliches. There’s the cynical, somewhat suicidal, retired detective, Bill Hodges, who just can’t let go of the unsolved case; the psychotic killer, Brady Hartfield, with mother issues who taunts the detective with infuriating missives; the predictable yet required cat and mouse games with cliffhanging chapter endings; the one word sentence. Yup. Nevertheless, it is Stephen King with his unmistakable tension build-up – so you speed read to find out just how Hodges and his band of misfits catch psycho Brady.
- Jennifer Platt @Jenniferdplatt
Book details
- Unimportance by Thando Mgqolozana
EAN: 9781431409525
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- The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Levin
EAN: 9781408704622
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- Mr Mercedes by Stephen King
EAN: 9781444788624
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