Because there are too many books published for you to read, Loot.co.za seeks out and recommends the best and latest books in contemporary fiction and non-fiction.
We hope that these books will not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves, our country and the world around us.
We have chosen our top 10 reads that will enhance your world.
The New Apartheid - Apartheid did not die, it was privatised
By Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh
Currently the no. 1 best-seller on Loot. South Africa’s story is often presented as a triumph of new over old, but while formal apartheid was abolished decades ago, stark and distressing similarities persist.
Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh explores the edifice of systemic racial oppression — the new apartheid — that continues to thrive, despite or even because of our democratic system.
Landslide - The Final Days Of The Trump Presidency
By Michael Wolff
New York Times best-selling author of Fire And Fury and Siege completes the trilogy on the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
We all witnessed some of the most shocking and confounding political events of our lifetime: the careening last stage of Donald J. Trump’s re-election campaign, the election challenge, the mayhem of January 6, the buffoonery of the second impeachment trial. But what was really going on in the inner sanctum of the White House during these calamitous events? What did the president and his dwindling cadre of loyalists actually believe? And what were they planning?
As the Trump presidency’s hold over the country spiraled out of control, an untold account of desperation, duplicity, and delusion was unfolding within the West Wing. Michael Wolff pulled back the curtain on the Trump presidency with his 2 previous best-sellers and now he closes the door on the presidency with a final, astonishingly candid account.
By Khaya Dlanga
Khaya Dlanga is one of South Africa’s favourite authors. His ability to write candidly and authentically about himself and his world has resonated with readers from all walks of life.
In March 2020 Khaya found himself bereaved, alone and facing an indefinite lockdown as a result of Covid-19. He turned to social media to maintain some human connection and his followers came through and kept him going. It’s The Answers For Me is the result of Khaya’s ongoing Q&A interactions with his followers on Instagram. Intensely human, at times strange and shocking, sometimes touching and often really funny.
From the secrets our parents think they keep from us to the real reasons we stay in relationships, and venturing into many other everyday issues and situations, It’s the answers for me captures our collective mgowo.
A Pretoria Boy - The Story Of South Africa's Public Enemy Number One
By Peter Hain
A highly readable, dramatic story of a colourful South African journey in politics lasting over 50 years, from anti-apartheid protester to Right Honourable Lord, from Pretoria childhood to senior British Cabinet Minister.
A Pretoria Boy begins with the story of how Peter Hain’s journey came full circle when he used parliamentary privilege in 2017–18 to expose looting and money laundering, supplied by his ‘deep throat’ inside the Zuma State. In so doing, he put South Africa’s state capture and corruption on the front pages of the New York Times and Financial Times. Going back to an anti-apartheid childhood in Pretoria in the late 1950s and early 1960s and enforced exile to London in 1966 after the government prohibited his architect father from working. He returned to South Africa on a secret mission in December 1989, then as a parliamentary observer during the 1994 elections.
Get Out Of Your Mind - Lessons on embracing difference from South Africa and beyond
By Luyanda Mpahlwa, Klaus Doppler
This dynamic change management offering from a Robben Island freedom fighter-turned Berlin architect and a leading global change management expert is a how-to-guide for South African business and organisational leaders on how to manage diverse people in ways most beneficial for ways that move both organisations and the country forward.
Luyanda and Klaus combine decades of professional knowledge and experience as individuals and as a team to provide critical insight into a changing world.
By Lesley Lokko
A rich, intergenerational tale which centres on the lifelong friendship between two women: Scottish Jen McFadden and South African-born uKwemisa Mashabane, known to her friends as Kemi.
Since childhood, Jen and Kemi have lived like sisters in the McFadden family home in Edinburgh, brought together by a shared family history which stretches back generations. Kemi was educated in Britain alongside Jen but the ties that bind them are strong and complicated, and a dark family secret exists in their joint history.
Solam Matsunyane is from South Africa’s black political elite. He meets both Kemi and Jen on a trip to London and sweeps them off their feet. Kemi, now 31, decides to return to the country of her birth for the first time. Jen, seeking an escape from her father’s overbearing presence, decides to go with her.
In Johannesburg, it becomes clear that Solam is looking for the perfect wife to facilitate his soaring political ambitions. But who will he choose?
By John Boyne
What a thing of wonder a mobile phone is. Six ounces of metal, glass and plastic, fashioned into a sleek, shiny, precious object. A gateway to other worlds - and a treacherous weapon in the hands of the unwary, the unwitting, the inept.
The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing, his wife Beverley, a celebrated novelist, and their children, Nelson, Elizabeth, Achilles, various degrees of catastrophe waiting to happen.
Together they will go on a journey of discovery where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant.
Powered by John Boyne's characteristic humour and razor-sharp observation. To err is maybe to be human but to really foul things up you only need a phone.
Should We Stay Or Should We Go?
By Lionel Shriver
When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. Over ten years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man. Both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties, Kay and her husband Cyril are determined to die with dignity. Cyril proposes they agree to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned eighty.
But then they turn eighty - and everything turns hilarious and touching, playful and grave. Should We Stay or Should We Go portrays parallel universes, each exploring a possible future for Kay and Cyril, from a purgatorial Cuckoo’s-Nest-style retirement home to the discovery of a cure for ageing, from cryogenic preservation to the unexpected pleasures of dementia.
By Samantha Downing
Teddy Crutcher has just won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy, home to the brightest and the best. He says his wife couldn't be more proud - though no-one has seen her in a while.
He's deeply committed to improving his students. All he wants is for his colleagues - and the endlessly interfering parents - is to stay out of his way.
Oddly, not everyone agrees that Teddy has their best interests at heart. But will that change when someone receives a lesson to die for...?
By James Patterson, J D Barker
If you hear it, it’s already too late. Sixteen-year-old Tennant is checking rabbit traps with her eight-year-old sister Sophie when the girls are suddenly overcome by a strange vibration rising out of the forest, building in intensity until it sounds like a deafening crescendo of screams. After a gigantic explosion rips through the town and the community is almost annihilated, the only survivors are the two sisters. How they lived is a mystery.
But it's a mystery that a team of elite government investigators is bent on solving. Sent to research the fallout and the girls they secretly hold conflicting objectives. As the phenomenon threatens to ripple across the Pacific Northwest, it also threatens to topple the chain of command - and those who have the power to survive it.
Terror has a new sound . . . and it comes from the darkest corners of James Patterson's imagination.