In time for stockings and secret Santa, the “best of 2023” reading roundups are rearing their reindeer-antlered heads.
Whether you are a humble-bragger who’s only managed 40 books this year or are scouting for something decent to read on holiday, these recommendations from great international book journalists are worth a glance.
The Times (of London) just debuted its annual list in hot pursuit of The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2023. Both featured Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, which lost out to Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song in last weekend’s Booker Prize announcement. Colson Whitehead’s Crook Manifesto and Zadie Smith’s The Fraud were on both lists too.
There are reams of fiction and nonfiction titles chosen by these professional readers on both sides of the Atlantic, so it’s inevitable that you’ll find something to suit your taste.
Of course, these selections are very skewed to the US and UK markets. South African books are unlikely to get a look in on these catalogues of Western cool and, this year especially, that’s a pity. It has been a supernova season for local nonfiction — beyond the quickly banged out release from every local news journo and retired CEO, that is. If you want to read something excellent this holiday, stay local and true.
It has been a supernova season for local nonfiction — beyond the quickly banged out release from every local news journo and retired CEO, that is. If you want to read something excellent this holiday, stay local and true
Unusually my favourite books this year have largely fallen into this category and I’m not alone. In a flash poll, I asked three consummate bookworms for their picks. Love Books owner Kate Rogan, SA SME Fund principal Claudia Manning and book journalist Michele Magwood all had similar leanings. As Manning put it: “I’d never have guessed three South African nonfiction titles would be on my list.”
During winter, readers were swept up by Jonny Steinberg. Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage is a gripping, rich commentary on relationships; apartheid; contemporary South Africa; women; the ANC; Joburg; and even the power of clothing. If you reckon you know the story of our most famous couple, think again. Rogan, Manning and I all put it on our “favourites” piles.
We also felt it had fierce competition in Darrel Bristow-Bovey’s beguiling and moving Finding Endurance. Magwood described it as “rousing and achingly tender. One of the outstanding books of the decade.” Yes, it’s ostensibly about Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance being discovered in Antarctica 106 years after it sank, but that does not even begin to cover its nuances and magic. I have little interest in yarns about adventurers, ice or anything nautical and I was hooked, and profoundly moved.
Manning, Rogan and I agree that the FM’s own Justice Malala and his cracker on what happened after ANC leader Chris Hani was assassinated in 1993 clinches a top spot too. Thirty years on and The Plot to Save South Africa reads like a thriller that could easily be made into one helluva movie. I found it especially enlightening because I was only 10 when the tragedy unfolded.
My fourth nonfiction favourite is the equally engrossing Daisy de Melker: Hiding Among Killers in the City of Gold by Ted Botha. The murderess has a special spot in the ghoulish history of Joburg but Botha brings this story to life against a backdrop of other terrible (but largely forgotten) murders that had the town in a frenzy at the time. True crime lovers, this is for you.
Magwood counted Wake Up, This is Joburg by Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis as one of her top reads. Almost a century after De Melker lived here, come absorbing tales and wonderful images of other people who’ve made Joburg their home. As she adds, “these are vivid and original portraits of the city we hate to love, but do anyway”. The former Sunday Times books editor also included Impossible Skies by Frans Meyer in the mix. She says of it: “This is a tragic, intimate memoir of his brother, the peerless landscape painter Walter Meyer.”
To round off the indigenous gems, Rogan added Justin Fox’s new travelogue Place, in which the former Getaway magazine editor explores places in his favourite books — ranging from the hamlets of Zakes Mda’s Wild Coast to Eugène Marais’ Waterberg.
Rogan explains: “Fox explores the idea of topophilia — which is a love of place. Really there’s a lot of romance in it and I suppose as a South African hopelessly in love with our landscape and stories (despite everything), it really spoke to me.”
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