The best reads …. whatever you are looking for!
Whatever you are looking for in a book, Homebru – Your Local – has it all.
Exclusive Books' Homebru is a carefully curated collection of 39 trending, unputdownable books – all written by local writers or set on home ground.
The campaign 'Your Local Has It All' cheekily reminds customers that not only does their local Exclusive Books store (and we all have a local!) have every kind of book to suit any reading taste, but also, and particularly, a range of local books to suit every kind of reader.
Making way for the readers of romance and light fiction that BookTok has brought through our doors, we are excited that books like Jo Watson's The Ex Effect, Kelly L Clarke's Sunshine Kisses and Lindsay Norman's Khaki Fever Have been included.
For a fun read, but something a little more substantial, pick up a copy of Paige Nick's The Book People and Tom Eaton's An Act of Murder. A book like Elizabeth Wasserman's Mevrou Smit se reels vir goeie gedrag taps into the cozy crime wave, and Eleanor Baker's Die Vyf Susters, Juliette Mnqeta's If the Dead Could Talk and Hell Run Tobruk, by Justin Fox offer nail-biting page-turning escapism.
Tipping the scale of the heavyweights is Penny's Haw's Follow Me to Africa, and of course, Antjie Krog's new book, in English and Afrikaans.
Homebru's non-fiction offering is just as meaty and varied. Rich offerings are showcased in business, current affairs, African spirituality, history and psychology, with biography particularly exciting, from Khaya Dlanga honest but funny reflections in Life is like that sometimes, the story of icon Sol Kerzner and Mpoomy Ledwaba's bestselling How Did We Get Here? to fresh and brave personal stories like Tshiamo Modisane's searing autobiog I am Tshiamo, and in a landmark publishing story – Led by Shephard's An Initiate's Memoir by Jeffrey Rakabe.
Exclusive Books offers double Fanatics points on all purchases of Homebru books during May. If you are not yet a member, ask your friendly bookseller to sign you up in less than two minutes.
A host of Homebru events will be hosted in Exclusive Books stores in the month of May.
Visit Events – Exclusive Books Online for more information.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mail & Guardian
3 days ago
- Mail & Guardian
Come now, spill the beans on Sol
Sol: My Friend and Adversary, Sol Kerzner by Peter Venison (J DoubleD Publicity, 2025) Sometimes it's better to take no action than to take the wrong action. Peter Venison should have rather used his retirement to improve his golf handicap or something. At the beginning of this biography, he confirms that the only reason he put pen to paper was that he had been searching for a Sol Kerzner biography at an Exclusive Books store and hadn't found any. Being the man of action that he portrays himself to be, Venison took on the task of waxing lyrical about one of South Africa's greatest sons. Sol Kerzner! The Sol Kerzner! Remember him? If you're a 1980s baby like me and whenever you asked your parents for soccer boots and they said, 'I just paid for your school fees, I don't have money for soccer boots … I can't buy everything, I am not Sol Kerzner!' Yes, that guy. Venison thought we needed to immortalise him with a half-cooked book that features half the writer's family emigrations and important promotions. It was a gonzo journalism-inspired idea. Put the writer at the centre of the story, push the subject to the edges and Hunter S Thompson has competition. The book is not entirely crap. It's just that if I had 20 years of working with a man whose name is synonymous with success, I'd like to think I would produce a book far more detailed than what a long-form magazine would have done. For example, Venison says he worked at the Lost Palace construction site circa 1975. Yet he has limited details of what transpired during construction, bar the fact that it was built at record speed. Yeah, am sure it was. We could have pulled a newspaper clipping to confirm that. But I am being unfair. Venison did tell a story no writer has managed to publish. The previous one who tried to was stopped by the courts after Kerzner got an interdict, literally the night before publication. There are exciting parts to the book, Kerzner's adult-rated rants to his staff being my favourite. He was not your typical Jewish boy. He swore. A lot. He drank like a fish and loved his ladies (according to the book he was married three times, but others say four times). But Sol was also super smart and had made accounting partner at a firm in Johannesburg by 29. His story is one of perseverance and determination to be rich. Seemingly nothing else. Sol was driven by the wish to live a good life. He hailed from Troyeville via Durban. Like any township boy narrative, he just wanted to make it so he can ball out. He wasn't trying to be a professor of anything. He wanted to get cash so he could pay for the private jet and the big houses. He was unmistakable to today's tenderpreuner. It wasn't that deep for him. It was all about the Benjys. The true difference, we're told, was that he wasn't willing to take shortcuts to get to his ultimate dream, that of being rich. He built his empire one hotel — sometimes two — at a time. He bent rules and influenced (and bribed a few apartheid government officials) to get his land approvals. He wasn't exactly a corporate governance advocate. In fact I think he was just following the corrupt ways of the Calvinist apartheid state. He was no angel and he didn't pretend that he was one. Anyway, for Venison to now write a book that gives us newspaper highlights such as the Matanzima bribery incident, without letting us into the inner conversations of that time, is weird. It's like, what was the use of Matanzima being second-in-command at Sun International if he isn't going to spill the beans? Sol is long gone … we can't arrest him now. Tell us the full thing, maan! Anyway, I enjoyed reading about a prominent South African business person who started a company that has gone to be internationally renowned and employed a shitlot of our people. God knows we need to get our people employed. Sun International is one of those local companies that punches above their weight, in the same vein as Shoprite, Bidvest, Sibanye-Stillwater, Sasol, Nandos, Aspen… Companies that are South African by birth but now live across the world. I would encourage anyone who likes the art of building an empire to read this one. For history aficionados, I would suggest you wait for the real biography. I am sure it's still coming.
TimesLIVE
4 days ago
- TimesLIVE
Springboks' Eben Etzebeth to publish book about his life journey
Springbok star Eben Etzebeth says he will publish his debut book, Unlocked, which tells the story of his life. Etzebeth shared the book cover on Instagram. 'I'm proud to announce that I wrote a book. My story, from growing up in Goodwood to my aspirations, challenges I faced and what it took to wear the green and gold,' he said. 'Thank you to everyone who has supported me, this one is for you.' The 34-year-old lock joins a long list of Springbok stars who have written books, including captain Siya Kolisi and coach Rassie Erasmus. The book will be available online and in major bookshops, said Etzebeth. 'You can pre-order it online from Takealot, Exclusive Books, Wordsworth, Readers Warehouse, Loot and major bookshops. It is also available in the UK — feel free to look at Amazon UK, Waterstones and more.'
TimesLIVE
5 days ago
- TimesLIVE
‘Butter' is a novel to be savoured slowly but it can also be devoured
Butter Asako Yuzuki Fourth Estate I received Butter courtesy of Exclusive Books, and I devoured it with the same eagerness and delight that threads through its pages. Asako Yuzuki's novel is a feast of sharp social commentary, rich sensory detail and unsettling intimacy. I couldn't put it down. So entranced was I by her descriptions that I even tried a few of the dishes mentioned, most notably the rice with butter and soy sauce. Perhaps I used the wrong kind of butter, because in the end, reading about the dish proved far more satisfying than eating it. 'Men putting on weight is different from women putting on weight.' So declares the boyfriend of Rika Machida, a Tokyo-based journalist on the cusp of making history as the first woman on the editorial desk at the Shūmei Weekly. It's a seemingly offhand comment, but in Butter, Asako Yuzuki wields such moments like a cleaver, cutting straight through the fatphobia and quiet misogyny baked into everyday life. What follows is a compelling, genre-blending novel that interrogates gender, appetite, trauma and the politics of the body with a sharp, satirical edge. Loosely inspired by the real-life case of Kanae Kijima, dubbed the 'Konkatsu Killer,' a home cook convicted of murdering three male lovers, Butter reimagines her as Manako Kajii, or Kajimana. Like her real-life counterpart, Kajii is a target of relentless media body shaming. But beyond the headlines, Yuzuki builds a complex character: a culinary seductress whose gourmet tastes and unapologetic appetite spark both fascination and revulsion. When Rika, under pressure to land a sensational scoop, writes to Kajii requesting the recipe for an infamous beef stew — reportedly the last meal of one of her victims — it unexpectedly opens the door to a series of visits at the detention centre. What begins as journalistic curiosity evolves into something far more intimate and unsettling. When Kajii quips, 'There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine,' Rika is both repelled and intrigued. Her encounters with Kajii stir questions about desire, denial and the burden placed on women to be both nurturing and ascetic, soft yet stoic. As Rika starts to indulge in the rich, buttery meals Kajii speaks of, her own weight begins to creep up, inviting the same misogynistic scrutiny faced by Kajii. The more she eats, the more blurred the lines become between observer and subject, journalist and accomplice. At times, Rika even catches glimpses of herself in Kajii, clouding her moral compass and sparking chilling self-reflection. 'Are you telling me all three men died of natural causes?' her best friend Reiko demands. 'Their demise brought on because they couldn't keep up with her lifestyle?' Yuzuki's greatest triumph is in framing the act of eating as its own kind of mystery, one that leads us back to childhood, family dynamics and emotional hunger. For both Rika and Kajii, the connection between food and fatherhood becomes a key to understanding their present lives. Butter is satisfying when it leans fully into its sensual, food-soaked prose. Yuzuki's descriptions are so decadent they practically melt off the page. 'This was a different kind of deliciousness,' she writes. 'A more blatant, forceful deliciousness, that took hold of her from the tip of her tongue, pinned her down, and carried her off to some unknown place.' In Butter, food is never just food. It is seduction. It is rebellion. It is shame. And it is survival. This is a novel to be savoured slowly … but also, perhaps, devoured.
