In the spring of 1977, Frank Stilwell launched Vingila, 17 tons of welded-together 11-mm steel plates, in Durban harbor. An electrician by trade, Frank’s experience of sailing amounted to not very much – an unpleasant spell on a Scottish fishing trawler as a young man and a brief holiday on someone else’s yacht off the coast of Mozambique a couple of years before. Never one to be daunted by a challenge or to be resisted in any way, he took his nine-year-old twins, Robert and Nicky, out of school, persuaded his wife Maureen that they would all learn how to sail and cope with life on the open seas as they went, and prepared to follow his dream of circumnavigating the world. Facing real danger from the elements and at first having to live more by their wits than their skills, the Stilwell family set off boldly, determined to become part of a community of sailors and adventurers who spend more time on the ocean than they do on dry land. In this unique coming-of-age memoir, Martinique Stilwell’s recounting of her true-life gypsy childhood is poignant, funny and heartbreaking all at the same time. With the wisdom and innocence of a child’s point of view, it is a powerful yet tender story of physical and emotional adversity, of family dysfunction and the ties that bind, and of the shackles and exhilarating freedom of growing up.

Thinking Up A Hurricane

Biographies & Memoirs

Stilwell, Martinique

Travelers & Explorers

Penguin Random House South Africa

This is a true story of exodus, the inevitable journey of the last of the First People, as they leave the Great Sand Face and head for the modern world and cultural oblivion. Paul John Myburgh spent seven years with the ‘People of the Great Sand Face’, and three of those with a group of Gwikwe Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. They were years of physical and spiritual immersion into a way of life of which only an echo remains in living memory. But all does not end there. In The Bushman Winter Has Come, the author imagines a continuing journey towards a place where we may, once again, know who we are in the context of our life on this earth … towards a time when we may answer the Gwikwe’s morning greeting, Tsamkwa/tge? (Are your eyes nicely open?) with a confident Yes.

The Bushman Winter Has Come: The true story of the last band of /Gwikwe Bushmen on the Great Sand Face

Myburgh, Paul John

Literature & Fiction

When Father Gumede, known as priest, loses his job as a farmhand, he realizes he can’t afford to love his neighbor as he does himself. Despondent and enraged, priest cuts off all ties to the church and politics, determined to make a living - at whatever cost. It will take a strange story written by his son Sandile - a comical, terrifying and prophetic tale in which the downtrodden rise up to march on the wealth of a neighboring suburb - to show Priest the hope and humanity inherent in the human spirit. Beautifully poetic, funny and highly relevant, Nkosinathi Sithole’s debut novel highlights the ongoing plight of many rural South Africans and the power of a community working together to bring about change.

Hunger Eats a Man

Sithole, Nkosinathi

Literary

You'll never sleep soundly in a safari tent again...GRIPPING FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS OF EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTINGS, SCRAPES AND INCIDENTS IN ONE OF AFRICA'S GREATEST NATIONAL PARKS  An enraged elephant flips a car onto its roof. A lioness prises open the door of a terrified couple. A leopard helps itself to a family's picnic breakfast. A fleeing impala leaps through an open car window. A lion charges around inside a busy rest camp. A hyaena snatches a baby from a tent. A tourist takes a bath in a croc-infested waterhole...  These are just a few of the 101 jaw-dropping sightings, scrapes and encounters in this collection of extraordinary true stories from the roads, camps, picnic sites and walking trails of South Africa's Kruger National Park, as told by the very people who experienced them. There are no game ranger tales here - each and every story happened to an ordinary Kruger visitor doing what over a million tourists do in this spectacular reserve each year.  It is a book to keep by your bedside in Kruger, to dip into at home when you're missing the bush, to lend to friends who've never visited the Park or to pore over before your next trip. Just don't expect to ever sleep soundly in a safari tent again...  IN THIS PRINT EDITION:  - 410 pages of extraordinary, hair-raising, unusual, hilarious and jaw-dropping safari tales - 192 astonishing colour photographs of many of the incidents - All stories 100% true - and could happen to YOU! - Find out what it is like to be stormed by a lion, attacked by an elephant, bitten by a deadly snake or chased by hyaenas - A thrilling read whether you're a Kruger veteran or a safari dreamer - Discover for yourself the wildlife magic that draws over a million tourists to this spectacular piece of Africa each year

101 Kruger Tales: Extraordinary stories from ordinary visitors to the Kruger National Park

Travel

Africa

This comprehensive planning guide to 4x4 travel through eastern Africa (Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia) is based on first-hand travel experience. Introductory chapters give detailed general information and guidance on itineraries, what to take, potential costs, fuel availability, road conditions, security issues, requisite documentation, medical precautions, check lists, bush recipes and more. This is followed by descriptions of the routes traversed by the author and her party through six countries. Route maps and detailed, sensible advice equip future travelers with all the necessary information required to plan and carry out out a trouble-free trip through the region. This handy companion has easy, bulleted text and contains numerous photographs. An invaluable guide for 4x4 explorers to these less-travelled, but hugely rewarding, parts of the continent.

4x4 Travel Guide: Eastern Africa: Zambia * Malawi * Tanzania * Uganda * Kenya * Ethiopia

Day, Maureen

A book of affirmations that highlights each of South Africa's eleven official languages: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.

The South African Alphabet of Affirmations

Children's Books

Williams, Nyasha

Education & Reference

When Arnelia moves to a new town in the middle of the year, she decides to recreate herself. New town. New school. Operation new Arnelia. She can be the mysterious, worldly New Girl. But within days, everyone sees right through her fake new persona. And guess what, a couple of kids actually like the real Arnelia. Like Dewald Fourie, whose crooked smile does weird things to her heart. She becomes the brain behind the school's exciting new food truck and for a while life is sweeter than a chocolate brownie. But nothing good lasts forever. Especially if you're a milky white redhead with a name that sounds like a medicinal ointment...

Confessions of a Ginger Pudding

Teen & Young Adult

Bezuidenhout, Zelda

This book tells the true story of a scientist named Mary Anning. The fossils she found helped invent the science of palaeontology. If you've heard of Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs or Pterosaurs you already know her work but there's so much that's been hidden or forgotten. Here's some things you'll discover:*As a one-year-old, lightning struck Mary but it could not kill her.*When she was 12 she found the bones of a creature no one had ever seen before.*In her 16th year, dead people washed up on her favorite beach.*Her enemies were rich men and landslides - the first called her a liar and the second tried to kill her (a lot).*One of her friends often ate mice on toast.This visual biography contains many deaths and one squirrel; a handsome puppy and 200-million-year-old poop.

Mary Anning’s Grewsome Beasts

Tennekoon, Deshan

Brand, Linki

Biographies

Jock is not your ordinary bull terrier, he has character, he has spirit, and he is overall a wonderful fellow. This exciting abridgment of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick's classic tale, superbly illustrated in full color, will make children part of the scrapes and adventures of a man and his dog in the Transvaal bushveld a century ago.

Jock of the Bushveld

Animals

This is the first collection of Antjie Krog’s poetry to appear in English, and it cements her reputation as one of South Africa’s greatest poets. Down to My Last Skin is her poetic exploration of her different identities, the layers that make the human condition so intricate, fragile and yet resilient. The collection is divided into seven clear sections which explore layers in Krog’s life, and those in every individual. Down to My Last Skin was the inaugural winner of the FNB Vita Poetry Award in 2000. From Down to My Last Skin, p80 (n) neither family nor friends says Lady Anne tonight everything speaks through the dead towards me your brittle bundle of bones my longestloved beloved lies lonely and longingly cradled somewhere lost and lean I am overwhelmingly awake tonight of me so little has become you are all I had in this world beloved deathling alone and cold it is behind my ribs Africa had me giving up all it is so dark it is so bleak soft beloved taunter of me so little has become I am down to my last skin

Down to My Last Skin: Poems

Krog, Antjie

History & Criticism

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Books by Penguin Random House South Africa