The Local Lit Scene

OK, so I don’t know about you but I love finding books to read.

I especially love finding good books to read and what better place to look than at the 451 Challenge. This challenge consists of a master list of books which has been taken from all the participants of 451 Fridays, over at As usual, I need more bookshelves.

Between January 1, 2010 and November 30, 2010, participants are challenged to read books on the 451 master list. There will be several levels of participation:

Spark – read 1-2 books from the master list
Ember – read 3-4 books from the master list
Flame – read 5-6 books from the master list
Blaze – read 7 or more books from the master list

If you are interested, you can sign up on the dedicated blog for the challenge.

I’m going for Blaze which is 7 books or more and they are…drum roll please…

1)  Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance – Robert M Pirsig. (I have read half this book, but just have never finished the other half) Now is as good a time as any!

2)  Black Beauty – Anna Sewell

3)  Farenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury (I think its only fair that if I am partaking in a challenge based on his book, it is only fair that I read the book, though I am quite intruiged to read it)

4)  We need to talk about Kevin – Lionel Shriver

5)  A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

6)  A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

7)  Silence – Shusako Endo

So, does anyone else fancy taking up the challenge? Let us know, and we can chat about what we are reading.

Hi all, I know it’s been quiet on The Book Club Blog lately, I promise this will be rectified as soon as! I have a couple of things in the pipeline, just need to find the time to get them to fruition…

But until then, please visit As usual, I need more bookshelves where today, I have been featured on her 451 Fridays. Elizabeth invited me to join in, and bookaholic that I am, I couldn’t resist. She will explain more about the idea, and if any of you fancy joining in, all you need to do, is let her know. If you do join in,let us know too and we can blog about it.

Happy reading, and see you all soon.

This list is compiled by Exclusive Books and is the top 110 bestselling books of 2008.

I found it extremely interesting to see how different this list was compared to the Borders book list. (The ones in bold are the ones that I have read and I get a grand total of 18 and a half!).

Have a look and see how many you get on this one…

1. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
2. A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle
3. The Secret – Rhonda Byrne
4. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari – Robin Sharma
5. Spud – John van de Ruit
6. The Shack – William P. Young
7. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
8. In Black and White: The Jake White Story – Jake White, Craig Ray
9. Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
10. After the Party – Andrew Feinstein
11. Don’t Panic – Alan Knott-Craig
12. Pirates of Polokwane – Zapiro
13. Spud: The Madness Continues – John van de Ruit
14. The Tales of Beedle the Bard – J.K. Rowling
15. Dinner with Mugabe – Heidi Holland
16. Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
17. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
18. Playing the Enemy – John Carlin
19. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
20. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
21. Some of My Best Friends are White – Ndumiso Ngcobo
22. Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
23. This Charming Man – Marian Keyes
24. Brisingr – Christopher Paolini
25. The Exclusive Books Children’s Best Books Guide
26. Screw It, Let’s Do It – Richard Branson
27. Socrates and the Fox – Clem Sunter, Chantell Ilbury
28. New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
29. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life – Alice Schroeder
30. Who Moved My Cheese? – Spencer Johnson
31. Capitalist Nigger – Chika A. Onyeani
32. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
33. The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
34. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
35. Monty – Mark Keohane
36. A Prisoner of Birth – Jeffrey Archer
37. The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
38. Zhoozsh – Jeremy Mansfield, Jacqui Mansfield
39. Dreams from My Father – Barack Obama
40. The Audacity of Hope – Barack Obama
41. In a Different Time – Peter Harris
42. Is it Just Me or is Everything Kak? – Tim Richman, Grant Schreiber
43. Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
44. 13 uur – Deon Meyer
45. Platter’s South African Wines 2009
46. Brida – Paulo Coelho
47. Of Tricksters, Tyrants and Turncoats – Max du Preez
48. There are Ants in My Sugar – Annica Foxcroft
49. Jamie’s Ministry of Food – Jamie Oliver
50. Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
51. Platter’s South African Wines 2008
52. Escape – Carolyn Jessop
53. Around Africa on My Bicycle – Riaan Manser
54. To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa – Xolela Mangcu
55. Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer
56. Guinness World Records 2009 –
57. Dark Continent My Black Arse – Sihle Khumalo
58. Stealing Water – Tim Ecott
59. Three Letter Plague – Jonny Steinberg  (read halfway)
60. Madam and Eve Unplugged – Stephen Francis, Rico
61. Now, Discover Your Strengths – Marcus Buckingham
62. Business Stripped Bare – Richard Branson
63. A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
64. Think Big and Kick Ass – Donald Trump
65. Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom
66. Zuma – Jeremy Gordin
67. Change of Heart – Jodi Picoult
68. Mense van my asem – Steve Hofmeyr
69. A Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela
70. The Quest – Wilbur Smith
71. Karma Suture – Rosamund Kendal
72. Optimum Nutrition Made Easy – Patrick Holford
73. Laying Ghosts to Rest – Mamphela Ramphele
74. The Jews in South Africa: An Illustrated History – Richard Mendelsohn, Milton Shain
75. 7th Heaven – James Patterson
76. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man – John Perkins
77. Roberts Bird Guide – Hugh Chittenden, Guy Upfold
78. Op die agterpaaie – Dana Snyman
79. For Crying Out Loud – Jeremy Clarkson
80. The Arms Deal in Your Pocket – Paul Holden
81. Q and A – Vikas Swarup
82. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey
83. Things I Want My Daughter to Know – Elizabeth Noble
84. The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman
85. The State of Africa – Martin Meredith
86. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
87. The Race – Richard North Patterson
88. The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
89. A Most Wanted Man – John le Carre
90. Atonement – Ian McEwan
91. The Art of Possibility – Rosamund Stone Zander, Benjamin Zander
92. Sail – James Patterson
93. The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam – Lauren Liebenberg
94. Broken Window – Jeffery Deaver
95. The Whole Truth – David Baldacci
96. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun – Peter Godwin
97. The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
98. Good to Great – Jim Collins
99. The Appeal – John Grisham
100. Meals in Minutes – Sharon Glass
101. Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred – Mark Gevisser
102. Night Train to Lisbon – Pascal Mercier
103. The Private Patient – P.D. James
104. Compulsion – Jonathan Kellerman
105. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
106. Choice, Not Fate – Pippa Green
107. Scarpetta – Patricia Cornwell
108. Cross Country – James Patterson
109. The Appeal – John Grisham
110. The Persimmon Tree – Bryce Courtenay

The Reluctant Passenger is a fabulous book. I discovered it a few years ago and was completely taken with it, I immediately went off to find if he had written anything else, which as we all know, he has! And thank goodness for that, else where would we, as readers be?

The book is set in Cape Town and that was one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much. I could identify with the place, and there is something wonderful about reading a book where you know the places contained within its covers. It is also a somewhat quirky book with interesting characters and a fabulous story line. I am not one to give away the story line so will leave you with the extract from the back of the book to tempt you to read it.

‘Nicholas Morris is a fundamentally decent chap who likes order, and isn’t given to messy emotions. He and his ‘sort of’ girlfriend Leonora share a relationship that is comforting in its sameness, and he is ensconced in a well-paid career as an environmental lawyer.

Apart from his frustration with the madness of Cape Town’s traffic, he is not aware of feeling any dissatisfaction with his lot. But then, he’s not aware of feeling very much at all really. Until he realises he’s forgotten to vote in South Africa’s first democratic elections – because he was seeing to the long-overdue mowing of his lawn. With a jolt Nicholas begins to wonder if he isn’t being squeezed to the margins of his own dull life, despite all the efforts of his flamboyantly gay colleague Gerhard, who constantly tries to provoke him to let go and live a little.

But soon Nicholas has no choice. When he takes on a case to save the baboons of Cape Point from developers, he becomes drawn into intrigues involving a charismatic liberal judge, dinosaurs of the old regime and the full cast of the wealthy Tomlinson family, not to mention its golden boy heir.

When the baboons are captured for experimentation by a research institute from the Old South Africa, which has somehow become incorporated into the New, he finds himself acting with uncharacteristic passion and conviction. Sucked into a whirlpool of deceit, he finds a lot more going on below the surface than he’d ever imagined – and soon he is not only struggling with his own identity, but fighting for his life.‘

Michiel Heyns writes with great intelligence and humour, starting from page one and it doesnt stop there. This novel provides entertainment and food for thought and I would recommend anyone who has/does or will live in Cape Town to read it, as well as those who have never set foot inside our country.

And just to tempt you just a little bit more (and any one who has been stuck in the Cape Town traffic):

‘Between my orderly house in Pinelands and my orderly office in the city, I had to negotiate Settler’s Way, a three-lane highway clogged with every neurosis, addiction, psychosis, obsession, phobia, mania and perversion known to science and a few yet to be classified, amongst the latter being a form of demonic possession visited upon minibus taxis, manifesting itself as a compulsion to hop kerbs, push into lanes that are already crowded beyond capacity, reverse into the face of oncoming traffic, make u-turns in the fast lane, and shed wheels and bumpers at random, all the while hooting indignantly at everything obstructing or deemed remotely likely to obstruct their frenzied progress.’

And just to satisfy those reading tastebuds, The Book Club Blog is having a giveaway of this novel. Yes, you read that sentence correctly! All that is required is that you leave a comment with your details and one reason why you should be the person who receives this book.

The giveaway is open to all residents in South Africa and the closing date will be the 5 November 2009.  We will then contact the lucky reader and get the book into the post for you.

Now, hows that for a great start to the weekend?

Happy Friday and happy reading!

First up, I hope that you all enjoyed reading our interview with Michiel Heyns, I have to admit that I enjoyed doing the interview greatly. I felt very honoured that our blog was the platform for his interview and I do hope that we have brought you a ‘new’ author to discover.

As for more interviews, we have several in the pipeline, so please do keep checking back, you will not be dissapointed!

Which brings me to my point:

We need you! We would love to know who you would like to have interviewed on The Book Club Blog. Who would you like to know just a little bit better, why they wrote a particular novel? Which author has blown your skirt up and you have to read everything they ever wrote? Which author wrote something that changed your way of thinking, of relating to the world as you know it?

What we would like you to do, is head on down to the comments section and let us know. Let us know, if you could interview any author, who would it be and what would your question/s be?

This is a book club and there is more than one reader, so let us know, you never know, your questions may just be answered!

We look forward to hearing from you.