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THE BIRTHDAY ISSUE WHAT WE INHERIT Mothers, daughters and the stories between them CELEBRATING FOOD Generous recipes from the new book by Isabella Niehaus BUILDING WEALTH Four South African experts share practical financial lessons ON MY MIND Tarryn Crossman reflects on refusing to walk away “I LOVE DRAMA, OKAY?” YOUR FREE COPY! Takalani M on love, chaos and happy endings WIN Over R15 000 in prizes up for grabs! THE MAGAZINE ABOUT BOOKS FOR BOOK LOVERSSHOP THE JACKIE PHAMOTSE COLLECTION Now available in leading bookstores nationwide and online.Dear reader Winter is the perfect season to slow down, get comfortable, and lose yourself in a great book. Curl up, turn the page and fall in love with reading courtesy of popular local author Jackie Phamotse, from her bestselling Bare series to her most recent chart-toppers The Tea Merchant and The Advocate. Your next favourite fiction read is also just a page away with hot new releases from James Patterson, Lisa Jewell, Shari Lapena, Conn Iggulden, Lisa Gardner, Tom Eaton and the perfect mystery treat for booklovers: If Books Could Kill. Then Isabella Niehaus invites us into her kitchen with a tantalising cookbook while a showcase for Afrikaans means new books from Elmarie Dercksen, Elsa Winckler, Marie Lotz, Erla Diedericks and Bets Smith. There’s even more treasures featured inside, from nature to wellbeing and a stacked selection of reads for kids. Make this winter a season of stories. Discover your next great read and experience the comfort, excitement, and joy that only a good book can bring. Carlisle Johnson contents 02 BOOKSCAPE The Sunday Times Literary Awards Longlist, a word from Sally Andrew and six things we’ve learnt about readers 06 COVER Takalani M reflects on ambition, romance, resilience and representation 10 FICTION Finding humour in the chaos between fiction and reality, and a novel that feels urgently relevant today 14 AFRIKAANS Van geskiedkundige verhale tot hedendaagse drama, rillers en ’n ware verhaal van hoop 16 WELLBEING The quiet freedom of not needing to prove yourself 18 ADVICE Four local experts share practical financial lessons 22 NATURE A glimpse into the origins of bird names and a herpetologist on all things snakes 26 SPECIAL Writing the women who made us 28 INSIDER Lilian Ngoyi’s fearless and unforgettable rise within the ANC 29 FOOD Feed a crowd with two mouth- watering recipes from Isabella Niehaus 32 ON MY MIND What a journalist learnt after pursuing a disturbing medical abuse case Johannesburg | 1 Weaver Avenue, Unit 3, Midpoint Business Park, 162 Tonetti Street, Halfway House, Midrand, 1685 | 011 327 3550 Cape Town | Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441 | 021 460 5400 © Copyright Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd. The Penguin Post is published by Penguin Random House South Africa. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the editor is strictly forbidden. Editor Lauren Mc Diarmid Designer Sean Robertson Sub Editor Frieda Le Roux Contributors Takalani Mutshinyan, Eddie Germiquet, Marcel van Driel, Robert J van Eyden, Jason Lee, Tarryn Crossman Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. 06VOLUME 43 2 bookscape news | snippets | what’s new In May, the nominees for the 2026 Sunday Times Literary Awards were announced and Penguin Random House is proud to share that they have nine titles on the list. For more than three decades, the Sunday Times Literary Awards have celebrated the books shaping South Africa’s literary conversation. Widely regarded as among the country’s most prestigious literary honours, the awards recognise exceptional storytelling, bold ideas and powerful new voices across fiction and non-fiction. Beyond the prize money and acclaim, they offer something equally valuable: visibility for South African writers and their work in an increasingly crowded cultural landscape. Each shortlist becomes a snapshot of the questions, histories and imaginations defining the moment. For readers, the awards remain a trusted guide to the books worth talking about. And the nine nominees are as follows. In the fiction category are The Nicotine Gospel by Sven Axelrad, Canary by Dr. Onke Mazibuko, An Act of Murder by Tom Eaton and The Immortalites by Claire Robertson. In non-fiction, Death in Pretoria by Peter Auf Der Heyde, The Smallest Ones by Popina Khumanda, Under Smuts’s Rule by Bongani Ngqulunga, Attacking the Heart of Apartheid by Yunus Carrim and Blood’s Inner Rhyme by Antjie Krog. The shortlist will be announced in September, with the awards ceremony taking place in November 2026. Everyone’s talking about … The Books on the Sunday Times Literary Awards Longlist IT’S FREE! Visit www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/ catalogues/the-penguin-post/ and sign up to receive each new edition directly to your inbox. DOMINATING THE BESTSELLER LISTS “With exquisite storytelling and unforgettable characters, The Calamity Club is a joyful, heartbreaking, heartwarming read. I loved it so much.” Jennie Godfrey, author of FICTION | LONGLIST The Nicotine Gospel by Sven Axelrad Canary by Dr. Onke Mazibuko An Act of Murder by Tom Eaton The Immortalites by Claire Robertson NON-FICTION | LONGLIST The Smallest Ones by Popina Khumanda Under Smuts’s Rule by Bongani Ngqulunga Death in Pretoria by Peter Auf Der Heyde Attacking the Heart of Apartheid by Yunus Carrim Blood’s Inner Rhyme by Antjie KrogVOLUME 43 3 UPFRONT Carisse Hammond is an IT Recruiter who finds comfort in books amidst life’s chaos. She loves reading enemies-to-lovers, romance and fantasy tropes, with heartfelt stories and plot twists. “Tillie Cole broke us once with A Thousand Boy Kisses and, somehow, she’s found a way to do it all over again with A Thousand Broken Pieces. If you’re going into this thinking your heart has already survived the worst, think again. This isn’t just another emotional romance. This is what comes after the kind of loss that changes you. The quiet, messy, unbearable process of trying to live again. Savannah is carrying a grief that feels endless. Cael is drowning in his own demons. And when their paths cross, it’s not instant healing or perfect love; it’s raw, fragile, and achingly real. Two broken people painfully learning, slowly, that maybe surviving is the first step toward something more. Tillie Cole doesn’t just tell a love story here. She shows the aftermath. The silence. The rebuilding. The trying. If you want something light, this isn’t it. But if you’re ready for a story that will break you, heal you and stay with you long after the final page, then this one’s for you.” A Thousand Broken Pieces is out now. MUST of the MONTH OUT IN PAPERBACK THE SECRET OF SECRETS by Dan Brown When Katherine Solomon vanishes in Prague, Robert Langdon is pulled into a deadly maze of hidden histories, ancient secrets and shadowy conspiracies that threaten both the woman he loves and humanity’s future. THE PREDICAMENT by William Boyd Drawn back into espionage, Gabriel Dax uncovers a dangerous conspiracy stretching from Guatemala to Cold War Berlin, where political unrest, CIA intrigue and an assassination plot collide in a deadly race. 3.1k followers @hopeless_bookmantic #bookstagram OPEN WHEN … by Dr Julie Smith A compassionate guide for life’s overwhelming moments, offering practical advice and emotional clarity for navigating grief, burnout, fear, difficult decisions, self-doubt and the everyday challenges of being human. This book has a theme of connection (rather than control) that runs through it. Connection to food, particularly sourdough bread. Connection to nature, Earth and stars. Connection to self. And then of course the connection between Maria and Henk. As Maria works through her personal issues (including her fear of the dark) she becomes more able to connect with her beloved. –Sally Andrew, author of Wild Things Never Die PHOTOGRAPH: Joanne OlivierVOLUME 43 4 6 THINGS WE’VE LEARNT ABOUT READERS Six years ago, The Penguin Post arrived with a simple idea: that books still matter deeply in people’s lives. Since then, there have been dog-eared novels, sauce-splattered cookbooks, missed bedtimes, impossible TBR piles and more literary obsessions than any sensible bookshelf can hold. You could say that during this time, we’ve learnt a few things about reading life. Mostly that readers are wonderfully predictable in the best possible ways. 1 People absolutely judge books by their covers Of course they do. Readers love beautiful books. We admire sprayed edges, embossed covers, elegant typography and dust jackets dramatic enough to stop us mid-scroll or mid-aisle. We’d all like to believe we choose books based purely on literary merit, but then a gorgeous cover with gold foil walks in and suddenly our willpower collapses entirely. A good cover promises atmosphere before the first sentence has even begun. It signals romance, danger, comfort, mystery or escape. Sometimes it simply says: “You’re taking me home today.” And honestly? Fair enough. 3 Cookbooks are emotional support literature Some cookbooks are practical. Others become part of the family. Over six years, we’ve noticed that people rarely speak about cookbooks as objects alone. They talk about who gave them the book, which recipe became “their” dish, what they cooked during difficult seasons or which pudding appears every Christmas without fail. The best cookbooks live slightly messy lives. Their pages buckle from steam. Ingredients are scribbled into margins. There are mysterious sauce splatters nobody remembers creating. Even people who swear they “don’t really cook” still collect cookbooks because they represent possibility: slower Sundays, fuller tables, future dinners with people we love. 2 Readers want fewer screens and more pages Modern life asks for constant attention. Books ask for something quieter. Again and again, readers tell us they are trying to spend less time scrolling and more time reading. Not necessarily to become more productive or informed, but simply to feel calmer. More focused. More present. A book remains one of the few things in modern life that allows us to disappear completely for a while. No notifications. No tabs open in the background. No algorithm interrupting halfway through a paragraph. Just a story, a chair and perhaps a cup of tea growing cold nearby.VOLUME 43 5 SPECIAL 4 One passionate recommendation beats marketing every time The most powerful phrase in publishing may still be: “You have to read this.” Not the carefully planned campaign. Not the billboard. Not even the celebrity endorsement. Just one trusted friend pressing a book into your hands with alarming emotional intensity. Readers are natural evangelists. They lend books they never get back. They message screenshots of paragraphs at midnight. They force entire book clubs into emotional turmoil because “everyone simply must read this immediately”. A truly loved book travels quickly. 5 South Africans love stories that feel close to home There is a special pleasure in recognising your own world on the page. Readers light up when they encounter familiar landscapes, rhythms, humour and food. Local stories carry textures we instinctively understand: Karoo dust, Durban curry politics, Cape Town dinner parties, Joburg ambition, small-town secrets and family WhatsApp groups behaving badly. Over the past six years, South African fiction, memoir and cookbooks have continued to prove something important: local stories are not smaller stories. They are rich, layered and deeply universal precisely because they are rooted somewhere real. 6 Readers are collectors, not consumers Readers do not simply “finish” books. They live with them. Books migrate from bedside tables to holiday bags to overstuffed shelves. They carry inscriptions, folded corners, plane tickets used as bookmarks and underlined sentences that once felt life-changing at 1am. Some books become versions of memory. We remember where we were when we read them, who recommended them or which season of life they quietly carried us through. And despite ongoing promises to declutter, readers continue acquiring more books than any reasonable shelving situation can support. Because the truth is: readers are not just buying paper and ink. They are building personal libraries of comfort, curiosity, identity and escape. Six years into The Penguin Post, this may be the thing that continues to surprise us most: not simply that people still read, but how deeply books continue to matter. And honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way. To celebrate six years of The Penguin Post, we’re giving SIX LUCKY READERS the chance to win a personalised hamper of books from this issue, chosen by you and valued at R1 500. To enter, scan the code using your phone camera, or visit www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/competitions. Ts & Cs apply. Entries close 31 August 2026. WIN Your Birthday BookshelfAs she releases her twelfth novel, Takalani M reflects on ambition, romance, resilience and representation, sharing how her own journey shaped Divine Arrangements and her vision for South African fiction. “WHY I’LL ALWAYS WRITE LOVE STORIES CLOSE TO HOME”COVERNext >