Book: Amelia Earhart, her last flight, Oliver Knaggs

Yip, every now and again I do have a blonde moment...when I saw this book, I thought it was a documentation by Amelia of her last flight. I did realise soon enough that this would never have been possible as her plane had disappeared; Amelia, her navigator Fred Noonan, and the aeroplane have never been recovered. The hypothesis is that the plane that they were using to fly around the world got into trouble and landed (crashed) somewhere around the Marshall Islands. She and Noonan were imprisoned because they were believed to be American spies. He was executed and she died of starvation in a prison (how incredibly sad!). The book was written by a South African, how cool is that? I enjoyed his writing style and the journey he took us on to do research for the book. 

Book: True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole, Margaret Hilda Roberts and Susan Lilian Townsend, Sue Townsend

I am on a mission to work through the Adrian Mole series. They are such fun, easy to read books. I really raced through the first two, unfortunately, the same can't be said for this one; I did not enjoy it as much an had considerably less guffawed moments. I prefer the diary entry style of the previous two and wasn't too sure why the new characters were introduced. Hopefully, the next one will be back to the winning formula that worked for the first two. 

Book: Een Lewe 'n Biografie geskryf deur Professor Dr C N Barnard enCurtis Bill Pepper

Ever since my first visit to the Heart of Cape Town museum a couple of years ago, I was fascinated by the first heart transplant. They played a video as part of the tour and I was hooked on the story, charm and achievements of Prof Barnard. So I was thrilled to pick up this book at a second hand book store. 

A wonderful December holiday read. I wondered whether I would still finish it this year. I battled to put it down! And was way ahead of schedule to finish it. It is a wonderfully well written Afrikaans book. I am in awe of his achievements, not too phased with his private life, although it is not too clear how much support his first wife gave him. 

There is a sequel, Die Tweede Lewe.

Die Tweede Lewe, Chris Barnard

I was absolutely thrilled to have found the follow up to Dr. Chris Barnard's "Een Lewe", as it felt that it just ended in mid-air. As I have mentioned before I am in awe of his achievements as a heart surgeon. What an incredible feat to be the first person to transplant a heart! He had a brilliant mind and was incredibly innovative with new techniques in heart surgery and even coming up with a solution to have two hearts in a chest if one heart was not strong enough.

In my review of Een Lewe, I indicated that I wasn't too sure how much support his first wife gave him; I don't think that was fair. I actually feel incredibly sorry for her. I think fame and the excitement of all the opulence took centre stage in Dr. Barnard's life (which one can understand taking his humble beginnings into consideration); at functions he would be socialising with everyone, and instead of making sure that Louwtjie (his wife), was by his side, she was pretty much sidelined and had to fend for herself. Now if networking and socialising is not your cup of tea and you don't know anyone, this could be hell. So, instead of keeping an eye on her, he pretty much kept an eye on all the other skirts in the room. 

Personally, I felt that there was waaay too much about his private life shared in this book that was just too much information [TMI]. 

I do like his writing style and again worked through the book quite quickly.