Book: Botswana Time, Will Randall

What a wonderful African adventure Will takes the reader on. He has a marvellous writing style and sense of humour. I will definitely look at getting my hands on his other books too. 

Book: The 9 Steps To Financial Freedom ~ Practical & Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying, Suze Orman

I started reading this book years ago, then lost interest when I reached a chapter about planning for retirement; not that I don't think it is important, it was just that Suze makes a lot of reference to American regulations. The other day I saw the book on my bookshelf, and it irks me to have a half-read book 'staring' at me.  What I should have done initially was just to skip over that chapter, which I did this time around. 

There are three key lessons for me from this book: the first part of the book helped me to understand my relationship and thinking about money. She takes you through an exercise that digs down quite deeply to help you understand this relationship. 

The next lesson is the importance of respecting money; this really resonated with me, as 'respect' is one of our core values at Reputation Matters.  This links to Suze's second law of financial freedom: Respect attracts money ~ disrespect repels money. 

The third lesson is trusting yourself with your money. I've had a financial advisor for years, recently I started feeling that I have been taken for a ride; I only hear from him once a year when my investments need to be renewed/reviewed and he obviously gets a commission from it. He does not listen to a word I say, and I am doubtful that after 15 years he actually knows what it is we do. Suze encourages people to listen to their gut feeling, and I think that is the reason this book has crossed my path again, giving me that 'virtual' nod that you need to listen to that inner voice especially when it comes to investments and financial planning. 

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. 

Book: Number 10, Sue Townsend

On my journey to catch up on classics last year, I started reading the Adrian Mole diary series by Sue Townsend and was hooked. 

I was keen to read one of her other, non-diary books as well and gave Number 10 a go. Sadly I did not enjoy it as much. In the true, beautiful, literary sense to phrase it as eloquently as possible, it was "meh".