By BRUCE DENNILL, LISA WITEPSKI
Last Night At The Bassline by David B Coplan & Oscar Guiterrez
Jemima Small Versus The Universe by By Tamsin Winter
Year Of The Turnip by John Dobson
Wine, Women & Good Hope: A History Of Scandalous Behaviour In The Cape by June McKinnon
The North Water by Ian McGuire
The Body: A Guide For Occupants by Bill Bryson
The Bassline music venue, in its original incarnation in 7th Street in Melville in Johannesburg, was as important to South African jazz as CBGBs in New York was to punk, and as many great names came out of that scene during the nine years the club was run in that location. Owner and passionate music supporter Brad Holmes made the most of a changing political landscape – the club opened in 1994, as racial integration become mainstream and the phenomenal musicians whose race and, in some cases, political affiliations had kept them from being full appreciated by a wider audience could now come and display their ability to an appreciative crowd. David Coplan’s text mixes well-researched history with anecdotal tales of particularly memorable evenings or risky strategies that pushed the envelope to greater or lesser levels of success. Oscar Guiterrez’s black and white photographs bring the setting and famous faces back to life for readers who spent time at the venue, and both provide a rich context for music fans currently more used to discovering their music digital platforms. – BD
It’s been a long time since I read a book for teenagers. In fact, there was no such thing when I was a teen – in the words of a young adult fiction writer I once interviewed, we used to go straight from the Magic Faraway Tree to mom’s Jilly Cooper. This book illustrates why it’s important for young people to their own dedicated genre. It’s the story of Jemima Small, whose surname is a cruel joke given her ongoing war with her weight; a heroine whose innate feistiness is suppressed by the outspoken opinions and side-eye glances of those around her. What happens when that feistiness breaks through is as heartwarming as an early-90s romcom. This is a must for all teenage girls, and maybe even their moms – especially the mean ones, who could benefit from seeing what life is like on the other side of Size 34. – LW
Jason Brydon, the protagonist of Year Of The Turnip and its predecessor, Year Of The Gherkin, is a thoroughly unlikeable man. He’s like a character out of the Boet Fighter video game that was once a YouTube sensation, but unlike the trailer for that game, this book goes on for some time, and unlike in the game, you can’t punch him in the face. Brydon has an ego that’s several times more developed than his brain, and which is also slightly bigger – which is saying something – than his mouth. This allows him to create a view of himself that is violently contrary to reality: he thinks he is smart, capable and attractive, but he is none of these. He’s also nasty, which is where the book, for all its blunt comedy, starts to go wrong. Where a character is a bumbling idiot but retains some charm, you can read of his exploits and shake your head indulgently. But when he is a moron who knowingly does things that will cause others pain, dedicating your time to him seems a touch perverse. – BD
Wine, Women & Good Hope’s subtitle creates the sort of expectation that is difficult to meet in any sort of sustainable way. Writing an R-rated paean to the appetites and libidos of the various communities of settlers who peopled the Cape since Europeans arrived in Africa would soon lose its novelty value. Happily, June McKinnon has not attempted to do so, focusing rather on detailed, careful research and giving as accurate a picture as possible of what South African society looked like in centuries past. Indeed, that is where her alternative focus points make a lot of sense: school textbooks are never going to include stories about the more controversial side of prominent political and other personalities, though these details certainly make them more interesting to read about. If you’re after lewdness, there is none here. But there are details that speak to the character of individuals who were already hardly revered for their geniality – Cecil John Rhodes in particular – and help to enrich readers’ understanding of how society operated at the time. – BD
A novel of whaling and whalers, there is very little in The North Water that is sunny, funny or in any way cheerful. There is constant drama, though, and danger and uncertainty, and the perpetual threat of violence. Though Ian McGuire’s story is fiction, this brutal tone rings unerringly true. At its best, the whaling industry in the 19th Century was work for hard men, people capable of the back-breaking work involved while being at sea for months at a time, but also individuals wanting to make the most of each aspect of their time abroad and adjusting their already malleable ethics systems accordingly. McGuire’s research is fantastic. Physically and philosophically, everything in his narrative feels authentic. The tone he has chosen is unfailingly dark, to the extent that the closest any character gets to redemption in this story is survival. The villains are desperately bleak creatures; his heroes (a relative term) not much less so. But the book is not gloomy to read, being the kind of thoughtful but hardcore sort of thing that Joseph Conrad was writing around the same time McGuire’s characters were heading into the inhospitable Arctic to find the creatures they were tasked to slaughter and bring home. – BD
Bill Bryson’s name above a title is more than enough to convince a large and varied readership that the book concerned is worth reading. That said, the genre-defining likes of Notes From A Small Island are some way in the past now, and Bryson’s more recent output, including A Short History Of Nearly Everything, has seen him wander, with huge success, into the popular science arena. This latest title falls under that banner and is more or less what it says on the tin – a look at and into the bodies we inhabit and the fascinating and often mysterious mechanisms that keep them ticking over. It’s as well-researched as you’d expect, though even Bryson’s overviews are necessarily rather densely detailed, allowing relatively little space for his trademark wit. As such, The Body fits into an ever-expanding and easily readable section dotted with similar books by the Quite Interesting folks and others of that ilk. It is, as well put together as it is, not necessarily a standout title in that area. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect is just how little we know about the way some parts of our bodies work, and how more precise modern science has not been able to give us any more insight than the stab-in-the-dark (often literally) methodology of pioneers past. – BD