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1.When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by: Peter Godwin April 10, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.19 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $8.35
It's always easier for me to learn about an event or situation through the eyes of someone who lived it especially someone who writes as nicely as Mr. Godwin does.

2.Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela : With Connections (HRW library) by: Nelson Mandela 2000-09
Average Rating: >>More Details		Off The Bookshelf's Price: $20.20 Prices subject to change. Used Price: $6.20
If you read only one autobiography this year, I recommend this one. Leadership breakthroughs are few and far between. They are even rarer in the political arena. Although I had closely followed the path to an integrated democracy in South Africa (and worked hard on the anti-apartheid sanctions and boycotts), much of Nelson Mandela's struggle was hidden to me at the time. Only after the reconciliation had gone on for a number of years did it become apart how remarkable this man's contribution has been. Recently, I read Playing the Enemy which described some of the nuances in how Mandela conceived of creating a peaceful transition through an unauthorized sole negotiation from a prison cell. Those stories impressed me even more. Now, I had to read the autobiography. And I'm ... Read More

3.Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by: Alexandra Fuller December 18, 2001
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $0.33
This book kept me engaged to see what "diffrent" thihg would happen next. While not great writing, it is vivid and depicts things most of us can hardly imagine.

4.Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography--The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa by: Mark Mathabane October 07, 1998
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.16
I'm stumped. This memoir is considered a classic, yet there are platoons of unsung memoirs out of Africa that are far superior. Granted,Mathabane wrote this when he was barely out of high school. But still. The writing is laborious and, worse, many of the scenes, particularly those from his very early childhood, feel embellished. A different shade of James Frey? That said, the book gives a sobering, stark picture of Apartheid-era township life in all its horrors and occasional joys.

5.No Future Without Forgiveness by: Desmond Tutu October 05, 1999
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $4.91
This spiritual/religious based book is presented differently than Gandhi, Tolstoy, and other philosophers that I have read. This book is more rooted in the events of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, a board that Desmond Tutu headed after apartheid ended. The goal of this board was to grant amnesty to individuals and to learn of the travesties that occurred during apartheid. Tutu spends time to talk about the reasons and purpose of the board while lending several chapters to discuss several of the eye-witness reports and events described while heading the committee. After he sets up the purpose and ideals behind the board along with some of the testimony from individuals, he then begins to dive into his dialogue about what these events mean and how they relate to his overall conclusion ... Read More

6.Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa by: Peter Godwin November 30, 2004
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $4.70
Peter Godwin recounts his early childhood in such personal terms that you will regress along with him. You'll feel the pangs of growing up in a boarding school, of his awakening to his social status and that of the blacks that worked for his family - of the colonized Africans who became Zimbabweans. His transformation into young adult foreign journalist with a Rhodesian's perspective takes you inside the revolution that formed Zimbabwe, and likely you will be left with the need for resolution that still plagues Zimbabwe today. Read this book - you'll enjoy and learn from it.

7.A History of South Africa by: Leonard Thompson September 10, 1990
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $2.25
Before giving my actual review, I want to give you some context from which this review came. I read this book while studying in South Africa and taking South African History. I'm an undergraduate student and I'm not getting a degree in History. I would say I'm what the author would look at as a basic twenty-something reader. With that said, onto my review: This is 3 1/2 stars. The book was overflowing with facts and all the key events that lead up to South Africa as it is today. Spanning from the earliest inhabitants, to the presidential term of Thabo Mbeki. The reason I didn't give this book four stars is not the information per se, but more so the way the information was presented. In short, good content, poor execution. Although the book is set up in a generally chronological order, ... Read More

8.Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm by: Lauren St John July 08, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $6.50
I enjoyed Rainbow's End so much that I bought a second copy as a gift rather than part with my own. It recalled my own memories of Rhodesia at that time; nicely nostalgic. Highly recommended! --Barry--

9.Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa by: Antjie Krog February 22, 1999
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $3.45
Antjie Krog is a South African writer and poet who covered the South African Truth and Reconciliation commission hearings. She wrote this book about the experience, from the particular point of view of a South African of Afrikaner background. I found this book both difficult to read, and difficult to put down. Krog chooses extremely compelling stories to highlight, and the impact is visceral. She asks some very smart and difficult questions about what truth and reconciliation can possibly mean in a country burdened with such a history. The Country of My Skull does an excellent job in providing possible answers to these hard questions, while acknowledging that she may not be the person to either have an opinion or have an answer. She seems to continually ask who are judges and who are victims, given the situation. ... Read More

10.Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier by: Alexandra Fuller April 26, 2005
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.08
I liked this as a follow up to her original! It was very informative of how african soldiers lived etc. I listened to both on audio and was pleasantly surprised at a cold pick I had chosen!

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