Reading Matters (week 051) 16 December 2025

Zapiro, ranked amongst the top 15 cartoonists in the world, is back with his 30th annual collection. What Else Could Go Wrong? (Jacana) is a searing, satirical look at another year of political absurdity, national upheaval and international lunacy captured in brilliant cartoons.

Zapiro, aka Jonathan Shapiro, fortuitously landed on my stoep recently, and a warm, uproariously funny interview followed. He’s the genuine article in every sense and long may he skewer corrupt, hypocritical and dangerous people. A terrific festive present.

Remember William Boyd’s A Good Man in Africa? It helped launch him and now, more than 30 books later, he’s back with the second in his Gabriel Dax, the reluctant spy trilogy, The Predicament (PRH). Dax is sent to Guatemala and ends up in Berlin as John F Kennedy, an assassin’s target, makes his rousing speech at the Berlin Wall. Funny, sexy, scary.

I’ve just discovered Nathan Harris in this his second, exquisite book, Amity (Headline Publishing / Jonathan Ball). Set in the aftermath of the American Civil War, two sibling slaves, in spite of being ‘freemen’ are dragged to Mexico by a brutish former owner.

The prose is poetic, and the title, Amity, meaning friendship, keeps us hoping that the two survive vicious hardships. Can’t wait to read Harris’ The Sweetness of Water.

Francoise Malby-Anthony met elephant whisperer, Lawrence Anthony, in London, and it wasn’t long before he enticed her to wild Africa, to Zululand.  Tragically he died soon afterwards but the Frenchwoman has remained at Thula Thula, carrying on his work with elephants for 27 years.

She’s still doing so and in this glorious Dining with Elephants (Rockhopper Books) she tells magical tales of saving not only elephants but rhinos, cheetahs, bushbabies, anything wild. “I want this cookbook to be entertaining, educational and different”, she writes. She’s succeeded – spectacularly.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall