Reading Matters (week 11) 10 March 2026

There was standing room only at Love Books in Melville, Joburg, when Peter Godwin, renowned for Mukiwa and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun launched his new book, Exit Wounds (Pan Macmillan) last week. Shop owner, Kate Rogan confided, “Sue, I’m nervous” as more and more people pushed into the normally comfortable space.

Peter soon had the place rocking with laughter as he described the  Rhodesian/Zimbabwean childhood he still misses, his time as a journalist on the frontlines of combat around the world, and life in New York with his English wife and children. The book is set around his mother’s dying months in England and is one of the most hilarious and touching memoirs I’ve read.

You and Me (Penguin Random House) by bestselling writing couple Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees, takes a happily married couple back decades when they stumble across a pile of old mixtapes they made for each other when they were young and falling in love.

The couple play the tapes, revisit pivotal moments in their pasts and ponder if this is the key to getting the sparkle back into their relationship. But, in so doing they could lose each other forever. Witty, nostalgic.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall