Reading Matters (week 011) 11 March 2025

Do you write and, if so, why ? I put that question to author and poet, Mike Nicol, who also runs the International Online Writing course, The Writers’ Masterclass. Fifteen authors have had their books published whilst under Mike’s guidance and he’s had at least 26 of his own books published. He answers the question powerfully.

Prize winning poet and writer, Arja Salafranca, has some intriguing answers to my question.

The best book I’ve seen on indigenous garden plants, weighing in at a hefty three kilograms, is the glossy, hardcover South African Indigenous Garden Plants (Penguin Random House Struik Nature). The contents range from townhouse gardens to arid-area, formal, roof gardens and endless others.

There are succulents, fynbos, cycads, trees and aquatic plants – to mention just a few in this magnificent book, by Elsa Pooley, Geoff Nichols and Andrew Hankey. It’s priced at R850 because it’s been sponsored by so many people.

Inside the Mind of Rose West; Wife, Mother, Monster (Gemini Books/ Jonathan Ball) by Tanya Farber and Jeremy Daniel, is an attempt to understand why such a depraved woman, a serial murderer – she tortured, dismembered and killed even her own family members – carried out such heinous crimes.

She did so with husband Fred West and they buried their young female victims under their house in Gloucester, Britain. It’s praiseworthy that the authors have not provided detailed descriptions of what the victims endured before death.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall