Reading Matters (week 13) 24 March 2026

Was your father there for you?  That question lies at the heart of Lessons from my Father by educator Steve Anderson and author-publisher Melinda Ferguson. They obtained answers to it from well-known (and not so well-known) South Africans ranging from Chad le Clos, to Nick Mallet, Tracy Going and Temba Bavuma.

Not all the fathers emerge smelling like roses, but most do. It’s this sense of real fathers, inspiring, heartbreaking, tender or bullish that the authors created the collection for – to break cycles of abandonment, violence, and absence.  Compelling.

Gisele Pelicot’s name has ripped across the world since the trial of her husband, Dominique, and 50 other men, who raped the drugged, unconscious woman for years in her own home. Now in her book, Shame Has to Change Sides – A Hymn to Life (The Bodley Head / Penguin Random House) Pelicot spells out why she chose to open their trial to the public instead of opting for anonymity.

Subsequently President Emanuel Macron awarded her Knight of the Legion of Honour for her courage and Queen Camilla of England organized a personal meeting with her. The message of this avowedly quiet little woman is written frankly but delicately, and Gisele emerges from it with faith that love is not dead, that renewal is possible.  This should be a senior school set work across our globe.

When top spy thriller writer, David McCloskey wrote, The Persian (Swift Press / Jonathan Ball) its content was described as a “shadow war between Iran and Israel”. American McCloskey is a former CIA analyst who worked across the Middle East and the shadows have turned into real time nightmares.

Mick Herron and Simon Sebag Montefiore are amongst many who pay homage to this extraordinary writer who imagines romance and horror in almost the same breath.   Compelling, engrossing.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall