Reading Matters (week 44) October 27, 2026

Princess Diana, Jane Fonda and Lady Gaga all suffered from Anorexia, an eating disorder. So has SA author Katherine Luden who in, My best friend, ED (Reach Publishers) writes with extraordinary wit, compassion and honesty about the ED, eating disorder, that once threatened her life.

She dedicates her book, inter alia, to her husband Ian, and daughter Holly, “for always loving me, despite me.” I love the way she starts her book, “let’s get one thing straight…I was locked in a toxic, decade-long affair with ED… that’s eating disorder, not some brooding Edward or Edwin from a romantic novel.” This revelatory slim book had me chuckling and almost crying.

Newman’s Birds by Colour (Struik/ Penguin) has been updated by the great Kenneth Newman’s son, Nicholas. The photos and the drawings leap off the highly glossy paper and draw you deeper and deeper into its fascinating interior. Most of us when we see a bird, yell “what’s that red/green/yellow…bird up there?” With these colour coded pages you’ll identify it much faster and more easily.

Holidays are almost here, and many of us will be heading for Kruger National Park. Take Kruger Speaks (Struik/PRH) with you by Helena Kriel and Don Pinnock for this glossy, weighty, coffee table sized book has 88,000 words of information and, even better, maybe, it has stories told to the authors by rangers, scientists, a cleaner, vets, travellers, even two poachers – not to mention the enchanting descriptions of wildlife and the landscape.

Helena is an award-winning screenwriter, memoirist and founder of Baby Rhino Rescue. Don Pinnock is an environmental and investigative journalist as well as a criminologist and historian. No wonder their words glide off the rich glossy paper like colourful silk.

I love the hand drawn maps with exquisite animal sketches; the info about the rest camps; the various rivers… you get the drift. Get the book.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall