Reading Matters (week 29) July 14 2026

I love author Gus Silber’s writing. His best-selling book, you may recall, is Toyi-Toyi. Now he’s teamed up with author Jonathan Ancer whose 50 Fibs That Made South Africa garnered high praise. So, no wonder The Three Comma Club (Jonathan Ball) about how billionaires think, act and shape our world, is flying off bookshelves.

They tell amusing, sometimes sad, stories about billionaires ranging (obviously) from SA’s homegrown Elon Musk; to a billionaire who spent his life giving away all his money; and how totally self-made billionaires Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey did it. Most billionaires come from wealthy backgrounds but, there are some rags-to-riches stories to gladden our hearts.

Maggie 0’Farrell (think Hamnet) is back with another fascinating book, Land (Tinder Press/Jonathan Ball) in which she takes us into Ireland in 1865 where the Great Hunger, poverty, religion, and particularly anger against the British, stalk the land.

The action opens with a cartographer (mapper) and his son of only 10 years, surveying a bleak peninsula in the bitter, drizzling cold. Interesting that O’Farrell was partially inspired by her great-great-grandfather who worked for the British Ordnance Survey in Ireland. Land is rich with poetic prose.

Money again…but this time it’s personal as well-known author Sylvia Walker in Home Truths about Money (Penguin Random House) tells us how to create and then hold on to personal wealth. She tells lively stories as she does so.

Freida McFadden, author of at least 25 thrillers, tackles one of the most emotive topics there is in The Surrogate Mother (Sourcebooks/ Penguin). McFadden plays with our emotions whilst teasing our brains. Riveting.

Reading Matters with Sue Grant-Marshall