These are among the respectable haul of books that landed on my desk this month. The first three – Irascible Genius by Kevin van Wyk, Hot Tea and Apricots by Kim Ballantine, and The Tea Merchant by Jackie Phamotse, are among Exclusive Books’s top reads for the month. A fourth novel, A Short Life by Nicky Greenwall, also one of Exclusive’s top reads, will be reviewed on The Books Page on Sunday, September 1. Some of these books will be reviewed in full later. – Vivien Horler

Irascible Genius – A son’s memoir, by Kevin van Wyk (Macmillan)

I remember reading the late lamented Chris van Wyk’s brilliant and best-selling Shirley, Goodness and Mercy, and marvelling. Most other memoir writers describe what happened in their lives, while Van Wyk has you there in the Riverlea yard with him and his friends, playing cricket.

In his memoirs of life in Johannesburg’s Riverlea, Van Wyk comes across as charming and genial, and yet judging from the title of this book by his older son, the writer was certainly clever, but a man who could be distinctly short-tempered.

In a preface, Kevin writes that as his father got older, the family would find his descriptions of what had outraged him funny. He would look at their bemused smiles, and say: “Ag, you know I can be full of shit sometimes.”

Chris van Wyk, who also wrote poetry, children’s books and biographies, died of cancer in 2014. In the months leading to his death Kevin was often the person to drive him to his treatments, and the pair shared many philosophical discussions.

Kevin went to Wits to study law, and has since held various positions as a legal adviser in the banking, hospitality and telecommunications sectors.

The publishers say on the cover: “If storytelling runs in the genes, Kevin may just be proof that his father’s spirit lives on.”

Hot Tea and Apricots – A memoir of loss and hope, by Kim Ballantine (Self-published)

When you think how intricate and complicated the human body is, all the processes and bits that have to work right and in concert so that we can get on with our lives, it’s amazing how little, generally, goes wrong.

Except sometimes of course it does, spectacularly. Kim Ballantine, a Johannesburg-based industrial psychologist who made her living from talking, was taken ill on her 40^th birthday.

It starts with a violent coughing fit, followed by the desperate feeling she cannot breathe. This is because, it turns out, her throat has gone into spasm. A trip to A&E follows and she is eventually diagnosed with chronic spasmodic dysphonia, a condition of severe layrngeal spasms.

The best treatment is to have regular Botox injections into her vocal chords, which relaxes them, but which also means she cannot speak.

However, not only does her job depends on her voice, she is also a wife and mother to three young children. How is it possible she will never speak again?

In the face of this tragedy she turns to sign language – her children learn it with her – as well as writing.

This is a story of family, friendship and faith.

The Tea Merchant – part 1 of a two-book series, by Jackie Phamotse (Penguin Random House)

Luna is a young Khoisan nursing graduate, desperate for job. Waiting for a job interview at a Bellville clinic, she meets Amora, who is Xhosa. After nearly 12 hours, Luna finally goes in and does not like the doctor interviewing her.

Later that evening there is a murder in which both nurses are complicit. But they seem to have got the jobs. Three years later something else happens and they leave town at speed, along with transfer papers, to work in a clinic in Clanwilliam.

There, during a fire on their first night, Luna meets Cameron Coal, who is desperately trying to save his family’s rooibos tea farm. But Cameron’s brother, improbably called Sole Coal, has a secret that could shatter their world.

Jackie Phamotse is a writer, businesswoman, social activist and philanthropist, according to a note about “The Author”. Her debut novel, BARE 1: The Blesser’s Game, was awarded the African Icon Literary Award in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2018. She lives in Sandton.

The note adds that Phamotse’s work “revolves around the narrative of women and children in Africa. Her stories are raw, well-researched and highly thought-provoking”.

I don’t think I’m in the target audience for this novel.

Familiaris, by David Wroblewski (Abacus Books/ Jonathan Ball)

This is a saga set “in the middle of nowhere” in northern Wisconsin in 1919, about a young couple who buy a farm and launch a dog breeding project (domestic dogs’ Latin name is canis familiaris).

I have been reading it on and off for several weeks now, and keep breaking off not because I’m not enjoying it, but because it is very long – nearly 1000 pages – and that’s just too much for me to read in a week. So I keep having to find something shorter to review each Sunday.

The young couple, John and Mary Sawtelle, buy the farm with the somewhat unwilling help of Mary’s stepfather – well she blackailed him, and quite right too.

They go off to the farm with a former ice seller and his enormous horse (he stole the horse when its owners were going to sell it and break up their partnership),  John’s taciturn handyman buddy and a guy John persuaded to enlist in the war, and was grievously wounded. He bears a bitter grudge against John because he was rejected by the army and saw no action.

And then there’s the local shopkeeper whose fey daughter can predict the future, which is not necessarily a blessing.

This is a prequel to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which I’d never heard of, but which was published in 2008, becoming a New York Times bestseller and being selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club. It is reportedly a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and focuses on John and Mary’s grandson.

Life Lessons – How to fail and win, by Alan Knott-Craig (Tafelberg)

This Alan Knott-Craig is the son, not the former CEO of Vodacom. He’s had his ups and downs in business, having founded, funded or run 21 companies including Cellfind, iBurst, Mxit and HeroTel. The blurb on the cover says he shares what he has learnt, “mostly by losing”.

Self-improvement books or books on how to succeed are generally not my thing, but having dipped into this one on behalf of you, dear readers, I am charmed.

His father was a huge force in his life, and he says until the age of 25 he had no freedom of choice. After school Knott-Craig senior told him if he wanted to study, he would pay, otherwise Knott-Craig junior was on his own. If he wanted to go to the University of Port Elizabeth, now Nelson Mandela University, his dad would pay, otherwise not. If he wanted to do accounting, his dad would pay, otherwise not. If he passed, his dad would pay, otherwise not.

So he went to UPE, studied accounting, and achieved 50% (“any grade over 50% is wasted effort”, a sentiment shared by my son when he was doing maths at UCT).

At the end of the book are scores of useful life lessons which mostly make a lot of sense. Make friends with the alpha male; have someone big in your life, preferably someoin with tattoos, who has your back; if you have to eat shit, don’t  nibble; government money is bad for you; excellence trumps loyalty; how do you avoid becoming addicted to a corporate salary?; go in through the front door (“when you find yourself in bed with crooks and politicians, it’s easy to start copying their tactics… don’t give in to their ways. There’s only one honest way to live and do business. Out in the open. Through the front door”.)

Lucas Mangope – A life, by Oupa Segalwe (Tafelberg)

Lucas Mangope, leader of the apartheid homeland of Bophuthatswana, who died in January 2018, was a controversial figure, seen as both a leader of his people and a “tinpot dictator”.

He was both a traditional leader and an elected politician, who despite having attended the same college – St Peter’s Secondary School in Rosettenville, a British missionary school like Lovedale College in Alice (now Dikweni) – along with the likes of Joe Matthews, Andrew Mlangeni, Oliver Tambo and Fikile Bam – chose another path.

He was the eldest of nine children, born to minor royalty in the village of Motswedi in December 1923, the same village in which author Oupa Segalwe grew up.

This biography has attracted media attention, and I heard a radio interview with Segalwe in which he said Mangope was a revered figure – something like Nelson Mandela – in his community.

In a shout on the cover of this biography, Andrew Manson writes: “People either hate him for being a vicious tyrant or venerate him and the good old days of ‘Bop’. Here we have an assessment of Mangope that is well researched, balanced and fair.”

Segalwe spent his early career as a news reporter in community and state media organisations, and this shows in his writing which is crisp, clear and interesting.

The Corporate Revolutionary – Mervyn King’s life in law, business and governance, by David Williams (Tafelberg)

A quick google of Mervyn King’s life is so dizzying that one doesn’t know where to begin. Suffice it to say he is one of SA’s Great and Good, a guru of corporate governance and sustainability, an advocate, a judge, and a businessman who rewrote the way businesses should operate.

He has been chair and director of many organisations including the Kirsh Trading Group, Frame, FNB Merchant Bank, Operation Hunger, SA Chamber of Business, the Automobile Association of SA, the Global Reporting Initiative in Amsterdam, the International Integrated Reporting Council in London and more.

He believes “accountancy can save the planet”, and advocates that companies should report on society and the environment, not just profit.

In 1992 the Institute of Directors in SA asked him to set up a committee to produce a code of governance for directors and managers in the new SA. At first King demurred, feeling he was too busy, but Nelson Mandela worked his charm, and the result was the King Codes of Corporate Governance, which have been updated several times over the past 30 years, “influencing organisations globally”, according to author David Williams in his prologue. King chaired the committee for 27 years.

Williams writes: “The impact of Mervyn King’s governance work was local and then global – changing the way boards think and the way companies operate, establishing the need for engagement with society beyond work and profits, all with the ultimate aim of saving the planet itself.”