The first week of March has been one filled with stories - from the courtroom to the cricket field. Read on for our round-up of this week’s newsmakers.
To stand a chance of winning the books featured in this week’s column, simply email readmore@za.penguingroup.com before midnight on 13 March 2014. Remember to include your name, telephone number and delivery address.
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The big story in South Africa this week, and perhaps one of the biggest stories in the world at the moment, is the Oscar Pistorius murder trial. Acclaimed journalist and author, John Carlin is working on a book on the subject called Chase Your Shadow which will be released later this year.
It is the most remarkable sports story ever told - about a man whose legs were amputated at the age of eleven months and ended up running in the Olympic Games - and it is a story too about crime and punishment, love and death that follows Pistorius' trail from South Africa to London, to the United States, to Iceland, to Italy and has at its heart a richly varied and compelling set of characters, among them the beautiful victim, two brilliant rival lawyers and the fascinatingly complex figure of Oscar Pistorius himself.
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In Johannesburg, the Discovery Leadership Summit kicked off on Wednesday. An open platform that brings together some of the world’s most brilliant minds to share their leadership strategies and insights into global financial, economic and management issues.
Global thought leader and educator, Joseph Stiglitz author of Price of Inequality, Freefall, Globalization & its Discontents, The Roaring Nineties and Making Globalization Work spoke about world economics. Click here to find out what you can learn from Joseph Stiglitz, former economist of the World Bank.
Trevor Manuel who served as South Africa’s Finance Minister for 13 years and is respected globally as one of Africa's most brilliant economic minds also particpated in the summit. For more insight about Trevor Manuel, currently Minister in the Presidency for National Planning, you can read his biography, Choice Not Fate: Trevor Manuel by Pippa Green.
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In sporting news, Graeme Smith announced that he will retire from international cricket this week. Who will the next Captain be? AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis are both in the running. Making Champions by Michael Jenkins includes a chapter on AB de Villiers if you’re interested in finding out a bit more about this stalwart of South African cricket.
The big local derby in Super Rugby this weekend is the Lions vs. the Sharks in Durban. Why not impress your friends around the braai with some quick-fire rugby trivia? The Extraordinary Book of South African Rugby by Wim van der Berg (available in English and Afrikaans) has everything you need from facts to stats to anecdotes, from the comical to the controversial.
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On the literary side of things, we celebrated World Read Aloud Day on Wednesday. Did you get a chance to read a story to some little people? If not, there’s still plenty of time this weekend! From Peter Rabbit to the Magic Faraway Tree to Charlie & Lola and Mr Men and the entire Ladybird Books collection - there’s loads to choose from.
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