August Local non-fiction

Adrian Gore is the visionary founder behind the Discovery Group and pioneer of the Vitality model, which revolutionised health insurance by rewarding people for healthy living, transforming an entire industry worldwide. Now, in his groundbreaking book, THE FOUR PRINCIPLES, Gore reveals the extraordinary strategies and business insights that propelled his remarkable success, offering a powerful framework to empower your life and business. This isn't just theory; it's a tried-and-tested playbook to overcome the cognitive trapsholding you back. Discover how to:1. Harness the power of Pareto2. Leverage loss aversion3. Resist the 'negativity bias'4. Act with urgency to overcome profound cognitive errors. Gore's unique application of these principles, proven across a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, offers an unparalleled framework for entrepreneurs, leaders, and anyone ready to seize overlooked opportunities and achieve truly extraordinary outcomes. Your potential is limitless – it's time to unlock it.

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‘Demonstrates how to create enduring value’ – Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock‘For leaders seeking to create outsized impact’ – Ruth Porat, President and CIO of Alphabet and GoogleExpert advice to master your potential, from the founder and CEO of Discovery and Vitality.Adrian Gore built a company from a single, bold idea into a global financial group serving over 40 million customers across more than forty markets. He didn’t just scale a business; he created a whole new shared-value business model, a system so revolutionary it’s taught as a case study at Harvard Business School and has been recognized by Fortune magazine as ‘changing the world’.In The Four Principles, Gore reveals the framework and guiding principles that powered this success for the first time. Moving beyond standard leadership advice, he explores the behavioural science and ‘multiplier effect’ that occur when these four principles intersect:Disciplined OptimismWe have a default tendency to seek out negative signals. Learn why choosing optimism is the most rational path to seizing overlooked opportunities.Focused UrgencyWhy your perceived time to make an impact is shorter than you think. Recognizing this can act as your greatest motivator.Declared GoalsPsychologically, avoiding a loss feels twice as important as achieving a gain. Setting bold goals triggers this force, unlocking radical motivation and decisive action.The ‘Pareto Tail’Building on the other principles, learning to identify and target a few high-power decisions can determine your life’s entire trajectory.Gore argues that our instincts, shaped for a simpler, linear world, often mislead us in today’s complex, networked age. The Four Principles challenges these outdated mental models and shows you how to harness your potential for truly remarkable results – personally and professionally.‘Important reading for those aspiring to leadership or seeking to make an impact on the world’ – Lord William Hague, Chancellor of the University of Oxford‘The Four Principles distils decades of leadership and insight into a practical framework that explains what matters – and why’ – Sir Mark Tucker, Chairman, AIA Group

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Growing up queer, brown and ambitious in a conservative South African Indian household comes with rules, expectations and a lot of things no one is allowed to say out loud. In Qualified Disappointment, comedian and actor Prev Reddy turns that silence into comedy. From choreographing braai dances to surviving family WhatsApp groups, Prev learned early how to perform, deflect and entertain his way through a world obsessed with appearances and the fear of becoming a disappointment. Prev delivers a moving memoir about tradition, taboo and the pressure to live a life that looks respectable from the outside, charting his journey from a glitter-loving child in Durban to an internationally recognised social media star and stage performer. Hovering over it all is his alter-ego, Aunty Shamilla. She is opinionated and watchful – the familiar voice of community judgement, reluctant affection and unsolicited advice. Deeply honest and unapologetically bold, Qualified Disappointment is for anyone who has felt like an outsider in their own home and fought to stay soft, funny and powerful anyway.

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Let’s be honest – no one grows up saying, “One day, I want to be undervalued, underpaid, and overused like a free trial that no one cancels. In Corporate Rebel, Sadika Fakir delivers a fearless, funny, no-BS guide to surviving – and thriving – inside systems that profit from women’s ambition while quietly diminishing it. From unpaid gigs and free consulting to boardrooms, breakdowns, bad bosses and even worse job offers – and finally rising to senior leadership – Sadika tells it like it actually is. She has lived the contradictions of corporate life and is done pretending that hard work alone is enough. No corporate jargon. No girl-boss clichés. Just hard-won lessons, sharp humour and radical honesty about what it really takes to be a woman at work. This isn’t a glossy “lean in” manifesto or a confidence pep talk. It’s real strategy: how power actually works, why ego derails careers, when working for free is a trap, and how to stop playing small without burning everything down. Because sometimes being a corporate rebel means knowing when to break the rules, when to rewrite them, and when to laugh at how ridiculous they were in the first place. Funny, fierce, deeply human and refreshingly unpolished, Corporate Rebel is for every woman who’s ever felt invisible in the room – and decided she wasn’t going to stay that way. This is not a career manual. It’s a rebellion.

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Drift happens. Not because leaders lack intelligence. Not because the strategy was wrong. But because execution decays quietly, predictably, under the weight of competing priorities, unclear ownership, and fragmented attention. Ethiopian Airlines sustained commercial focus through five government transitions to become Africa’s most profitable carrier. Dangote built pan-African cement capacity while competitors collapsed. Rwanda’s tax-to-GDP ratio climbed from 9.5% to 13% of GDP within six years. They didn’t try harder. They designed differently. Focus is a design choice. Most organisations have designed for drift without realising it. FOCUS5™ is a disciplined system built from what actually works – not theory, but documented practice across organisations that couldn’t afford to let strategy fade. Five moves that protect attention instead of fragmenting it: FRAME · OWN · CADENCE · UNBLOCK · SUSTAIN. If you’ve wondered why good strategies stall after strong starts, why teams stay busy but progress slows, why accountability erodes without anyone noticing, or why execution depends on heroic effort that can’t be sustained – this book, Drift Happens, written by Nkululeko Khumalo will show you where the leverage actually sits. Because strategy doesn’t fail all at once. It drifts. And drift is preventable.

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What’s in a name? As birding grows in popularity, more and more people are beginning to appreciate that birds carry not only ecological significance but represent unique stories, embedded in the names they’ve been given. South African Birds by Name provides insight into the origins and meanings of these ‘scientific’ names, mostly rooted in Greek and Latin, helping readers to make sense of the species they are looking at.Eddie Germiquet has paintakingly researched historic explorer accounts, indigenous names, ancient mythologies and early science writings to demystify and simplify the nomenclature. Where a name derives from a physical attribute of the bird, he has drawn a captivating illustration to depict it. Names deriving from explorers, biologists and other historical figures are also explained, uncovering some fascinating histories.Presented in an eye-catching hardcover, this book is not only a companion for ornithologists and birders, but also a delightful source of discovery for new twitchers.

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We live in a world of information overload, and it can be challenging knowing what’s real and what’s not. When it comes to money, social media is littered with 'finfluencers' who present information and share ‘secrets’ to managing and growing money. Some of it is real; a lot of it is fake, and it can be very difficult to know the difference.Home Truths About Money goes back to basics. It strips away the slick social media veneer and addresses the bare-bone facts about money – the home truths that we may not want to face. It covers issues such as: money can make you happy; having lots of money doesn’t make you rich; DIY investing isn’t easy; money can grow on trees if you plant the right seeds; your retirement plan will never be perfect; you won’t get rich putting your money in bank account; and married people end up wealthier in the long run.Having a healthy relationship with money is a crucial life skill. To get there, you must understand how money works and how it intertwines with our lives. Irrespective of your age, income or social standing, you need to invest the time before you start investing your money. These home truths are relatable across the board and create a powerful platform for financial success.

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Most traders spend their lives searching for the perfect strategy. They believe the next indicator, the next system, the next prediction will finally unlock their success.They are wrong.In Jack of All Trades – How to Become the Complete Trader, Dr Robert J van Eyden reveals the truth few are willing to confront: consistent profitability has nothing to do with finding the perfect trade. It has everything to do with becoming the right trader.Drawing on decades of experience as a professional trader, CEO of trading platforms, mentor to hundreds of traders and respected thought leader in retail trading, Van Eyden takes you inside the real battle, the one that takes place not on the charts, but within yourself. You will discover:• Why most traders fail even with good systems;• How to build an edge grounded in probability, not hope;• The psychological discipline that separates professionals from amateurs;• How risk and position sizing quietly determine your destiny; and• How mastering yourself unlocks consistency, confidence and freedom.Guided by the hard-won wisdom of his mentor, Jack Shark, this book is not about trading more. It is about trading complete. Because the ultimate edge was never in the market. It was always in you.

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Lilian Ngoyi was a trailblazing figure in South Africa’s liberation struggle – an electrifying orator, a key architect of the 1956 Women’s March, and the first woman elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee. Yet her life story has never been fully told.In this authoritative and deeply researched biography, Martha Evans brings Ma-Ngoyi vividly to life. Born in a Pretoria location, widowed young and raising her family in poverty, Ngoyi truly represented the people she spoke for and was the most senior ANC woman leader not married to a high-profile man, forging her own path through her political instinct, charisma and formidable courage.From the Garment Workers’ Union to the Federation of South African Women and the ANC Women’s League, she rose to national prominence, travelling abroad as a representative of the liberation movement, standing alongside the giants of her era, and organising one of the largest protest marches South Africa had seen. Then came arrest, the Treason Trial, solitary confinement and years of banning – a deliberate attempt to silence her.Drawing on letters, speeches and rich archival sources, this compelling biography restores Ngoyi to her rightful place in history and reveals the complex, deeply human woman behind the icon.

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Jeri Russell is elbow deep in Thanksgiving dinner preparation when she receives and email that will have a profound effect on her life. Soon after responding to the email, she is in the clouds again, flying toward a tiny town in Botswana, having agreed to volunteer there as a homeopathic clinician, teacher, and mentor. Over the next eleven years, Jeri will return many times to Africa, a land that stole her heart and feeds her soul. She will cherish tiny, meaningful moments in a vast continent, and she will learn from those who have so little but give so much. Set against the backdrop of Botswana, Swaziland (now Eswatini), and Ghana, A Bluebird in a Baobab is a love letter to Africa and its people. Brilliantly penned, this collection of enchanting vignettes, some heartbreaking, others heartwarming, is reminiscent of the fables of old, whispering timeless truths and offering wisdom and hope-a gentle reminder of the power of community spirit and sharing for a happy life."

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