Southern Africa

After decades of war, South Sudan became an independent country in 2011. Though its people face struggles as they build their new nation, they do have reason for national pride. Their country contains Bandingilo National Park, which hosts one of the largest annual animal migrations. This title describes the birth of South Sudan and its efforts to create a national identity.

New York Times best-selling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”. When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre”, a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams.

Soul food originated in the southern region of the United States and is the signature cuisine of African-Americans. Traditional soul food cooking is seen as one of the ways enslaved Africans passed their traditions to their descendants once they were brought to the US, and is a cultural creation stemming from slavery and Native American and European influences. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s, when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. At its core, soul food is down-home cooking that's been passed down through many generations, with its ...

Georgia, 1962. Rose Perkins Bourdon returns home to Parsons, GA, without her husband and pregnant with another man’s baby. After tragedy strikes her husband in the war overseas, a numb Rose is left with pieces of who she used to be and is forced to figure out what she is going to do with the rest of her life. Her sister introduces her to members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—young people are taking risks and fighting battles Rose has only seen on television.

Toni is a high-ranking demon who has the world twirling around her ring finger. She has captured the heart of Lucifer – although she keeps him at arm’s length. She reigns over one of the most notorious clans in Louisville, Kentucky, and has everything a woman could want – respect, power, and loads of money. But what happens when an accidental meeting with an unknown force rearranges her whole life? It makes her want to do right instead of wrong, persuades her heart to beat to a different rhythm, and influences her to sway away from the entity that placed her on the throne she ...

Coming out has led to nothing but problems for Jordin, but it’s nothing she can’t handle… Jordin "Hops" Martinez found a woman who opened her up to her truest self. But when she finds herself kidnapped and stuck between a rock and a hard place, with the woman she thought was all hers pulling the strings, she has to make a decision on which side to choose. Briana Means didn’t intend to betray Hops, but her life was on the line, and it ended up being every woman for herself. She may have chosen the wrong one to cross, however, which she soon sees when Hops lets her savage side free. ...

What if the dark magic that runs in your family's blood awakens... in you? I thought I'd outgrown my fear of Mémé. I was wrong. When the shadows lengthen and the storm howls, will you be ready to face what lurks in the corners of your ancestral home? _Can you resist the siren call of forbidden knowledge passed down through generations?_ Uncover the chilling secrets that bind blood and spirit in this gripping tale of inherited power and unspeakable horror. Will you embrace the darkness... or let it consume you? Whispers Of Abaddon is the haunting blend of Southern Gothic and cosmic horror ...

Bear it or perish yourself. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse that change the trajectory of her life. Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean—the matriarch of the Turner family—makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to her grandchildren and beyond. This family’s “reunion” unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.

It is January of 1879. While three columns of British soldiers and their African allies cross the Uminyathi River to commence the invasion of the Zulu Kingdom, a handful of redcoats from B Company, 2/24th Regiment are left to guard the centre column's supply depot at Rorke's Drift. On the morning of 22 January, the main camp at Isandlwana, just 10 miles to the east, comes under attack from the entire Zulu army and is utterly destroyed.

Bongani is the enchanting story of a young Zulu boy who loses his father in a tribal battle. He is entrusted to deliver a sacred half lion's tooth to a distant relative. The setting is over a 100 years ago during the bitter Anglo-Boer war that raged across the scorched plains of South Africa. On Bongani's journey he meets up with three friends, a Boer, an American and an Irish lass, each with their own agendas. Together, they face the might of the British forces in the Boer/English conflict and share in many incredible adventures. There is also an endearing love triangle, only revealed in ...

Sweet Drop in Africa: Charity shows Emily Hobhouse's determination to ameliorate some of the cruelty the army has perpetrated in South Africa. She uses her writing skills to motivate relatives and friends to support the relief effort for the women and children who experience the horrendous living conditions in the concentration camps. The letters she receives from South Africa show the conditions in the camps are deteriorating faster than Emily had imagined. Emily decides to go to the camps. She travels to Cape Town and finds that getting to the camps is extremely difficult. Emily finally ...

Hodgskiss interviewed several of the most notorious serial killers and his recordings sat gathering dust until recently, when top true-crime podcaster Nicole Engelbrecht found his research online. The two connected and now they bring their love of storytelling to this highly listenable book. In Killer Stories, Hodgskiss combines his interviews with the tenets of narrative psychology to take the listener into the minds of the killers and shares with us the ways in which his own journey as a psychologist and human being contributed to his deeper understanding of them.

In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the “slaughter of the innocents,” but a forerunner of Christ—a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.

Godfrey Mwakikagile looks at the fate of black African immigrants in South Africa and the xenophobic attacks against them which have taken place in many parts of the country through the years since the end of apartheid. The xenophobic violence has been perpetrated by black South Africans, prompting some people to describe this phenomenon as the new apartheid - by blacks against other blacks - after the end of white minority rule. Besides the violence directed against them, black African immigrants also face hostility in general from a significant number of South Africans including educated ...

Back in the days when things were cool... Joseph “Joe Doe” Henry was a young man on the right path with big dreams. He was raised to always get his own, and that hard work always paid off. But when he meets Ramona, a girl that he wants to give the world, he knows that his little side hustle won’t be enough to afford her the life he feels she deserves. With his friends Beast, Ratchet, and Twin sharing his mentality, one fateful night set them up for a successful life. But with success comes envy and drama. Joe Doe soon finds out who really has his back, and who can’t be trusted. ...

Apartheid, a state-sponsored policy of discrimination and segregation, was introduced and brutally enforced in South Africa for more than 40 years. It led to thousands of deaths, mass arrests, torture of prisoners, and to the suspension of the most basic human rights for the majority of Black South Africans. How did this come to be, and how did a modern state come to enact and enforce a series of laws deliberately designed to ensure poverty and lack of opportunity for the majority of its population?

With travel tips and culture in our guidebooks written by a local, it is never too late to visit Cape Town. Greater Than a Tourist - Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, by author Hendrik Human, offers the inside scoop on Cape Town, the Mother City. Most travel books tell you how to travel like a tourist. Although there is nothing wrong with that, as part of the Greater Than a Tourist series, this book will give you candid travel tips from someone who has lived at your next travel destination.

A Legacy Written in Blood and Pearls… Blood for Pearls: 1498 – The First American Genocide is a powerful, emotionally searing historical novel based on real events that forever changed the Americas. Set during the third voyage of Christopher Columbus, this epic tale explores the brutal birth of the pearl trade in the Caribbean and the catastrophic consequences for the Indigenous and African peoples of the New World.In 1498, Columbus arrives on the fabled Pearl Coast—what is now Venezuela—and discovers the tiny island of Cubagua, glistening with untold riches beneath the sea. But ...

What is it like to live in or visit South Africa? What makes South Africa’s culture unique? Explore the geography, traditions, and daily lives of South Africans.

Douglas MacArthur Crank tells his first-hand experiences of being a child of sharecroppers in North Carolina during the 1940s and 1950s. Poverty, racial segregation and a lack of education did not deter him from pursuing his dreams. Instead, he used these experiences as a source of inspiration to discover his passion of gospel music. A natural-born storyteller, Douglas recalls stories of childhood racism in the south, and finally moving to New York City where he struggled to make his gospel dreams a reality as a musician and singer. Douglas lived a remarkable life; his autobiography details...