Page 35 - FWG Issue 1 February 2023

Book Reviews

Unstoppable Us –
Volume 1
How Humans Took Over
the World Koos Bekker’s Billions All The Broken Places
YUV AL NO AH HAR ARI B Y T .J. S TRYDOM B Y JOHN BO YNE

From the author of the bestselling With M-Net, Koos Bekker convinced From the author of the globally
Sapiens comes an incredible new story the business world he had the magic bestselling, multi-million-copy classic,
of the human race, for younger readers. touch. But it was only the start of an The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and The
entrepreneurial journey that would Heart’s Invisible Furies.
We humans aren’t strong like lions, we bring him immense wealth. Bekker
don’t swim as well as dolphins, and we swept in at Naspers, transforming Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby
definitely don’t have wings! So how did an Afrikaans printer into a global has lived in the same mansion block
we end up ruling the world? The answer technology giant, earning investors in London for decades. She leads a
to that is one of the strangest tales you’ll trillions and himself a good few billion. comfortable, quiet life, despite her dark
ever hear. And it’s a true story... But how? What were the methods and disturbing past. She doesn’t talk
employed by this boerseun from about her escape from Germany over
Have you ever wondered how we got Heidelberg? 70 years before. She doesn’t talk about
here? From hunting mammoths, to the post-war years in France with her
flying to the moon? Financial journalist TJ Strydom distils it mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk
down to 15 steps, each calculated and about her father, the commandant
It is because we are unstoppable. But effective, sketching out the winning of one of the most notorious Nazi
what made us so? Well, we have the ways of the elusive media mogul. Bekker concentration camps.
most amazing superpower: the ability to often gets the credit for the investment
tell stories. Fairy tales have led us from in China’s Tencent, a single punt that Then, a young family moves into the
imagining ghosts and spirits to being rivals South Africa’s entire mining sector apartment below her. In spite of herself,
able to create money (yes, really!). And in the wealth it created this century. But Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship
this has made us very powerful... but should he be the one lauded for this with the little boy, Henry, though his
very deadly. Nothing stands in our way, achievement? presence brings back memories she
and we always want more. would rather forget. One night, she
Price R280.00 witnesses a violent argument between
So, get ready for the most amazing story Henry’s mother and his domineering
there ever was – the incredible true tale father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-
of the Unstoppables. Find out how fire won, self-contained existence.
shrank our stomachs, how our ancestors
spoke to animals, what football can tell Gretel is faced with a chance to expiate
us about being human, how we used her guilt, grief and remorse and act to
our superpower for good and bad... save a young boy – for the second time
and how YOU have the superpower to in her life. But to do so, she will be forced
change the world. to reveal her true identity to the world.
Will she make a different choice this
With full-colour illustrations showing time, whatever the cost to herself?
the relentless rise and rise of the human
race, this is history like you’ve never Price R330.00
experienced it before.

Price R330.00

Fourways Gardens • 33 • February 2023