Page 26 - IFV Issue 7 July 2024

Book Reviews

Raising Good Humans
BY HUNTER CLARKE-FIELDS

A kinder, more compassionate world starts You’ll also discover strategies for cultivating
with kind and compassionate kids. In Raising respectful communication, effective conflict
Good Humans, you’ll find powerful and resolution, and reflective listening. In the
practical strategies to break free from “reactive process, you’ll learn to examine your own
parenting” habits and raise kind, cooperative, unhelpful patterns and ingrained reactions
and confident kids. that reflect the generational habits shaped by
Whether you’re running late for school, your parents, so you can break the cycle and
trying to get your child to eat their vegetables, respond to your children in more skillful ways.
or dealing with an epic meltdown in the When children experience a parent reacting
checkout line at a grocery store, being a parent with kindness and patience, they learn to
is hard work! And, as parents, many of us react act with kindness as well, thereby altering
in times of stress without thinking and often by generational patterns for a kinder, more
yelling. But what if, instead of always reacting compassionate future. With this essential guide,
on autopilot, you could respond thoughtfully you’ll see how changing your own “autopilot
in those moments, keep your cool, and get reactions” can create a lasting positive impact,
from A to B on time and in one piece? not just for your kids, but for generations to
With this book, you’ll find powerful come.
mindfulness skills for calming your own
stress response when difficult emotions arise. Price: R419.00

Place Mr Einstein’s
BY JUSTIN FOX Secretary
BY MATTHEW REILLY
In this gripping travelogue,
Justin Fox goes on a one-of- A secretary like no other in an
a-kind journey. Marrying his epic spanning forty years. All
love for travel and writing, he Hanna Fischer ever wanted to
sets off to explore the places do was to study physics under
of his favourite books. From the great Albert Einstein.
the mountainous eastern But when, as a teenager in
Karoo of Olive Schreiner to 1919, her life is suddenly
the big-game Lowveld of Sir turned upside down, she is
Percy Fitzpatrick, from Deneys catapulted into a new and
Reitz’s wide-open Cape extraordinary life – as a
interior to the Bushveld of Eugène Marais’s Waterberg, Fox student, a secretary, a sister and a spy.
reveals the majestic power of place. From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City,
Through the savannah of Herman Charles Bosman’s Marico, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler’s inner circle during the Second
the dusty plains of JM Coetzee’s Moordenaars Karoo, the World War, Hanna will encounter some of history’s greatest
forests of Dalene Matthee’s Garden Route, the subtropical minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying
hamlets of Zakes Mda’s Wild Coast, and finally the sandstone to stay alive. She is a most unique secretary, and she will work
crags of Stephen Watson’s Cederberg, he brings to life the for many bosses – from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to
settings we’ve only seen through characters’ eyes. the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein.
Place is a moving love letter to South Africa, merging This is the thrilling tale of a young woman propelled through
literature and landscape, and taking the reader on a breath- history’s most dangerous times. But read it carefully, because
taking journey – into the heart of South Africa’s spectacular all may not be as it seems...
landscape and the inner-worlds of its most celebrated authors.
Price: R465.00
Price: R320.00

24 • Issue 7 2024 • The Villager