Some fine reads, but don't stop here...

Well, it's about time I got into the swing of things. Now that I'm on holiday, I can afford to make a few updates ;)

There are few things I like better than lists: making them and reading them, and Al-Guardian's frequent "Top 10 books about ..." are always worth a look see. Their latest "Top 10 books that teach us something about southern Africa" by Zimbabwean novelist Ian Holding, is little more than a "Southern African Lit for Dummies" prescription, which is OK I guess - some great authors have emerged from that part of the world, and they deserve a wide audience. The two most famous, the Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and J.M Coetzee have works on the list, with Gordimer's execrable The Conservationist at no. 4 and Coetzee's masterpiece Disgrace topping the lot (and a good thing too). Elsewhere we have Achmat Dangor and Damon Galgut (both shortlisted for the Booker Prize for very good novels about life in post-Apartheid South Africa), Dorris Lessing, Andre Brink and a slew of Zimbabwean writers of whom I have read only one - Tsisti Dangaremba, whose Nervous Conditions is quite good, even if at times it reads like an anti-colonial tract more than a novel. Then again, these books are supposed to "teach", so...

In all, not a bad list for people wanting a taste of literature from southern Africa. You can't go wrong with the South African titles, at least - except perhaps the Gordimer. Just remember that there's more where this came from.