Committed: A Love Story
R180.00
At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe – a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who’d been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both survivors of difficult divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who – after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing – gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. The result is Committed – a witty and intelligent contemplation of marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests that sometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorous fantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. Gilbert’s memoir – destined to become a cherished handbook for any thinking person hovering on the verge of marriage – is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Related Products
As a teenager, Fred Khumalo greeted his friends with a handshake and the words “touch my blood”. It implied friendship and trust. The saying became his name. More than that, it became the way he viewed the world. Everything touched Fred Khumalo.
As a teenager, Fred Khumalo greeted his friends with a handshake and the words “touch my blood”. It implied friendship and trust. The saying became his name. More than that, it became the way he viewed the world. Everything touched Fred Khumalo. Twice he was bewitched. Twice his father – the “country bumpkin” – took him to inyangas to have the “demons” banished. Twice his mother – the “city girl” – took him to a doctor to have the “fevers” cured. He smoked dagga with conmen and criminals, he pickpocketed “corpses” on the Friday night trains and worked as a gardener in the larney suburbs. He studied journalism and shacked up with whiteys in a commune, for a while the only darkie in a crazy swirl of booze, drugs and sex. And then the bloody fighting that tore apart KwaZulu/Natal in the 1980s touched his life and sucked him into a place of horror and violence that threatened to destroy him. When a friend died in his arms with the worlds “They really got me, Touch my blood. They really got me”, Khumalo realised that if he was to outlive the madness, he had to run. From the journalist and Sunday Times columnist comes a startlingly honest, humorous and poignant autobiography about growing up in a time of laughter and heartache.
uthor(s): Fred Khumalo
2 in stock (can be backordered)
The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is a defining moment in American history. After years of failed policies and failed politics from Washington, this is our chance to reclaim the American dream. Barack Obama has proven to be a new kind of leader–one who can bring people together, be honest about the challenges we face, and move this nation forward. Change We Can Believe In outlines his vision for America.
In these pages you will find bold and specific ideas about how to fix our ailing economy and strengthen the middle class, make health care affordable for all, achieve energy independence, and keep America safe in a dangerous world. Change We Can Believe In asks us not just to believe in Barack Obama’s ability to bring change to Washington, it asks us to believe in our ability to change the world.
Author: Barack Obama
2 in stock
For more than five decades Walter and Albertina Sisulu were at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid. As secretary-general of the ANC, Walter was sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela in 1964 and spent 26 years in prison until his release in 1989. While her husband and his colleagues were in jail, Albertina played a crucial role in keeping the ANC alive underground, and in the 1980s was co-President of the United Democratic Front. Their story has been one of persecution, bitter struggle and painful separation. But it is also one of patience, hope and enduring love.
Author(s): Elinor Sisulu
Growing up as gay in a township, Siya Khumalo was “different”. He begins an exploration of sex, politics and religion & unmasks techniques used by power-brokers of our time, tackles DA vs ANC, and African cultures and communities.
Siya Khumalo grew up in a Durban township where being gay was “different”. Thus begun Siya’s exploration into sex, politics and religion. He unmasks techniques used by the power-brokers of our time, he tackles DA vs ANC, unpacks corrective rape, and African cultures and communities. Splicing in political and religious commentary, he uses his own life experiences to make sense of these topics.
Author: Siya Khumalo
Out of stock
Yusuf Daniels was the proverbial stougat among the children in his family. Growing up on the Cape flats, from Bridgetown to Portland and the occasional holiday in District six with his grandmother, he still loves to reminisce about childhood street games, family camping, beach days and the traditions that are part of his Muslim heritage.
Most coloured people will instantly recognise the memories. For those who were mere spectators at the time because of South Africa’s divisive past. Living coloured provides a front row seat to the coloured experience as seen through Daniel’s eyes and humour.
Author: Yusuf daniels
The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War.
For more than forty years Achebe was silent on those terrible years, until he produced this towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events.
A marriage of history, remembrance, poetry and vivid first-hand observation, There Was A Country is a work of wisdom and compassion from one of the great voices of our age.
Author(s): Chinua Achebe
Maverick. Leadership genius. Self-made millionaire. Dragon. The rock star of public speaking. Vusi Thembekwayo has been called many things.
Join him in his inspiring journey from the township to the top echelons of South African business, to becoming one of the youngest directors of a listed company and CEO of a boutique investment firm. As a Dragons’ Den judge and a sought- after public speaker across the globe, Vusi doesn’t just talk business – he lives it.
Now you can learn the secret of his success and how to shape your own destiny.
Author(s): Vusi Thembekwayo
The Cry of Winnie Mandela transgresses the borders between fact and fiction, fusing aspects of the novel, biography and essay. It is a beautiful book, the writing lucid and quietly passionate, a work of deep intelligence.~ Chris Dunton, Mail & Guardian
The life story of Winnie Mandela remains one of the great dramas of our times, an ongoing tale of triumphs and tragedies that is still unfolding. In The cry of Winnie Mandela, a highly acclaimed novel first released in 2003, Njabulo S Ndebele focuses on four women at a specific period in the history of Southern Africa who have spent time waiting for their men to return. Their ordinary, ‘private’ stories are anchored to the more powerful public stories of Penelope, of Ancient Greek mythology, who waited nineteen years while her husband Odysseus was away, and Winnie Mandela, who waited for twenty seven years. The women question themselves and each about how and why they waited and what this waiting did to them, leading to a series of extraordinary and haunting ‘conversations’ with one another as well as Penelope and Winnie.
Author: Njabulo S Ndebele
It’s 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She’s in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they’re trying for a baby – and she doesn’t want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance. So, she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains twenty-five pounds, an ashram in India, where she finds that enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to scrub the temple floor, and Bali where a toothless medicine man of indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up on her.
Author(s): Elizabeth Gilbert
Down second avenue is Es’kia Mphahlele’s autobiography of his South African childhood and his struggle against discrimination. The memoir tells of Es’kia’s childhood in Maupaneng, a small village outside Pietersburg, and Marabastad, a location in Pretoria. Here he showed academic promise. This resulted in a career as a teacher. After a number of years, though, he was barred from teaching because of his vocal opposition to the segregation and discrimination occurring in schools. Mphahlele then worked for Drum magazine in various capacities. The biography culminates in his exile from South Africa in 1957. Down second avenue is Mphahlele’s personal account of his struggle for identity and dignity in the face of the growing discriminatory policies of the South African government. It is a compelling mix of humour and pathos.
uthor(s): Es’kia Mphahlele
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America – the first African-American to serve in that role – she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her – from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it – in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations – and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Author(s): Michelle Obama
This powerful and widely acclaimed autobiography of Sindiwe Magona’s early years in South Africa, announced the arrival of a major new black writer. Here she gives an account of her eventful first 23 years and tells a candid, unself-pitying story of trium.
Author(s): Sindiwe Magona
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.