NOV 2019- JHB South

Book club
A trio of terrific reads for November
The long-awaited sequel
to The Handmaid’s Tale
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret
Atwood envisioned a world in which
the US had become Gilead, a totalitarian
world ruled by Commanders
in which women were totally subservient.
Told by one handmaid, Offred,
it describes how women are forbidden
to learn to read or write and are
solely there to serve men in all ways,
including sexually. The sequel, The
Testaments, is set 15 years later and
is told by three women – Aunt Lydia,
a trainer and manager of handmaids,
and two of Offred’s daughters,
Agnes, who became the privileged
child of an elite family, and Nicola,
who was smuggled out to Canada.
Resistance is growing in Gilead and
Lydia is plotting its downfall ... At a
time when women are increasingly
protesting against femicide, rape,
unequal pay and often worse injustices
at the hands of men, this book
hits an extremely sensitive nerve.
Chatto & Windus, R360.
Secrets. Affairs. Revenge.
It’s all going on in the
suburbs ... where everyone
has something to hide
Shari Lapena’s Someone We Know
is set in a small suburb, where
everyone is polite and friendly and
neighbourly. When newcomers arrive
in town – a handsome man and
his extraordinarily attractive wife –
the main conversation appears to be
how much of a flirt she is with the
men in the area. Then she’s found
murdered, and more than one man
is ‘a person of interest’ to the police.
At the same time, a family’s teenage
son has been breaking into some
of the houses ... not to steal, but to
practise his fairly impressive computer
hacking skills. With secrets and
affairs and revenge, Lapena keeps
you guessing until the very end.
Penguin, R290.
Chosen as one of the best
thrillers of summer, this
legal thriller is exceptional
They were a perfectly ordinary family.
Interesting jobs. Yoga, basketball
and trips to the library. Takeout on
Fridays in front of the telly and a
bottle of wine with their friends.
Until the murder. Chosen as one
of the best thrillers of the summer
by the New York Times, A Nearly
Normal Family is M. T. Edvardsson’s
psychological, legal thriller that asks
what would you do if your daughter
was suspected of murder? How far
would you go to protect her? Would
you believe her, or the evidence
against her? The father believes
his daughter has been framed. The
mother believes she’s hiding something.
And the daughter believes
they have no idea what she’s truly
capable of. Could. Not. Put it down!
Brilliant. Macmillan, R299.
6 Get It Joburg South November 2019
GIS1108_006_494113449.indd 6
2019/10/17 02:49:02 PM