Every year around this time, tables covered in black cloth begin appearing in malls in preparation for the Exclusive Books winter sale.
There will be more than 300Â 000 books at this year’s sale — which starts on Thursday — covering everything from sports, those ”how-to” sex manual, novels to non-fiction and recipe books.
Here, the Mail & Guardian offers some advice on just three books at the sale.
MAD’s Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin
Paging through the massive thing — two cloth-bound volumes in a thick cardboard sleeve — I was dismayed to see how exactly how many of his cartoons I’d read, as sure a sign of a misspent youth as any.
It’s interesting to note how his style changed over the years and become simpler, more direct and funnier.
Every single cartoon he ever drew for the magazine is in these volumes, and it’s something that children (though not too young, mind), teenagers and adults will enjoy.
Piri Piri Starfish — Portugal Found, by Tessa Kiros, is part travel diary and part recipe book, while not quite succeeding at either. There are plenty of pictures of the old country, interspersed with diary entries and recipes, as well as an ode to pastéis de nata. There are also a brace of bacalhau recipes and there’s even a startling chorizo cake. It’s also worth a look for the recipe on how to prepare piri-piri oil. Either that or just go to the Troyeville Hotel.
River Cafe Two Easy
This is yet another fantastic collection of easy Italian recipes from Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, owners of the River Café restaurant in London.
While the recipes are pared down to the essentials, they don’t bear much tinkering with. Everything is there for a reason — if they say peel the tomatoes, peel the tomatoes. There are really easy soups (using bouillon cubes), fast pastas and some excellent recipes for roast lamb and grouse, quail and guinea fowl.
