Good morning dear friends This is 2024’s final letter. This year’s favourite letters were How To Listen Better, Love &, Stay in Your Comfort Zone and How To Be Effective, Part One and Two. I will return on 19 January.…
Dear Friends First, an announcement. From Thursday, my parents are visiting what is a currently a windy Southern Peninsula (the whales seem to be hiding out or have left) and so I am taking a break from writing to spend time…
Good morning good people I hope you’re well. The last few weeks haven’t had a lot of space for segues into art, wine and food, and today is not that different. I’ll be brief. You may remember a year ago…
Hello friends I am back. I’d paused the letter for two weeks to get on top of all I’d read. Although not as productive as I’d hoped, I was partially successful. My research assistants corralled nine recently read books’ highlights into…
Dear friends During the pandemic, I received an email from one of my favourite independent bookstores, Cape Town’s The Book Lounge, with an unusual proposition – ‘send us an email telling us what books you’ve enjoyed, and we’ll make a…
Dear friends Bibliophiles should diarise 4 August and oenophiles 22 August. I first encountered Anna de Koningh, in Phakamisa Ndzamela’s masterfully researched The Native Merchants, which I wrote about here. She started life enslaved and ended it as one of…
“Don’t underestimate the value of a good deed. It comes back to you in a blessing – not necessarily material, but in ways you can never imagine”Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman Dear Friends A while back, Mr. Siphiwe Mpye, editor of BusinessDay’s…
“If you don’t know who you are, anyone can name you”Michael Meade Dear Friends Last week’s Rugby World Cup win gave South Africa and Africa much joy. Today’s letter includes two more lessons from Rassie Erasmus’s Stories of Life and…
Over the past few weeks, it has felt to me that we could all do with some gentleness, with some love and kindness. When one looks, there is a lot to fall in love with. Of course, Banyana Banyana won…
This week’s letter is one of those that assembled itself over a few months. It’s always fascinating to watch the process unfolding. It doesn’t always seem to involve me. Which is a little weird, but it is what it is.…
Good morning everyone Today’s letter is coming to you from The Beach Hut in Paternoster where we are ending off my birthday week. It was a fun week of celebrations that started with tapas at Pinchos, where we reminisced about Barcelona whilst enjoying…