100 books like The Man Who Loved Crocodile Tamers

The word “visceral” comes to mind when I attempt to distill what this book is about. A not-so-fictional auto-biography opens in the slum called Paradise, where Chipo, Bastard, Sbho, Stina, and “I” are headed to the–relatively–more affluent area of Budapest to steal fruit. These dirt-poor kids don’t know it, but they are victims of the far-off, murderous regime of President Robert Mugabe–but that always remains hidden in the background. They are brutalized and never know it or know why.

Courtesy of an invite from an Aunt in the United States, the protagonist eventually escapes Zimbabwe. But once there, while things get materially much better, in reality, it is no less bewildering and bereft of meaning: she and her friends spend their afternoons watching hard-core porn while eating popcorn and discussing inane stuff, like “what the hell are they doing?!” It’s funny in parts, but it also hurts in parts. The… show more.

In truth, I bought this one (yes, I bought all my books in actual paper form) because it won the Booker Prize in 2021. Not all reviews back home in sunny old SA were favorable, but hey, surely it had to have something special. And turns out it does.

Reading it will be a tortured journey for just about any South African: the basic plot, if there is one, is about the promise made by a dying (white) woman to her (black) domestic worker, about the shack in which the latter lives. Of course, the promise is broken again and again. I really liked it, in a really bad-smell-in-the-room kind of way. There’s a problem with being so close to a bad situation, so don’t take it from me–the Booker committee surely can’t be wrong!

I observe that most crime novels, even the best ones, are not literary masterpieces; it’s all about the plot. I found this book remarkable for numerous reasons, but particularly because it is so well written. It’s a murder mystery set in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, on the eve of that country’s first democratic election over the Christmas period in 1980.

The characters are about half black and white, half male, half female, and all extremely well-rounded. That in itself is a remarkable literary feat. It is a murder mystery and deep political intrigue following 25 years of bitter civil war. It’s one of the best crime novels I have read and with an unusually warm woman’s touch. As a matter of interest, the author’s surname, Ndlovu, is also a clan name, meaning elephant. 

I loved this book because, although we have another, more celebrated writer in the genre of magical realism, I think this is better than the other, which garnered that author a Nobel Prize. And by the way, that is “Sir” Anthony Sher to me and you (and with good reason). Cape Town-born Sher–descended from Lithuanian religious refugees in the late C1–gained fame as a lead male actor in the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The book is an allegory of South African race relations, in which a Lithuanian refugee, Smous (Dutch for traveling salesman), is ordained to travel the South African wastelands with a San (Bushman) woman. Neither can speak the other’s language or English, which, of course, sets up any number of hilariously deplorable situations. It is comedy, tragedy, and farce, set in a mythological South African of the past. It is spell-weaving and spell-binding.

Talk of the Town is a collection of short stories. Although the author describes foreigners in South Africa and has a political slant, he is not preachy like many other books on such topics. His style is quite witty, observant, and informative from his point of view. All qualities that I admire in a writer.

Some motorcycle travel books say little about the motorbike itself but I like the nuts and bolts in a story of this genre. This book is very much about the bike. Steve’s Ariel was fifty-five years old and he was sixty-six when he embarked on his trip from Capetown to South Luangwa. I identified with Steve; neither of us had any modern gadgetry nor much in the way of mechanical expertise, therefore we both discovered new levels of patience and were blessed with experiencing people’s generosity in a different culture together with spectacular scenery. Like me, he thought of himself and his motorbike as ‘we’; when you travel solo, it is like a partnership. There’s nothing like travelling with a classic motorcycle as your (sometimes frustrating!) companion. 

When I moved to Botswana, I wanted to learn more about the country, where I should live for more than 2 years. Somebody gave me books by Bessie Head and I learned so much by just reading these books. Maru was not the only book I’d read by Bessie Head, but it was one of the best books on Botswana.

A brand-new gripping, revealing history of German colonialism, focused on the brutal diamond trade in Southwest Africa on the eve of World War I. With pellucid prose, Press tells how the Germans cordoned off a so-called “forbidden zone,” behind which rapacious explorers, colonial authorities, miners, and businessmen carted off these precious, if largely useless rocks, for which there was a huge, artificially created demand, especially in the United States.

I fell in love with Ishi, the ageing bull elephant, who is the narrator of this saga. If ever you doubted that elephants were sentient creatures, this book will change your mind. After fifty years as a captive, shipped overseas, mistreated in a circus, and landing in a zoo, by miraculous serendipity, Ishi finds himself back in Africa, hundreds of miles from the animal sanctuary where he was raised. Making a final desperate journey to reach the human family that rescued him as a baby, when his mother and entire herd were killed by ivory poachers, our hero encounters one peril after another. A highly emotional tale, it speaks of good and evil. Ishi’s story will have you contributing to every campaign to save these noble beasts.

I have included When The Lion Feeds because it is the first “grown up” book that I read as a young person.

It was many years ago, but Wilbur Smith’s novel had a big impact on me with his descriptive writing drawing me into the South African setting. The characters in Smith’s novel make for a strong and powerful narrative, and his imagery is captivating.

In many ways, When The Lions Feed is what could be described as a page-turner. I had mentioned in another review that an indicator of a good story is when the reader feels that they know the character(s), and it is certainly the case with this book.