“Kathryn Stockett’s ‘The Help’ has significant resonance for those brought up in SA, often spending a great deal of time being brought up by black ‘nannies’ or ‘help’. The complex and complicated relationships between these women, their employers and their charges are skilfully drawn and the many issues that emerge are dealt with courageously” - Fiona Ramsay

 

“Many uncomfortable echoes for white South African readers and presumably many black domestics also. My only criticism of the book is, would the first domestic – her name has gone right out of my head and I don’t have the book with me at the moment – have actually cooperated? I thought she probably wouldn’t have. Or maybe just I wouldn’t have. But a great book, probably going to be my number one: unputdownable. Great characters.” – Vivien Horler, Cape Argus

 

“It’s a love-it-or-hate-it novel, isn’t it? I think I’d have loved it if I were a woman… but I’m not, so I didn’t. Not entirely. It’s a brave novel, make no mistake. But if you’re going to set yourself up before a critical firing squad (which Stockett has done here) then you need to wear a bulletproof vest. It’s the sort of book that invites – no, demands – a critical read. By not being entirely flawless, I fear it will be remembered as being a touch too flawed. That’s a shame.”.- Mark van Dijk, Men’s Health

 

“The Help features a moving examination of themes most South Africans are only too familiar with.” - Bruce Dennill, The Citizen

 

“Such a well written book, the Help touched me deeply with its universal themes and brilliant characterization.” – Melinda Ferguson, True Love

 

“Number one in my recommendations to academic friends.” – Mary Jordan, Business Day

 

“This was extremely well-written: restrained and well-crafted, and I found the characters were well-developed and credible. It was risky for the author to write in the voice of black women, but judging by other books which have been written by black women, I think she did it very well. I thought the story unfolded slowly and believably, as did the characters. A really excellent book.” -Suzy Brokensha, Fairlady

“In a country like South Africa where there are domestic workers in most (white) homes, The Help is a must-read to help us women realise ‘we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.’” – Adele Dempers, Volksblad

 

“The book ranges between the funny and the horrific, and the fact that Skeeter is the heroine and obviously the one least at risk because she can get away if she has to, is partly compensated for by the ironic tone Stockett uses. It is a very accomplished first novel, and in an afterword, Stockett admits that as a white woman, writing in a black voice is a risky thing to do, something that had nagged at me as I was reading. Although dealing in a field that is rife with stereotyping, by and large Stockett succeeds: maybe my niggling doubts come from living in a country where the same wounds are more raw than in America. Read it yourself and decide.” - Margaret von Klemperer, The Witness

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Penguin Books is proud
to announce that The Help

 

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

About the author:

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EAN: 9781846271830
Format: Trade Paperback
Release Date: 1 March 2009

Recommended Retail Price: R200

It’s dangerous …and that’s the truth about love …A young man shields his terrible wounds from his mother; a husband believes he can love his grief-stricken wife back to life; a young girl puts her own life on hold until her family can find their way back from blinding pain; a man surrenders to the helplessness of obsessive love. Set in Ireland, this brilliant, intense story is about a family named O’Hara who chose to remain in the place of their loss, and the stranger from Germany who has run from his. It’s about love ? for another, for a country, for family ? and survival, and it’s remarkable.

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EAN: 9781846271830
Format: Trade Paperback
Release Date: 1 March 2009

Recommended Retail Price: R210

My memories of Grace never added up to how she really was. She was always impossible to pin down, dancing just out of my reach, exactly as she did when she was alive. Nora was a girl of twelve when the war broke out and she was forced to join the train-loads of evacuees leaving London’s East End for rural Kent. Her surrogate family, the Rivers family, are unlike anyone she has met before and she soon comes to love her new life with them, and in particular with twelve-year old Grace. Over the next few years, as the dog-fights rage ever more fiercely over head and it becomes clear that the Rivers marriage contains deep and irreparable cracks, Nora and Grace grow as close as sisters – though, to Nora’s confusion, even this is not quite as close as she would like – What happened next is a secret that will gnaw away at Nora for the rest of her life – a secret that she can only begin to tell when she is certain that she is approaching the end.

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EAN: 9781847441690
Format: Trade Paperback
Release Date: 1 August 2008

Recommended Retail Price: R180

Davinsky Labour Camp,1933: Sofia Marozova knows she has to escape. Only two things have sustained har through the bitter cold, aching hunger and hard labour: the prospect of one day walking free,and the stories told by her friend Anna, beguiling tales of a charmed upbringing in Petrograd – and of Anna’s fervent love for a passionate revolutionary, Vasily. So when Anna falls gravely ill, Sofia makes a promise to escape the camp and find Vasily: to chase the memory that has for so long spun hope in both their hearts.ut Sofia knows that times have changed. Russia , gripped by iron fist of Communism,is no longer of her friend’s childhood. Her perilous search takes her from industrial factories to remote villages, where she discovers a web of secrecy and lies, but also bonds of courage and loyalty – and an overwhelming love that threatens her promise to Anna.

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