What better way to spend a cold and rainy winter's night than curled up with a book. We are women who read and we love women who read, so to celebrate Women's Month we asked Independent Media staffers to share the books that they love and still reach for on those cold winter nights.
1. Endings and Beginnings: A Story of Healing by Redi Tlhabi
Endings and Beginnings details the close friendship Redi formed with a much older neighbourhood gangster when she was a young girl. The book, which captures the crazy reality of life in Soweto in the 1980s, is as compassionate, intelligent and engaging as she is on the radio. It also deals with gender violence, a societal ill our country is still grappling with after all these years. - Riana
2. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
A young Amish girl hides her pregnancy, gives birth in secret, and denies everything when the baby's body is found.
I have read this book three times, and every single time I cried. For the young girl who hid her pregnancy from everyone. The mother who knew but kept silent and then helped deliver the baby. The baby who died from an infection caused by the Amish way of life. And also for the city lawyer who has to decide whether she should turn the young girl's mother in for her role in the baby's birth and subsequent death. - Lou-Anne
3. Redeeming Love By Francine Rivers
I must have read this book about 20 times.
It tells the story of a prostitute who was sold into the trade as a child only to marry a Christian farmer who removed her from the trade. For years she battled with her demons from the past before finding God and learning not only to forgive but to become the woman she was destined to be.
For me it says, you are more than your past. The story is one of transformation.- Tshego
4. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
I believe in the power of stories and this book does a fantastic job of capturing this. The illiterate seamstress from a rural village somewhere on Phoenix Mountain during the Chinese Cultural Revolution gets exposed to the stories of French novelist Balzac and it changes her forever. Some books do this to me too! - Riana
5. The Signature of all Things - Elizabeth Gilbert
Beautifully written, about a strong single-minded young woman. Biggest surprise of a book as Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray and Love - which I did not like as much. - Zenariah
6. Forty rules of love - Elif Shafak
Its about finding love and inspiration in the teachings of Rumi - but also about the personal Journey and transformation of a forty-something unhappily married woman who finds herself somewhere between the mysticism of the 13th century and the 21st century. You have to read it sometime.
I love the poetry and teachings of Rumi and this book appeals to me completely! - Lutfia
7. Undercover Jihadi Bride by Anna Erelle
Although not the happiest of endings, this book based on real life events of a journalist is touching and gripping.
It shows the strength and determination of a young woman and the lengths she went to for her job - her job being the dangerous task of investigating ISIS and its weapons while being under the guise of 'Melodie'. - Yasmine
8. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
I read this 1985 dystopian novel only after watching the critically acclaimed TV series based on the book.
The way women were treated in the portrayed patriarchal social system angered and frustrated me to no end, and sadly made me realise that life imitates art. It's a captivating read with you rooting for the handmaids throughout and leaving the reader wanting more after turning that last page. - Tammi