Illustrative Image: Photos: Penguin Books / Jacana Media / Little, Brown Book Group, Tafelberg Publishers Ltd) 
Midlife Money Makeover by Kim Potgieter
Unbelievably, January is already upon us, the holidays done and dusted. For many of us this means doing sums on calculators, spreadsheets and serviettes, trying to do some damage control after the holiday feast. With that in mind, I thought I would start my book review year with Kim Potgieter’s Midlife Money Makeover with Journal, a genuinely useful resource not only for those in midlife, but for anyone wanting to think more deliberately about money and the life it is meant to support.
The book is designed to offer both practical financial guidance and generous journalling space, inviting readers to reflect on their relationship with money rather than simply “fix” it. At its core, it is a tool for building a bridge between life goals and the money needed to enable them.
The journal is divided into four parts: a reflective exploration of who you are and what you want from life; an examination of your relationship with money; a deeper look at what needs to change; and, finally, taking action and developing new habits for greater purpose and fulfilment. I particularly enjoyed the sections focused on understanding what I want from life and how money fits into that picture. These exercises helped unearth long-held beliefs about money, offered tools for dreaming, and encouraged clarity about what I want to work towards.
The reflections move beyond personal ambition to consider values, money in relation to others, and one’s place within a broader community. They also prompt a thoughtful stock-take of balance across work, play, giving back, learning, health and wellbeing, and relationships. It felt surprisingly grounding to sit with exercises as simple, and as revealing, as “What does my ideal day look like?”
The section on building a financial plan does not feel like an abstract exercise. Instead, it consistently links financial choices back to who you are and what matters to you. I also loved the layout: the open space to doodle, dream and journal makes the process feel inviting rather than intimidating. There is something reassuring about having your money dreams, plans and reflections gathered in one place, a book you can return to, revise and grow with over time.
Midlife Money Makeover by Kim Potgieter was published in April 2021. Retail price: About R350.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
From money, we move to work, and I hope you will bear with me as we get some of the serious stuff out of the way. Deep Work is a gem for anyone trying to think clearly about how to work well in a distracted world.
Newport uses the term “deep work” to describe professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capacities to their limits. This kind of work creates new value and is hard to replicate. It stands in contrast to shallow work, tasks that are not cognitively demanding, are often performed while distracted, and tend to be easy to reproduce and low in value.
Newport’s central argument is that to produce at a high level, we need the ability to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task. This, he suggests, has become almost as elusive as the end of the rainbow in an age of constant technological interruption. Deep work is increasingly rare, and the trends shaping contemporary working life actively erode our ability to perform it.
The book explores how we might cultivate a deep work ethic in a culture that constantly pulls us towards what Newport memorably describes as “the shiny thrum of tweets, likes, tagged photos, walls, posts, and all the behaviours we are taught are necessary for no other reason than that they exist”. He is particularly sharp on how easily our working days are swallowed by shallow concerns, leaving little time for the sustained depth required to harness the full complexity of the human brain.
Whether you are looking to improve your focus at work, or simply become more aware of the things that plant flags in your mental landscape, Deep Work is a thoughtful and practical resource. It asks a deceptively simple question that feels increasingly urgent: what do we choose to give our attention to, and at what cost?
Deep Work by Cal Newport was published in January 2016. Retail price: About R510.
Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
And finally, we get to the fun landing page. Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister is the book I read in the car for five hours as we drove back from Oudtshoorn to Cape Town. Do not do this. It is, apparently, not good for your eyes. I inhaled it anyway, clinging to the story as the Sunday scaries crept in and the holidays began to draw to a close.
Here’s what happens, without spoilers. Camilla works in publishing, commissioning writers. For bibliophiles, this alone is a small thread of joy running through the book. Camilla is almost always reading something as the plot moves forward, and I had an immediate soft spot for her because of it. She returns to work after maternity leave and, before she can properly settle into the chair at her desk, she learns that a hostage drama is unfolding. Her husband, Luke, is the one holding three people at gunpoint in a warehouse in London.
The opening chapters trace the slow, unbearable unfurling of the hostage situation. Then the book skips forward six years to the aftermath. Camilla has changed her name, kept her head down and tried to build a new life. But there are still no answers about why Luke did what he did, and she is determined to get to the truth. Someone, however, does not want her to know. And the closer Camilla gets, the more unease settles along your spine. Unputdownable.
Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister was published in February 2025. Retail price: About R395.
The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women by Michelle Kekana
The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women follows the lives of three women – Hope, Zethu and Ayanga – tracing the intersections of life, love and mental health. Through their stories, the novel explores depression, suicide, queer identity, postnatal depression and rape. Told in the first person, we are taken directly into their psyches, inhabiting their inner worlds.
The prose is both simple and, at moments, quietly transcendent. We are pulled into the rhythms of their lives, their challenges and their vulnerabilities, and into the unsettling recognition of how easily one can move from coping to not coping and back again, often in a looping, non-linear way.
The book chips away at the deeply entrenched notion that Black women are built to be strong, a belief rooted in cultural and historical associations and echoed in familiar mantras such as “You strike a woman, you strike a rock”. By breaking open this idea, Kekana creates space for Black women to be hurt, to be broken, to be human, without the burden of constant resilience.
This is a debut, and one that made me sit up. Kekana writes with a steadiness and emotional intelligence that feels assured rather than tentative. The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women announces a writer we should be paying attention to. The novel gently but firmly resists the idea that survival must always look like triumph. Sometimes we do conquer. Sometimes we rise. And sometimes we don’t. In allowing for that truth, The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women feels both necessary and quietly radical.
The Fragile Mental Health of Strong Women was published in April 2025. Retail price: About R280. DM
Joy Watson is Daily Maverick’s book editor-at-large.