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Daily Maverick Best Sellers April 2020

Our list is compiled from print sales data and other sources. It represents the bestselling books in South Africa from the previous three weeks to 28 March 2020*, and combines Fiction and Non-fiction best sellers.

Grown Ups
Months on the list:  1

#1. Grown Ups

by Marian Keyes

Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together.  Under the surface, though, conditions are murky. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much … As everything unravels, each of the adults finds themselves wondering if it’s finally time to grow up.

Months on the list:  12
Previous rank: 3

#2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

#4. Bassie: My Journey of Hope

by Mark Manson

Zen and the art of running out of f*cks to give, on purpose, as quickly as possible. People aren’t just born not giving a f*ck, after all: you’ve got to learn it. Start here

A Daily Maverick best seller for a full twelve months.

Months on the list:  12
Previous rank: 2

#3. The 5am Club

by Robin Sharma

Own your mornings, master your life – Sharma’s book has stayed, like Mark Manson’s Subtle Art, on the best seller list for a full year.

Read all about being an early riser and conquering all challenges in your path

DM The Mirror and the Light
Months on the list: NEW

#4. The Mirror and the Light

by Hilary Mantel

The long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the stunning conclusion to Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision.
DM 20th Victim
Months on the list:  NEW

#5. 20th Victim

by James Patterson with Maxine Paetro

Sergeant Lindsay Boxer tackles an ambitious case that spans San Francisco, L.A., and Chicago in this pulse-pounding tale of murder and manhunts.

Months on the list: NEW

#6. The ANC Spy Bible

by Mo Shaik

In this memoir, Mo Shaik finally tells his side of the story. Describing his relationship with a Special Branch officer (dubbed The Nightingale) turned rogue who provided information to the underground, Shaik takes the reader on a thrilling ride navigating the most turbulent and uncertain parts of South Africa’s late apartheid and transition past.

Months on the list:  NEW

#7. Call of the Raven

by Wilbur Smith with Corban Addison

The son of a wealthy plantation owner and a doting mother, Mungo St John is accustomed to the wealth and luxuries his privilege has afforded him. That is until he returns from university to discover his family ruined, his inheritance stolen and his childhood sweetheart, Camilla, taken by the conniving Chester Marion. 

Months on the list: NEW

#8. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse

by Charlie Macksey

‘Feeling a little blue? Meet the new Winnie the Pooh.’ —The Daily Mail Enter the world of Charlie’s four unlikely friends, discover their story and their most important life lessons. The conversations of the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse have been shared thousands of times online, recreated in school art classes, hung on hospital walls and turned into tattoos.
DM Tattooist of Auschwitz
Months on the list:  NEW 

#9. The Tattooist of Auschwitz

by Heather Morris

First published in January 2018, Morris’ debut novel makes its first appearance on this best seller list. One day in July 1942, Lale, Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.
Months on the list:  NEW

#10. The Long Petal of the Sea

by Isabel Alllende

Victor Dalmau is a young doctor when he is caught up in the Spanish Civil War. Together with his sister-in-law, the pianist Roser, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona and into exile. When opportunity to seek refuge arises, they board a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda to Chile, the promised ‘long petal of sea and wine and snow’. Allende at her most compelling.