Daily Maverick Best Sellers September 2023

Our list is compiled from print sales data and other sources. It represents the bestselling books in South Africa from the previous five weeks to 16 September 2023, and combines Fiction and Non-fiction best sellers.

Months on the list: 2
Prevous rank: 1

#1. Rassie: Stories of Life and Rugby

Combines Eng & Afr sales

by Rassie Erasmus with David O’Sullivan

Rassie Erasmus has been called a genius. He’s been called reckless. All his life, he’s done things differently. Now, with his trademark candour, Rassie talks openly about his life of adventure and misadventure both on and off the rugby field – as a Springbok player, a provincial coach, and as the head coach who led the national team to win the 2019 Rugby World Cup, including the lead-up to the RWC 2023.

Months on the list: 20
Previous rank: 3

#2. Atomic Habits

by James Clear

Transform your life with tiny changes in behaviour, starting now.

People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.

He calls them atomic habits.

Months on the list: 4
Previous rank: 2

#3. Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom

by André de Ruyter

De Ruyter takes the reader inside the boardrooms and government meetings where South Africa’s future is shaped, with ministers often pulling in conflicting directions. He explains how renewable energy is the cheapest and quickest solution to our power crisis, in spite of fierce opposition from vested coal interests.

He candidly reflects on his three years at the helm of Eskom, his successes and failures, his reasons for leaving and his hopes for the future.

Months on the list: 3
Previous rank: 4

#4. The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese

A stunning and magisterial new epic of love, faith and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, from the author of Cutting for Stone?.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning – and in Kerala, water is everywhere.

A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself.

Months on the list: 8
Previous rank: 6

#5. The 48 Laws of Power

by Robert Greene

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this book is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.

Three thousand years of the history of power are distilled into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz, and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum.

Months on the list: NEW
Previous no. 7 (May 23)

#6. The Psychology of Money

by Morgan Housel

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.

Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.

Months on the list: 2
Previous Rank: 10

#7. Testament

by Wilbur Smith & Mark Chadbourn

Angie DeSaria has spent years of her life trying to have a child. Adrift and alone, she returns to her childhood home, to help try and rescue the beloved, failing family business.

Lauren Ribido is a senior in high school. She dreams of an Ivy League education and escaping her hometown.

When Angie hires Lauren to work at the restaurant, they form an immediate bond. But nothing could have prepared Angie for the far-reaching repercussions of her act of kindness.

Months on the list: 2
Previous Rank: 10

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

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.

Manson’s book has been a regular on the Daily Maverick Best Sellers list for more than four years.

Months on the list: 20
Previous rank: 8

#9. It Ends With Us

by Colleen Hoover

Sometimes the one who loves you is the one who hurts you the most. Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan – her first love and a link to the past she left behind.

Months on the list: 2
Previous Rank: 5

#10. Fourth Wing

by Rebecca Yarros

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.