New Book Releases for May 2017 by Penguin Random House

Penguin Random House is set to release these exciting fiction and non-fiction books in May 2017:

International Fiction:

The Black Book by James Patterson

How can you prove your innocence when you can’t remember the crime?

Being a cop runs in Billy Harney’s family. The son of Chicago’s Chief of Detectives whose twin sister, Patty, also followed in their father’s footsteps, there’s nothing Billy won’t give up for the job, including his life.

Left for dead alongside his tempestuous former partner and a hard–charging assistant district attorney out for blood, Billy miraculously survives. But he remembers nothing about the events leading up to the shootout.

Charged with double murder and desperate to clear his name, Billy retraces his steps to get to the bottom of what happened. When he discovers the existence of a little black book that everyone who’s anyone in Chicago will stop at nothing to get their hands on, Billy suspects it contains the truth that will either set him free… or confirm his worst fears.

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

The addictive new psychological thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train, the runaway Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller and global phenomenon.

In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn’t pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help.

Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind.

But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped. And most of all she’s afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool…

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, satisfying read that hinges on the stories we tell about our pasts and their power to destroy the lives we live now.

Two From the Heart by James Patterson

From the bestselling author of Sundays at Tiffany’s, two heart-warming tales about the power of a good story to open our eyes to life’s possibilities.

Anne McWilliams has lost everything. After her marriage falls apart and a hurricane destroys her home she realizes that her life has fallen out of focus. So she takes to the road to ask long lost friends and strangers a simple question: ‘What’s your best story?’ Can the funny, tragic, inspirational tales she hears on her journey help Anne see what she’s been missing?

Tyler Bron seemingly has it all – a successful company and more money than he knows how to spend. But he has no life. So he hires a struggling novelist to write one for him. There are no limits to the fictional world that Bron’s money can transform into a reality, and he soon becomes the protagonist of a love story beyond his wildest imagination. But will Tyler Bron be able to write the happy ending himself?

South African Fiction:

The Third Reel by SJ Naudé

This novel will be published in English and Afrikaans!

The year is 1986. Etienne, a young South African who fled conscription, finds himself in London, studying film. It’s the time of Thatcher, of anti–apartheid campaigns and of post-punk, but also of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and Aids. Etienne falls in love with a German artist while he drifts about in a city that seems far removed from Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. The London Etienne gets to know is a city cast in shadow, its inhabitants living in derelict communes, artists producing the ‘happenings’ of the era.

When Etienne finds the first of three reels of a film made by a Jewish production house in 1930s Germany, he goes in search of the two missing reels. His search takes him to Berlin, at that stage still divided by the Berlin Wall, where the story of a small group of Jewish filmmakers in Nazi Germany begins to unfurl.

Etienne is pulled back to the present and to South Africa when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, but his search for the third reel continues.

Ambitious and cosmopolitan, SJ Naudé’s The Third Reel is an exquisitely wrought, deeply mesmerizing novel.

The Inside-Out Man by Fred Strydom

Brilliant jazz pianist Bent lives from gig to gig in a city of dead ends. He is plagued by fragmented visions of the past, and has resigned himself to a life of quiet desolation. That is, until the night he meets wealthy and eccentric jazz fan, Leonard Fry.

In the days that follow, Leonard makes Bent a devilish deal, proposing a bizarre experiment in which Bent will play a vital part.

The deal provides an opportunity for Bent to start afresh, to question everything he knows, and for the two men to move beyond the one terrifying frontier from which neither of them can be sure they’ll ever return: the borders of their own sanity.

Fred Strydom’s novel The Inside-Out Man is a jazzy and surreal mind–bender of a book.

International Non-Fiction:

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown

Growth is now the first thing that investors, shareholders and market analysts look for in assessing and valuing companies.

Hacking Growth is a highly accessible, practical, method for growth that involves cross-functional teams and continuous testing and iteration. Hacking Growth does for market share growth what The Lean Startup does for product development and Business Model Generation does for strategy. Hacking Growth focuses on customers – how to attain them, retain them, engage them, and monetize them – rather than product.

Written by the method’s pioneers, this book is a comprehensive toolkit or “bible” that any company in any industry can use to implement their own growth hacking strategy, from how to set up and run growth teams, to how to identify and test growth levels, and how to evaluate and act on the results. It is designed for any company or leader looking to break out of the ruts of traditional marketing and become more collaborative, less wasteful, and achieve more consistent, replicable, and data-driven results.

How Not To Hate Your Husband After Kids Jancee Dunn

How did I become the ‘expert’ at changing a nappy? Jancee Dunn wondered.

This, combined with a lack of sleep, a suddenly unfair division of household chores and her husband’s new found passion for very long bike rides, meant that Jancee found it hard to look at her well-meaning, clever, funny husband playing with his i-phone without feeling a white-hot rage.

Like many expectant parents, they’d spent weeks researching the safest car seat but little time thinking about the titanic impact the baby would have on their marriage — and the way their marriage would affect their child.

Tired of having the same fights over and over, Dunn consults the latest relationship research, solicits the counsel of the renowned sex and couples’ therapists, canvasses friends and parents, and even consults an FBI hostage negotiator on how to effectively contain an ‘explosive situation’.

No one said it would be easy, but it turns out that the man who got you into this position in the first place is the ally you didn’t know you had.

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

From Facebook’s COO and Wharton’s top-rated professor, the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Lean In and Originals: a powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life’s inevitable setbacks.

After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.

Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart — and her journal — to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere… and to rediscover joy.

Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B.

We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.

South African Non-Fiction:

A Man of Africa: The Political Thought of Harry Oppenheimer by Kalim Rajab

The head of a business empire, Harry Oppenheimer played an influential role in twentieth century South Africa, a role that is celebrated by some and condemned by others. This book investigates Oppenheimer’s political thinking, drawing from his speeches over the years. It looks at his views on liberalism, apartheid, socialism, sanctions, trade unions, education, geopolitics, the press and the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes. Each topic is explored via extracts from Oppenheimer’s speeches and is followed by an assessment by prominent South Africans such as Clem Sunter, Kgalema Motlanthe, Albie Sachs, Denis Beckett, Bobby Godsell, Jonathan Jansen and Xolela Mangcu.

The Republic of Gupta by Pieter-Louis Myburgh

• What was Ajay Gupta doing on Thabo Mbeki’s ‘secret’ advisory council?
• Did the Guptas play a role in Jacob Zuma’s rise to power?
• How did the Guptas capture South African cricket?
• What is their interest in the controversial nuclear procurement deal?
• What influence have they had in the hiring and firing of cabinet ministers?

The Guptas rose to national infamy when a commercial airliner packed with guests for a family wedding was allowed to land at Air Force Base Waterkloof in 2013, sparking an onslaught of public outrage. Since then, they have become embroiled in allegations of state capture, of dishing out cabinet posts to officials who would do their bidding, and of benefiting from lucrative state contracts and dubious loans.

The Republic of Gupta investigates what the Gupta brothers were up to during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency and how they got into the inner circle of President Jacob Zuma. It shines new light on their controversial ventures in computers, cricket, newspapers and TV news, and coal and uranium mining. And it explores their exposure by public protector Thuli Madonsela, their conflict with finance minister Pravin Gordhan, and the real reasons behind the cabinet reshuffle of March 2017.

Pieter-Louis Myburgh delves deeper than ever before into the Guptas’ business dealings and their links to prominent South African politicians and explains how one family managed to transform an entire country into the Republic of Gupta.

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I’m definitely excited to read Paula Hawkins latest novel Into The Water and the new international non-fiction Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant! I finished a local fictional novel earlier this month so I thought it’ll be fun to try some international fiction in May! Which of these books would you like to read? Leave a comment below 🙂