Latest news with #BookPeople
Daily Maverick
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Maverick
July 2025 round-up of Daily Maverick's #Live Journalism
At Daily Maverick, our live events and webinars bring public interest journalism and audience engagement together. We host webinars to strengthen community connections, unpack pressing topics, and bring stories to life through expert-led conversations. We hosted 6 webinars for July, all of which can be found on our dedicated webinar platform or YouTube channel. Here's a round-up of our latest live journalism webinars, the topics covered and key takeaways, just for you. Marketing Masterclass: Marketer of the Future July kicked off with episode 1 of Season 2 of the Marketing Masterclass series hosted by David Blyth and Khaya Dlanga of eatbigfish, in collaboration with The Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA) and The Association for Communication and Advertising (ACA). Guests Sechaba Motsieloa (Managing Partner and COO, Kansy Group; MASA Board Chair) and Elizabeth Mokwena (Executive Marketing Director, Unilever Home Care Southern Africa) discussed the essential skills marketers need to succeed in a rapidly changing world — leading with purpose, cultural agility, and a 'think-global' approach. It was a thoughtful session, grounded in practical experience and strategic insight. One attendee said the following: In isiZulu we say ' indlela ibuzwa kwabaphambili ', loosely translated to 'the way forward is asked to those who've travelled it'. Thank you for availing yourself as we ask you all. Watch the full recording here. Decrypting Crypto: The Utility Conversation Business Maverick journalist and Crypto Corner editor Lindsey Schutters led an insightful discussion on the real-world uses of cryptocurrency. He was joined by Larry Cooke (Legal Counsel, Binance South Africa) and Hermann Vivier (Bitcoin advocate and founder of Bitcoin Ekasi). Together, they unpacked crypto's everyday applications — from payments and long-term savings to income generation and digital asset ownership — while addressing key risks and the evolving tools shaping its future beyond speculation. Watch the full recording here. Book People: When Book Clubs Go Viral Our third July webinar took a literary turn. Hosted by Sarah Hoek, the session featured bestselling author Paige Nick as they unpacked her novel Book People, which explores the chaos that erupts when a once-quiet Facebook book club spirals into online hate, cancel culture and real-world violence. The conversation examined the fine line between fandom and frenzy, and what the story reveals about toxic digital communities and virality. The audience was captivated by Paige's reflections on the online world and her creative process. Watch the full recording here. Marketing Masterclass: Building a Career in Marketing David Blyth and Khaya Dlanga returned with episode 2 of the Marketing Masterclass series: Building a Career in Marketing. They were joined by Sharon Keith (Non-Executive Director and Chief Coach, Delta Victor Bravo; former Marketing Director at Heineken Beverages SA) and Suhana Gordhan (Founder and Chief Creative Officer, LoveSong). Together, they reflected on career journeys, the role of mentorship, creative confidence and the importance of values-driven leadership in shaping meaningful marketing careers. Watch the full recording here. What does it mean to be South African? In a conversation led by Managing Editor Zukiswa Pikoli, Professors William Gumede (Democracy Works Foundation) and Pierre de Vos (UCT) unpacked the question of South African identity. Rather than offering a single definition, the webinar explored the complexities, contradictions and multiple truths that shape our national sense of self. It was an honest and reflective discussion that embraced nuance over neat conclusions — a reminder that identity is something we continue to negotiate, both individually and collectively. . Marketing Masterclass: Nurturing Creativity David Blyth and Khaya Dlanga were joined by Gillian Rightford (MD of Adtherapy) and Carl Willoughby (Chief Creative Officer at TBWA\Hunt\ Lascaris) for a conversation on nurturing creativity — not just in individuals, but within teams and company culture. Together, they unpacked what it means to create an environment where creativity thrives, and why intentional support, leadership, and curiosity are essential to keeping the creative spark alive. DM
TimesLIVE
06-07-2025
- TimesLIVE
Paige Nick on a killing spree of books
Reams of gore and intrigue in small-town South Africa As I type this, I'm on a serious killing spree across the Western Cape. First, I committed multiple murders in a small village there, possibly Stanford. Then I gouged out someone's eyes before murdering them in Cape Town, and I'm currently murdering someone in Knysna and trying to make that one look like a suicide. OK, no need to make a call to Crimeline to report me yet. I've just finished reading three killer debut South African crime authors that you really need to know about. Making a Killing by Bonnie Espie (Kwela): The moreish, fun cosy one Making a Killing by Espie is the first in what is sure to be a fun, new cosy crime series. I joyfully whipped through this novel with one eye closed at some points because it got deliciously gory. It's set in that small South African village we all recognise. Winifred has escaped the big city to hide from a dodgy past, and she opens a bookshop-slash-restaurant with a strange new accomplice, I mean acquaintance, Sylvie. Soon it appears murder is on the menu. The author lives in a small South African village herself. If I were her neighbours I'd sleep with one eye open; it seems murder comes to her terrifyingly easily. Unsolicited by Andrea Shaw (Jacana Media): The interesting, brilliant one set in publishing More murder on the menu here, but this one entirely deeper and darker. In Unsolicited a reader is found dead, eyes melted out! Detective Fatima Matthews is on the case, but she's on something else too: menopause. If her hot flushes would just ease up for half a second, maybe she could concentrate on the crime at hand. And speaking of crimes, her son is visiting with his wife, baby, and family too, so things are about to escalate. This murder is set in the publishing industry and Fatima is going to have to delve into the publishing house's slush pile to find more clues. But first, she's got to deal with her in-laws. If the Dead Could Talk by Juliette Mnqeta (Kwela): The gripping one that digs up the past The cop in question in this new series is detective Florian Welter, and he doesn't just have what looks like a high-profile politician's questionable suicide to solve, he also has to deal with his dyslexia and the covah, or rather havoc, it caused in his last job, which was what got him relegated to Knysna in the first place. This well-written, moreish police procedural crime thriller also tracks the story of the victim's daughter seeking closure. It's full of entertaining twists and conspiracy theories that go all the way back to the nineties. All three of these are clever, well-written novels. If you're a crime fan, and even if you're not, all are very much worth the read. So cosy up, and get ready to start guessing whodunnit. * Paige Nick is the author of the smash hit new novel Book People and several other acclaimed novels. She runs The Good Book Appreciation Society, a book club on Facebook with over 23k members, and hosts Book Choice on Fine Music Radio every second Tuesday at 12pm. She spends far too much time reading and writing, and hates plastic forks.
IOL News
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Exploring the literary world with Paige Nick: author and book club leader
Author Paige Nick with her latest offering, Book People. Image: Supplied If you're crazy about books, fascinated by authors, or interested in absolutely anything literary, then Paige Nick is a person you really ought to know. Not only does she single-handedly run the 23 000-member strong book club, the Good Book Appreciation Society (GBAS), on Facebook, but she also hosts a radioshow, Book Choice, on Fine Music Radio in which she and her team of fellow booklovers discuss the latest fiction and non-fiction. She's also a newspaper columnist. Most importantly, this born-and-bred Capetonian is an author herself. She's written seven books and is a co-author of a series called A Girl Walks into a Bar. Now, her latest offering, Book People, is being met with delight and excellent reviews. Book People is a rollicking novel, inspired by Nick's experiences at the helm of the online book club. The blurb describes the book as 'a satire about online media and cancel culture, for everyone who thinks books are harmless'. Books are mostly harmless, Nick was quick to point out when we met at a coffeeshop in Cape Town to discuss Book People. Book People is inspired by the author's own experience as the organiser of a book club Image: Supplied Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading 'Most of our discussions on the GBAS are about whether we like the new Rachel Joyce or the most recent Elif not that much to argue about. Members mostly give their opinion on whethert hey're loving or hating what they're reading. But a small percent are contentious things that end up with people feeling there's been an attack on their belief system,and it ends in hate speech. 'In person, Nick is utterly irreverent and choke-on-your-coffee funny. (Remember her columns in the Sunday Times.) She wrote Book People because the subject of online media was close to her heart. 'For me writing a book is figuring out how I fee labout something. I knew what I wanted to think about. As the only admin of the GoodBook Appreciation Society, I've had a lot of challenges and a few bad fallouts with people, where they've come at me very hard. In writing the book, I wanted to know how I felt about cancel culture and online bullying and the ugly side of the internet when things go bad on a person. I wasn'tsure how I felt about it, because on the one hand, woke culture is important to keep people a little bit in line. On the other hand, it goes too far, and then people get cancelled who maybe shouldn't. I wanted to have a very long thought about it and out of that, came the book.' Nick confided that when she started the book club, she was 'ill-prepared'. She set upthe GBAS in 2012 with a few colleagues at the advertising agency where she was working at the time. It started with seven members. "I had no idea we'd end up facing some very serious subjects.' When I met Nick, she was still buzzing after the recent Franschhoek Literary Festival where she spent the weekend in the Green Room with fellow authors Kate Mossse, Niq Mhlongo and John Boyne. She was part of a panel about the 'cut-throat world of publishing' and took part in podcasts and interviews. 'I loved every minute of it. It was busier than I ever remember,' she said. 'There was a great deal of excitement at the festival about the overseas authors, but also about the new South African voices coming up. I always leave the festival desperate to write. It's so inspiring to hear about everyone else's writing because writing is so solitary.' A highlight of the festival, Nick said was that she met a number of members of the Good Book Appreciation Society. 'I mentioned that I'd be there and asked them tocome and say hi if they saw me, and they did. It was so great to put faces to names. A lot of them have read my new book.' The back cover of Book People gives us a taste of the theme: 'Norma Jacobs is your average accountant, running a book club on Facebook and living quietly with her gamer boyfriend in London. Except for the part where she's being threatened by a deranged author and questioned by the police about attempted murder. All just as she's started a new job as the only forty-two-year-old intern in the history of publishing. Harry Shields is a crime writer desperate to hit the big time when a negative review of his latest book on Norma's page, results in him having a spectacular public meltdown. He gets cancelled, his events get cancelled, and before you can say 'author behaving badly', he's plotting revenge and stalking his nemesis. By the time Harry's gone viral, and Norma's given up trying to stop him, the online book club has over a hundred thousand rowdy members and the comments section is a (literal) riot. Entertaining until one member ends up in a coma. 'As the main character in the book, Norma, plods along with her rather dull life in the accounting firm, it's clear she'd rather be doing book stuff. She's self-effacing, but has, in fact, just completed her own novel, and she runs the online book club, but this sometimes comes with challenges and Shields takes this to a new level when he decides to take revenge on a fellow member of the Good Book Appreciation Society. There are the other characters such as Harry's long-suffering agent, Myra Berelowitz who will go to any lengths just to avoid the author's calls, and Harry's wife, Victoria, frustrated to distraction at his obsession with making it in the book world; and there's Harry's friend Phyllis, a conspiracy Norma's best friend, Marina, who, despite doing life the unconventional way, is Norma's biggest cheerleader. Steve, the appalling boyfriend, should clearly have been dumped long ago. Norma is clearly the sanest of the whole bunch and, endearingly, has a propensity,when feeling stressed, to hum songs under her breath, which are appropriate to the situation: 'Under Pressure' by Queen, 'Life is Life' by Opus; and 'Jesus Christ Superstar', with the emphasis on the first two words, when things get totally out of hand. The interactions between the members of the Facebook book club - mostly civil but sometimes tinged with micro aggressions and sometimes outright offensiveness - area treat and there are some laugh-out-loud moments in the book. The idiosyncrasies of the book club members will, undoubtedly, resonate: there's the slightly sleazy Chris Colt, always ready with a lewd comment; sweet Linda who is always trying to defuse book conflicts with comments like 'peace and light'; then there are the pious members who feel compelled to correct the grammar or the facts of a post; and the holier-than-thou ones always quick to point out a moral issue. There's Freda Kruger who is constantly reporting comments: 'Freda Kruger has reported this comment.' There's a hilarious culmination of events, and the book, which provides excellent social commentary, is, largely very funny. However, it's not without its seriousmoments. It takes a good look at cancel culture, and at the social media which, as one character notes towards the end, 'has changed the way we interact with each other … and is becoming more toxic and narcissistic, with long-ranging social consequences'.There's one part where Norma is scrolling through a new post on the online book club which is about the Bible. 'She stopped short and sucked in a breath as she as she read the reams of comments ranging from outrageous to just plain outraged …what was wrong with the world. Was this how things were always going to be from now on? Ugly and combative? Since we were at war in the world, we also had to beat war online …art following life? This lovely group that had once been her hobby and her happy place had started to feel ugly and tedious. She was having to be more vigilant and was spending way more time on the page than she ever had before.' Sipping a mug of tea, Nick confides that she does not enjoy dealing with political outrage and propaganda as admin of the club. 'I spend a lot of time wondering whether I'm doing it right.' Even though discussions on the group are about books, at any given time, a small five percent will be perpetually outraged, she said. 'And this has been heightened by the events of the last few years.' If she sees the names Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or Jordan Petersen on a post, she knows she's in trouble, she said. 'It's the same with Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine. A post will go up in the evening, and, I will know that, by the time I wake up in the morning, it will have blown up.' Paige Nick has loved books since she can remember. The youngest of six children, her parents would load up the kids every Saturday morning and take them all to the library in two cars. 'We didn't all fit into one car, so half of us would go with my mom to the library and the other half would go with my dad to Tiffy's, a little café in Camps Bay for a we'd swap. 'We'd take books out and then take them back the next weekend and get I'd ask everyone to read to me until I was able to read by myself.' Nick is clearly immersed in the world of books. When I ask her if books are her life,she said yes, but is quick to point out that she has to also work for a living. 'I'm also an advertising copywriter, so my life is divided between advertising, books and exercise.' She's 'one hundred percent dedicated' to her exercise – swimming running and yoga. It's very good for plotting and thinking and being away from tech, and it just enables me to have a few long thoughts. I do most of my plotting when I'm running or swimming.' She spoke about some of the book trends she's excited about: 'Book Tok is huge and bringing in a whole new market. Audio books are also trending. Then there's the Silent Book Club, started by a man called Sean Buck. It's been going for less than a year and he's already got 30 000 followers. The demographic that goes for that – the younger readers – are all looking for experiences they can photograph, and for communities to belong to. Historical fiction is huge right now, and, if you want local, there's Penny Haw. She's amazing.'In terms of authors who are 'new local kids on the block', she's very excited about KZN-based accountant Sven Axelrood (author of God's Pocket, Buried Treasure,and most recently The Nicotene Gospel); Juliet Mnqeta, author of debut novel, If the Dead Could Talk, and Bonnie Espie, author of crime novel, Making a Killing. And Angela Shaw, author of Unsolicited, also crime. There's a nice new batch of crime authors who are great.' Asked which of her favourite authors she'd most like to invite to dinner, her first response is. 'Can my partner do the cooking? He's Italian and an amazing have mussels and a puttanesca. 'And it's important that the authors all get on with each other. Can I pick all my author friends? I'd have Gail Schimmel, Ted Botha, Sarah Lotz, Helen Moffett …' Turning to her long-term goals for the GBAS, Nick said: 'I'd like it to continue to be a vibrant space and to grow. I'd love to introduce an online shop where you can click to buy books - get discounts for members. "I've just started a newsletter and I'll continueto try new things and see what sticks. One thing I'd love to do is to have a real-life GBAS book club meet up. We'll do it on a Saturday morning with prizes and goodybags and have a fun book club. I think it will be really fun. That will be my next 'maket he circle bigger' moment. I'm thinking of Exclusive Books, Cavendish. You heard it here first!' *Book People, by Paige Nick, is published by Pan Macmillan South Africa.
Eyewitness News
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Eyewitness News
REVIEW: `Book People' by Paige Nick gets thumbs up from Mandy Wiener
Everyone is talking about `Book People', says Wiener. It was recently released at book festivals at Franschhoek in the Western Cape and Kingsmead in Gauteng. Nick runs the Facebook group, 'The Good Book Appreciation Society', where people go to review books and share recommendations. Wiener says the book is based on the drama of that group. Although she says it must be fictionalised because the group is quite well-behaved. Paige says Wiener may have missed about 5% of posts. She says things can get heated and out of control on the page when there are topics like Trump and Musk or Israel and Palestine.
