A Ripple Spring 2022 article
Koos Bekker has amassed one of the largest fortunes ever by a South African. Just how did he do it?
Under Koos Bekker, Naspers made several bad investments, a few mediocre ones, a few good ones … and one that shot the lights out. A modest bet on Chinese technology startup Tencent changed Bekker’s destiny. Was this genius, strategy or just plain old good luck?
In Koos Bekker’s Billions, T.J. Strydom delves into Bekker’s life, career and business decisions. He identifies 15 winning strategies, each calculated and effective, that catapulted a Heidelberg boerseun into unfathomable wealth. This is a fascinating look into the life of a very private billionaire.
Strydom is a business author and journalist who has written and reported for Reuters, the Sunday Times, Financial Mail and Beeld. His unauthorised biography of Christo Wiese scaled the bestseller lists in both English and Afrikaans. Koos Bekker’s Billions, his second non-fiction title, is a fascinating look into the life of a very private billionaire.
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
An Amazon Best Book of April 2022: If you’re looking for delicious hilarity, characters filled with competency and quirk, and pure entertainment, then read Bonnie Garmus’ exuberant novel Lessons in Chemistry. Elizabeth Zott is an ambitious and accomplished scientist and is determined to be just that—and only that. But as we all know, life has a way of upending plans, and that’s exactly what happens to the inspiring (and at times, hilariously infuriating) Zott: Cupid’s arrow hits and the next thing you know she’s a mother and a TV cooking star. But in changing the kitchens of 1960’s America, Zott also challenges the status quo and that’s not exactly welcome in some circles. Lessons in Chemistry is a lot of fun to read: giddy laughter will bubble up but so too will your respect and admiration for a fearless and strong-willed woman who dares to be herself, in any circumstance. – Amazon editor
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In her latest book, Brené Brown writes, “If we want to find the way back to ourselves and one another, we need language and the grounded confidence to both tell our stories and be stewards of the stories that we hear. This is the framework for meaningful connection.”
In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.
Over the past two decades, Brown’s extensive research into the experiences that make us who we are has shaped the cultural conversation and helped define what it means to be courageous with our lives. Atlas of the Heart draws on this research, as well as on Brown’s singular skills as a storyteller, to show us how accurately naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power—it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice.
Brown shares, “I want this book to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that, with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves.”