Welcome readers to the year #2023. Time is flying and our high paced lives are returning as we head back to school and work. Start your year with our newest selection of books that just arrived from the UK.

Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight (2022) R900

Rarely seen installation works that exemplify this pioneering artist’s critical focus on Black identity and Black feminism

Showcasing a lesser-known aspect of Saar’s art, Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight provides new insights into her explorations of ritual, spirituality and cosmologies, as well as themes of the African diaspora. Featured here are significant installations created by Saar from 1980 to 1998, including Oasis (1984), a work that will be reconfigured at ICA Miami’s Saar exhibition for the first time in more than 30 years.

The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka (2022) R390

A rich and surprising exploration of the intelligence of bees

Most of us are aware of the hive mind, the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness.

DUNE: The Graphic Novel, Book 2: Muad’Dib (2022) R450

In DUNE: The Graphic Novel, Book 2: Muad’Dib, the second of three volumes adapting Frank Herbert’s Dune, young Paul Atreides and his mother, the lady Jessica, find themselves stranded in the deep desert of Arrakis. Betrayed by one of their own and destroyed by their greatest enemy, Paul and Jessica must find the mysterious Fremen, or perish.

The Mandela Brief: Sydney Kentridge and the trials of apartheid. (2022) R550

Sydney Kentridge carved out a reputation as South Africa’s most prominent anti-apartheid advocate – his story is entwined with the country’s emergence from racial injustice and oppression. He is the only advocate to have acted for three winners of the Nobel Peace Prize – Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Chief Albert Lutuli. Already world-famous for his landmark cases including the Treason Trial of Nelson Mandela and the other leading members of the ANC, the inquiry into the Sharpeville massacre, and the inquest into the death of Steve Biko, he then became England’s premier advocate.

Seeing Serena by Gerald Marzorati (2022) R170

A riveting, revealing portrait of tennis champion and global icon Serena Williams that combines biography, cultural criticism, and sports writing to offer “a deep, satisfying meditation” (The New York Times) on the most consequential athlete of her time.

There has never been an athlete like Serena Williams. She has dominated women’s tennis for two decades, changed the way the game is played, and—by inspiring Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and others—changed, too, the racial makeup of the pro game.