Leave The Cape Town Book on your coffee table long enough and it’s bound to become a dog-eared, well-read favourite.
Out in time for some insightful festive holiday reading, Nechama Brodie’s new book, The Cape Town Book is a page-turner that you won’t be able to put down.
The book digs deeply into Cape Town’s hidden past and brings together stories of Cape Town’s origin and expansion, geology, beaches, forced removals, hip-hop culture and other unknown stories to paint a complete picture of the city.
Cape Town is more than just a mountain. The softcover book’s 14 chapters offer a balanced perspective on the city, exploring well-known attractions as well as lesser-known communities.
The book features many never before published images, which come from museum archives, universities and public institutions. The beautifully-illustrated book could be described as a full-colour autobiography of Cape Town.
Nechama Brodie started researching the book by walking around places and spaces to understand the story of Cape Town and she worked on it for about four years.
Did you know?
Many people think that the history of Cape Town started in 1652, but Cape Town has a human history that goes back long before that, evident from the skeletons dating back thousands of years that are found buried under the city.
Before it became Cape Town, Khoisan herders had been grazing their cattle in Camisa, the place of the Sweetwaters, for centuries before the Dutch arrived. Read the fascinating story of the perennial freshwater springs that inspired the Dutch East India Company to set up a refreshment station in Cape Town. You’ll be surprised to learn that many of the main streets in the city such as Buitengracht and Heerengracht used to be canals that the Dutch built.
You will be inspired to explore Cape Town in more detail after reading this book, to find out what has made the city what it is today.
Cost R245 softcover
Get it at www.Takealot.com
Photography courtesy