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The Good Husband Of Zebra Drive
''The Good Husband of Zebra Drive'' is the eighth in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Gaborone, Botswana, and featuring the Motswana protagonist Precious Ramotswe. Grace Makutsi is promoted to associate detective and handles a case herself. Mma Ramotswe helps the hospital in Mochudi deal with a string of mysterious patient deaths. Her husband wants to try his hand at detection, and with his usual style, he does. Charlie, the apprentice, decides to quit and run a taxi service. This novel was well received by several reviewers. One felt this novel to be a bit repetious. Others found the "outpouring of mercy" to shed a new light on the characters, "tidbits of quiet wisdom sprinkled throughout" the novel are a major part of the novel's appeal, and that this novel, like the earlier ones, "resonate with poignancy, wisdom, and wit". The novel entered the US best-seller list, from ''Publishers Weekly''. Plot summary Mma Ramotswe meet ...
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Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE (born 24 August 1948), is a British writer. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an expert on medical law and bioethics and served on related British and international committees. He has since become known as a fiction writer, with sales in English exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages. He is known as the creator of ''The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'' series. The "McCall" derives from his great-great-grandmother Bethea McCall, who married James Smith at Glencairn, Dumfries-shire, in 1833. Early life Alexander McCall Smith was born in 1948 in Bulawayo in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), to British parents. He was the only son, having three elder sisters. His father worked as a public prosecutor in Bulawayo. McCall Smith's paternal grandfather was the medical doctor and New Zealand communit ...
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Tswana People
The Tswana ( tn, Batswana, singular ''Motswana'') are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group native to Southern Africa. The Tswana language is a principal member of the Sotho-Tswana language group. Ethnic Tswana made up approximately 85% of the population of Botswana in 2011. Batswana are the native people of south and eastern Botswana, and the Gauteng, North West, Northern Cape and Free State provinces of South Africa, where the majority of Batswana are located. History Early history of Batswana The Batswana are descended mainly from Bantu-speaking tribes along with the Khoi-San. Tswana tribe migrated southward to Africa around 600 CE, living in tribal enclaves as farmers and herders. Several Iron Age cultures flourished around the 900 CE, including the Toutswemogala Hill Iron Age settlement. The Toutswe were in the eastern region of what is now Botswana, relying on Tswana cattle breed held in kraals as their source of wealth. The arrival of the ancestors of the Tswana-speaker ...
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2007 British Novels
7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, superstition and philosophy. The seven Classical planets resulted in seven being the number of days in a week. It is often considered lucky in Western culture and is often seen as Symbolism of the Number 7, highly symbolic. Unlike Western culture, in Vietnamese culture, the number seven is sometimes considered unlucky. It is the first natural number whose pronunciation contains more than one syllable. Evolution of the Arabic digit In the Brahmi numerals, beginning, Indians wrote 7 more or less in one stroke as a curve that looks like an uppercase vertically inverted. The western Ghubar Arabs' main contribution was to make the longer line diagonal rather than straight, though they showed some tendencies to making the digit more rectiline ...
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Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of Book Publishing and Bookselling". With 51 issues a year, the emphasis today is on book reviews. The magazine was founded by bibliographer Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ... Frederick Leypoldt in the late 1860s, and had various titles until Leypoldt settled on the name ''The Publishers' Weekly'' (with an apostrophe) in 1872. The publication was a compilation of information about newly published books, collected from publishers and from other sources by Leypoldt, for an audience of booksellers. By 1876, ''The Publishers' Weekly ...
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Booklist
''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is available to subscribers in print and online. ''Booklist'' is published 22 times per year, and reviews over 7,500 titles annually. The ''Booklist'' brand also offers a blog, various newsletters, and monthly webinars. The ''Booklist'' offices are located in the American Library Association headquarters in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. History ''Booklist'', as an introduction from the American Library Association publishing board notes, began publication in January 1905 to "meet an evident need by issuing a current buying list of recent books with brief notes designed to assist librarians in selection." With an annual subscription fee of 50 cents, ''Booklist'' was initially subsidized by a $100,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation, ...
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Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month; previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economic measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Initially titled ''Bulletin'' by Kirkus' Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, the title was ...
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Afrikaners
Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1933. James Louis Garvin, editor. They traditionally dominated South Africa's politics and commercial agricultural sector prior to 1994. Afrikaans, South Africa's third most widely spoken home language, evolved as the First language, mother tongue of Afrikaners and most Cape Coloureds. It originated from the Dutch language, Dutch vernacular of South Holland, incorporating words brought from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and Madagascar by slaves. Afrikaners make up approximately 5.2% of the total South African population, based upon the number of White South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language in the South African National Census of 2011. The arrival of Portugal, Portug ...
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Xhosa People
The Xhosa people, or Xhosa language, Xhosa-speaking people (; ) are African people who are direct kinsmen of Tswana people, Sotho people and Twa people, yet are narrowly sub grouped by European as Nguni people, Nguni ethnic group whose traditional homeland is primarily the Cape Provinces, Cape Provinces of South Africa, however the skulls from Mapungubwe empire shows that they have always been in Southern Africa like their kinsmen and had developed a sophisticated culture as well as civilization. They were the second largest racial group in apartheid Southern Africa and are native speakers of the Xhosa language, IsiXhosa language. Presently, approximately eight million Xhosa speaking African people are distributed across the country, and the Xhosa language is South Africa's second-most-populous home language, after the Zulu, again we must qualify the former statement as in great countries like China, Xhosa and Zulu language would not be classified as different languages, rather ...
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San People
The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. In 2017, Botswana was home to approximately 63,500 San people (roughly 2.8% of the population) making it the country with the highest number of San people. Definition The term "San" has a long vowel and is spelled Sān (in Khoekhoegowab orthography). It is a Khoekhoe exonym with the meaning of "foragers" and was often used in a derogatory manner to describe nomadic, foraging people. Based on observation of lifestyle, this term has been applied to speakers of three distinct language families living between the Okavango River in Botswana and Etosha National Park in northwestern Namibia, extending up into southern Angola; central peoples of most of Namibia and Botswana, extending into Zambia and Zimbabwe ...
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Tlokweng
Tlokweng is a peri-urban settlement classified as an urban village located east of the capital of Botswana, Gaborone and falling under the jurisdiction of South East District Council. It can be considered part of the conurbation of Gaborone. Tlokweng stands on the other side of the river, and is on the road to the border with South Africa, the border post being just 15 km to the east. The population was 35,982 at the 2011 census. It is now part of Gaborone agglomeration, home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The tribe originating from Tlokweng is referred to as Batlokwa. Many people from across Botswana have come to seek permanent and sometimes temporary settlement in Tlokweng because of its proximity to the capital city where most jobs are. According to Asperen the settlement of Tlokweng has a dual spatial structure with a traditional unplanned area and a modern planned area. Tlokweng is surrounded by grazing and arable land use under tribal and freehold tenur ...
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Mochudi
Mochudi is one of the larger villages in Botswana with a population of 44,815 people in 2011. It is situated in the Bakgatla tribal region, in Kgatleng District, about northeast of Gaborone. The village lies several kilometres from the main Gaborone–Francistown road, and can be accessed through a short turn at Pilane. Mochudi was settled by the Tswana people in 1871. The main attraction in Mochudi is the Phuthadikobo Museum which is perched at the top of a hill and holds a rich history of Bakgatla tribe and Batswana in general. History Mochudi was established as a result of people movements. Under pressure from Boer encroachment on their historic lands, the Bakgatla tribe migrated from what is now South Africa, settling in 1871 at the foot of Phuthadikobo Hill and beside the Notwane River. At this time, the Rev Pieter Brink of the Dutch Reformed Church founded a mission station at Mochudi. Tourism The tourist destinations of note inside Mochudi are the Phuthadikobo Mu ...
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Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It is connected to Zambia across the short Zambezi River border by the Kazungula Bridge. A country of slightly over 2.3 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. About 11.6 percent of the population lives in the capital and largest city, Gaborone. Formerly one of the world's poorest countries—with a GDP per capita of about US$70 per year in the late 1960s—it has since transformed itself into an upper-middle-income country, with one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Modern-day humans first inhabited the country over 200,000 years ago. The Tswana ethnic ...
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