The South African Fact Book - By Pat Hopkins, Denise Slabbert, & Jabulile Bongiwe Ngwenya

A fantastic little A5-sized book, listing all sorts of information about South Africa, from info on the government and economy or famous places and people, and World Heritage Sites, interesting towns, and lots of snippets of cool facts.For instance, did you know that the first motion picture footage ever recorded was in South Africa? Or did you know that our first post office was a tree, now a national monument known as the Post Office Tree in Mossel Bay? Or did you know that with 5 million objects, the National Cultural History Museum in Pretoria has the largest collection or artifacts and records in South Africa or that the Voortrekkker Monument's granite frieze depicting the heroics of the trekkers on 27 bas relief panels, is the largest in the world? Or that the kori bustard found in South Africa is the world largest flying bird?The book makes suggestions on what to eat, drink, and where to visit. And it suggests what not to do. Under beer it tells us that Gilroy's Brewery in Johannesburg which produces the Gilroy Serious dark ale was judged the best beer in the Southern Hemisphere and the second best in the world at a blind tasting. And under disappointing it lists Castle Lager stating "nearly as bad as the best American beer".Under best places to chill it lists Long Street in Cape Town, 4th avenue Parkhurst, Florida Road Durban, and Beach Road in Port Elizabeth amongst others. It also says don't bother with East London, "Unless you are looking for a hooker in a grimy port city", Melville, "Unless you are looking for drugs", Durban beachfront "unless you like crowds and hobos asking for cash" or Bloemfontein "Unless you like being bored out of your skull, other than for the fabulous Mystic Boer".From museums, monuments, battlefields, heritage sites, arts and crafts, music, dance, theatre, literature, animals, beaches, cities and towns: this book has an opinion, cool fact and a rating for them all. dr seuss book collection