Clive Cooke: 10 books

“The Cradle of Mankind” is a dramatization of the recent finds of skeletons of a primate species closely related to “homo sapiens”. You might not want to meet these creatures wandering around your camp site at night. “Shakespeare in the Suburbs” is set in an adult literacy center in Johannesburg...

The story “Justice” is set during the eighties when opposition to the status quo was becoming more and more intense. People in the countryside had to choose between supporting the traditionalists or the activists. Sometimes, members of one family chose different sides. “The Wisdom of Solomon”...

This book comprises two collections of short stories. The first is a medley ranging from Sci Fi to murder and from humor to satire. The second half is a continuation of the series: “Big Companies for Dummies” stories which are set in the corporate world. “String Theory” is a science fiction...

“The Kreutzer Sonata” is set against a background of the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act promulgated during the Apartheid years. A young black man by the name of Lucky takes a job in a run-down hotel in Johannesburg. The owner is an Austrian who is more interested in playing his trumpet...

In “A Man Called Che”, an elderly Spanish gentleman turns up at a lawyer’s office in Tampa, Florida claiming to be Che Guevara, the communist revolutionary. Is he who he says he is? And, what does he want from the lawyers? In the second story “We have a Problem”. The truth about the Apollo...

This collection of thirteen short stories has diamonds as the common theme. The title is taken from the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” made famous by Marilyn Munro in the film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. Most of the stories are light and humorous. In the first story, an idealistic...

“The Naturalist” is a dramatization of the first large battle in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. It is based on an anecdote about a British trooper catching butterflies while waiting for the battle to begin. “The Tramp” is set during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899. An isolated farm in the Orange Free...

The setting of these stories is Paddafontein (Frog Fountain in English, pronounced ‘pudda fonteyn’) a remote village in the semi-desert Karoo district of Southern Africa. The inhabitants could be described as old-fashioned, quaint and conservative and at times more than a little strange. The sketches...

The first story “Love Token” is set in one of the great country houses of England at the time of the First World War. The servants below stairs are gearing up for a house party for thirty guests. Inevitably, the old social set-up disintegrates under the pressures of the war. It is also a love...

‘Rugby may borrow the language of warfare, but in war injury time may last a whole lifetime and not all of the team go home after a shower and a beer.’  ~ Stephen Cooper: The Final Whistle, 2012. In this fascinating WWI centenary e-publication, rugby historian Clive Akers explores the impact...