What on Earth?

I'm in front of Kirstenbosch's Silver Tree Restaurant's magnificent log fire. In my humble opinion (well it's my blog after all, ha-ha) Kirstenbosh is the most magnificent botanical gardens in the whole world; well in terms of the sheer, unimagined and magnificent drama of Table Mountain anyway!

So what am I doing here this time of the night? As part of the Cape Town Book Fair Briza Publications (www.briza.co.za) has launched some new titles. These include the revided edition of 'Medicinal Plants of South Africa' and 'Mind-sltering & Poisonous Plants of the World' among others.

However the highlight of the evening is getting my ungrubby (respect!) hands on a publishing masterpiece: 'Earth - The Comprehensive World Atlas' (stand B6 at the Book Fair). It's purported to be the most accurate and detailed atlas of our world today: a 20-year old dream, two years in production, 20kg heavy and 580 pages, it's a hand-bound collector's item...and the most expensive book at the fair: R42 000 a copy!