National Book Week competition during the month of September

South Africa commemorates National Book Week the first week of September every year. This initiative helps spread the love of books and reading to every corner of South Africa. This year, campus partners Eduloan collaborated with the Department of Library Services and offered 5 EduXtras cards as prizes worth R2 000 in total. Students had to enter the competition electronically – indicating which book he/she was planning to buy or read in the near future and why this book was so important to him/her.

168 Submissions were received and the most interesting submissions were shared and acknowledged on the UP Library Services Facebook page each day from 1 to 25 September with the hashtag #BUY_A_BOOK or  #READ_A_BOOK. The closing date of the competition was Sunday 25 September 2016 and the winners were notified telephonically by Tuesday 27 September 2016. The fortunate winners were:

• Thato Kwanaite, who won the R500 EduXtras card;
• Werner Eksteen and Rebecca Sekokotla each won a R300 EduXtras card;
• Charonesse Pretorius and Tebogo Matlala each won a R200 EduXtras card
• And Charlo Jacobs, Nonhlanhla Mkhize and Esna du Plessis each won a UP board game sponsored by the Departement of Library Services.

It was interesting to see which books students wanted to read or buy. The following books were mentioned more than twice – clearly an indication that they are sought after:

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo;
• Half a yellow sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie;
• Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a fantastic future by Ashlee Vance;
• Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga;
• Harry Potter and The Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne.