Join Dr Jim Findlay, a Distinguished Philatelist of South Africa, at the Cape Town Club for a talk on his specialist collection of South African armed forces postal history and related documents. 

The collection has been exhibited world-wide and has won gold medals and various prestigious awards. Dr Findlay’s interest stems from national military service, extended Reserve Force service and an interest in the military history of South Africa. He has written numerous associated articles relevant to the collection.

This talk focuses on the causes of the rebellion, the outbreak of the 1914–1918 war, and the campaign within South Africa to suppress the rebellion. Much of the material used in this story is not covered in the many books on the rebellion and South African participation in World War 1.

Date: Saturday, 6 September 2025
Time: 11h00 to 12h00
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: R50 per person | Free for Cape Town Club members

Tickets can be booked on Quicket or purchased at the door on the day.

Breakfast, lunch & refreshments available at the fabulous Victoria’s Cafe. 

Join Jonathan Waters – Zimbabwe's best-known contemporary non-fiction author – at The Cape Town Club for a storytelling dinner focused on publishing in Zimbabwe, with special reference to his book, Kariba: Legacy of a Vision, in which “the construction of what remains the world’s biggest man-made lake is retold by those involved in the project”.

He will also speak about his upcoming projects, which include a second volume on Kariba, and commissions he is undertaking, such as Ruzawi School.

Date: Friday, 12 September 2025
Time: 18h30 for 19h00
Menu: Two-course meal (drinks not included)
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: R250 for members, R300 for non-members

Tickets can be booked on Quicket.

Join Jonathan Waters – Zimbabwe's best-known contemporary non-fiction author – at The Cape Town Club for a talk on publishing in Zimbabwe with special reference to his book, Kariba: Legacy of a Vision, in which “the construction of what remains the world’s biggest man-made lake is retold by those involved in the project”.

He will also speak about his upcoming projects, which include a second volume on Kariba, and commissions he is undertaking, such as Ruzawi School.

Date: Saturday, 20 September 2025
Time: 11h00 to 12h00
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: R50 per person | Free for Cape Town Club members

Tickets can be booked on Quicket or purchased at the door on the day.

Breakfast, lunch & refreshments available at the fabulous Victoria’s Cafe. 

Join author, journalist and printmaker Kevin Davie at The Cape Town Club for a storytelling dinner exploring Portuguese scribe João dos Santos' extraordinary account of his travels through Southern Africa.

From 1580, Dos Santos spent more than a decade in modern-day Mozambique, which included travelling up the Zambezi River to Tete and to the goldfields of Zimbabwe, where he saw so much gold being mined that he thought he'd discovered the biblical King Solomon's Mines.

Remarkably, Dos Santos's account, recorded in southern Africa 70 years before the arrival of Van Riebeeck, has all but vanished from the public record. His story, documenting the interface of two great empires, Portugal and Monomotapa, is all but unknown today.

Date: Friday, 3 October 2025
Time: 18h30 for 19h00
Menu: Two-course meal (drinks not included)
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: Guests R300 | Members R250

Tickets can be booked on Quicket.

Join author, journalist and printmaker Kevin Davie at The Cape Town Club as he shares how the ancient rock art of the continent – southern Africa included – came to shape modernists Pablo Picasso, Jean Miro and Paul Klee.

These artists, rebelling against the bourgeois art of their times, found inspiration in the collections of German ethnologist Leo Frobenius, who led twelve African expeditions between 1904 and 1933. In his 1928/29 tour of southern Africa, four artists made over 1 000 copies, the largest – from Lesotho – being ten metres long and two metres high.

Alfred Barr, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art, on seeing this material in 1936 remarked: "Modern art is 5 000 years old!". Barr showcased 150 copies of this rock art the following year at MoMA alongside the work of leading modernists to show how the ancient had shaped the modern.'

Date: Saturday, 4 October 2025
Time: 11h00 to 12h00
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: Guests R50 | Members FREE

Tickets can be booked on Quicket or purchased at the door on the day.

Breakfast, lunch & refreshments available at the fabulous Victoria’s Cafe. 

Join Ted Botha at the Cape Town Club for an illuminating talk on his new book, Hollywood on the Veld.

In 1913, a secretive American millionaire who had immigrated to South Africa had a crazy idea: to make movies in the gold-mining town of Johannesburg. And not just any movies, but the biggest in the world, huge spectacles with elaborate sets, thousands of extras and epic story lines. Isidore Schlesinger – better known as 'IW' – built a studio on a farm called Killarney, where, quite outrageously, he set out to challenge a place in America that was in its infancy: Hollywood.

And he not only matched them but outdid them.

Moreover, he did this while he was also running dozens of other companies, from insurance to real estate to advertising. So after a meteoric rise and incredible achievements, how come hardly anyone has ever heard of him?

Date: Saturday, 25 October 2025
Time: 11h00 to 12h00
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: Guests R50 | Members FREE

Tickets can be booked on Quicket or purchased at the door on the day.

Breakfast, lunch & refreshments available at the fabulous Victoria’s Cafe. 

Join us at The Cape Town Club this November for their annual Book & Artisanal Faire.

Date: Saturday, 15 November 2025
Time: 10h00 to 17h00
Venue: The Cape Town Club (18 Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town)
Tickets: Guests R50 | Members FREE

Tickets can be booked on Quicket or purchased at the door on the day.

You can look forward to a marvellous selection of rare books, antique maps, artworks, tastings, artisanal crafts, antiquities and more offered by a variety local vendors.

Dining and refreshments available at the fabulous Victoria’s Cafe. 

Dealers, collectors and traders are invited to take tables; for enquiries, please contact jamesfindlaycollectablebooks@gmail.com.