Good Morning Yesterday: Growing Up in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s
Lam Chun See
Singapore: Hoshin Consulting, 2012
ISBN: 9789810899097

A management consultant by profession, 59 year-old Lam Chun See has been blogging about the SIngapore of his childhood since September 2005. His reminiscences of what it was like to grow up in a Singapore that was vastly different from the one you see today has attracted many readers and faithful followers, not only from within our own shores, but from faraway places like England, China, and Australia. Several have even contributed their personal stories ot his blog. Good Morning Yesterday is a compilation and reorganization of these stories into a coherent narrative. Covering only the 1950s and 1960s period, it will certainly bring back memories of the 'good old days' for older readers. Younger readers will also get a glimpse of the history of their beloved Singapore that is not found in their school textbooks.

War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore
Kevin Blackburn & Karl Hack
Singapore: NUS Press, 2012
ISBN: 9789971695996

Singapore fell on 15 February 1942. Within days, the Japanese had massacred thousands of Chinese civilians, and taken prisoner more than 100,00 British, Australian, and Indian soldiers. A resistance movement formed in Malaya's jungle-covered mountains, while the vast majority resigned themselves to Japanese rule. The Occupation of Malaya would last three and a half long years, until the return of the British in September 1945.

How has this period been remembered? How has its memory been shaped in the postwar era by individuals, communities, and states? These are the questions answered by this book, using the words of Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, British and Australians.

The reader is taken through many forms of memory: from the soaring pillars of Singapore's Civilian War Memorial, to traditional Chinese cemeteries in Malaysia; and from families left bereft by Japanese massacres, to the young women who flocked to the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army, hoping to march on Delhi.

In this volume, Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack reinsert previously marginalized and self-censored voices back into the story, and use this to reflect on the nature of conflict and memory. They also used these voices to shed new light on the searing transit from war and massacre, through resistance and decolonization, to the moulding of postcolonial states and identities.

Breakthrough: Roadmap for Singapore's Political Future
Derek da Cunha
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2012
ISBN: 9789814342070

"What political party helps an opposition to come into power? Why should we not demolish them before they get started? Once they get started it's more difficult to demolish them." --Lee Kuan Yew

The People's Action Party, the nation's ruling party since 1959, made Singapore a byword for political status quo. The electorate was known to be stolid, politically apathetic, indifferent. Until 2011. In a general election that witnessed Singaporeans' desire to alter the political landscape, the PAP saw its vote slide to an all-time low since Singapore's independence. The opposition Workers' Party secured six parliamentary seats. It was a significant breakthrough. Opposition parties have always been confronted with major obstacles on their road to Parliament, not least the multi-seat electoral divisions known as Group Representation Constituencies. With the fall of Aljunied GRC to the WP and the defeat of two Cabinet ministers, GE2011 shattered the ruling party's aura of virtue and invincibility.

Breakthrough: Roadmap for Singapore's Political Future examines the circumstances and context of WP's parliamentary gains, and where almost 2 out of 5 Singaporean voters opted for an opposition party. Singapore's electorate, post-GE2011, is polarised between those who subscribe to the status quo and those who want it altered irrevocably. As a consequence, Singapore's political future is certain to be marked by unexpected twists and turns, many of which will likely be counter-intuitive.