Mimi Fan
Lim Chor Pee
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2012
ISBN: 9789810714598

The swinging 1960s. A nightclub in Singapore. A one night stand that turns into true love. Or not? In Mimi Fan, Singapore playwright Lim Chor Pee weaves together a haunting tale about love, escapism and broken hearts searching for healing. Through the story of a teenage bar girl, Mimi Fan, whose destiny clashes with Chan Fei-Loong, an English-educated overseas Singaporean who has returned home to work, Lim brings to the fore some undeniable and searing truths: true love requires courage, it can be painful, and it can haunt you, despite your best efforts to ignore it.

Written by Singapore's pioneer playwright Lim Chor Pee in 1962, Mimi Fan is considered Singapore's first English-language play written by a local. It was first staged by the Experimental Theatre Club in 1962 and then restaged by Theatreworks in 1990.

Model Citizens
Haresh Sharma
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2012
ISBN: 9789810714611

A man stabs an MP at a Meet the People Session. But this is not their story. It is the story of the man's girlfriend, an Indonesian maid who wants to get married and become a Singapore citizen. It is the story of the MP's wife, who tries to cope with her husband's injury and the media spotlight. It is the story of the maid's employer, who is also struggling with her own tragedy. These three women may mean nothing to each other, but they need one another to survive. The maid, the employer, and the MP's wife. Are they model citizens?

Written by veteran Singaporean playwright Haresh Sharma, Model Citizens won Best Director (Alvin Tan) and Best Actress (Siti Khalijah Zainal) at the 2011 The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards.

Fear of Writing
Tan Tarn How
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2012
ISBN: 9789810714529

The maestro of political plays is back and his latest offering in a decade, Fear of Writing, is a groundbreaking commentary on the political pulse of Singapore today.

In Fear of Writing, a playwright struggles with writer's block, a director and producer bemoan their failure to get a government licence to stage their play, and a father writes to his daughter overseas. Seemingly disparate elements are woven together, while the line between art, performance and reality begin to blur dramatically as the play reaches its chilling conclusion.

Fear of Writing is a play that will haunt you while compelling you to decide where you stand on the issues of control and censorship.

Uncle Lau's Teochew Recipes
Tan Lee Leng & Lau Chiap Khai
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2012
ISBN: 9789810716165

Enjoy the rich culinary heritage of the Teochews with this compact cookbook, which features over 80 authentic family recipes. Besides the usual Teochew fare of steamed fish and ngoh hiang, this book features many little-known traditional Teochew dishes - some even exclusive to the author's family, such as ho pung and sio bee.

These time-tested recipes are painstakingly compiled by Mr Lau Chiap Khai's daughter, Tan Lee Leng. A woman of many talents, Lee Leng is a food consultant, food writer, chef, food stylist, and a formally trained potter.

Lee Leng was trained in the art of Teochew cuisine by her father, and holds a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu in London. Her father, affectionately known by friends and family as Uncle Lau, handed down their family's recipes to Lee Leng in the hopes that she preserve their heritage. By compiling her father's recipes, Lee Leng has shared this culinary heirloom so that current and future generations will be able to enjoy these wonderful recipes.

A Retrospect on the Dust-Laden History: The Past and Present of Tekong Island in Singapore
Chen Poh Seng & Lee Leong Sze
Singapore: World Scientific, 2011
ISBN: 9789814365963

The book describes how Pulau Teking Island developed during the early 20th century. It describes where the ethnic groups came from, how they settled down, worked and lived together, and the relationship among different ethnic groups, like the Malay and Chinese (including Hakka and Chouchouese) over the years. Finally, the book finds out how and why the villages vanished. The final chapter outlines the outstanding citizens from Pulau Tekong and reviews how they merged with the main stream of Singapore society after leaving the offshore island.

Cooling-Off Day
Alfian Sa'at
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2012
ISBN: 9789810714062

In the electrifying months leading up to the watershed 2011 General Elections and in the tumultuous months after, playwright Alfian Sa'at interviewed Singaporeans to discover their responses to the elections.

Covering a wide social and political spectrum, the candid interviews capture the GE experience through the voices of individual Singaporeans - from election candidates to pro-establishment civil servants; from taxi-drivers to teachers; from diehard opposition supporters to young people casting their virgin votes.

These interviews - some hopeful, some fearful, some hilariously frank, some achingly honest - form a portrait of Singaporeans confronting the real meaning of democracy and rediscovering their role in shaping the country's future.

The Beating and Other Stories
Dave Chua
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2011
ISBN: 9789810709075

A mysterious tiger roams in the shadows of an apartment block. A security guard comes to terms with a past scarred by his father’s attachment to violence. A woman traces her family’s path of gradual change that began with her teenage pregnancy. A massacre on an island prison brings to life a forgotten strand of an island nation’s history.

The Beating and Other Stories is a long-awaited collection of short stories by award-winning writer Dave Chua, author of the novel Gone Case. The book frequently crosses genres and styles, spinning from historical fiction to magical realism, and takes us on adventures with a distinct melancholic undertone. Sparse but emotional, these stories continue to demonstrate Chua’s talent in exploring the intense inner environments of hyper-urban Singapore.

VR Nathan: Community Servant Extraordinary
Bala Baskaran, Said Abdullah, & Arun Senkuttuvan
Singapore: ISEAS, 2012
ISBN: 9789814379847


In conveying his condolences to VR Nathan’s wife, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that “as chairman of Hindu Endowments Board, VR Nathan had served the Indian community with distinction and unwavering commitment”. Lee also said that VR “had done much for inter-religious harmony in Singapore”. Soon after, Zainul Abidin Rasheed, then Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said in Parliament that he was “very amazed” when he saw at VR’s funeral leaders of different faiths paying their last respects and offering prayers. That perhaps is the ultimate tribute any Singaporean of faith could hope for. This is the story of what made an unemployed immigrant from India with little education transform into an ideal Singaporean – successful in his career, yet caring for fellow citizens.

Where Lions Fly: 100 Years of Aviation in Singapore
Goh Yong Kiat
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2012
ISBN: 9789814342179

Epic flights by daring aviation pioneers...
Rapid-fire developments during the tumultuous events of World War II...
The uncertainty and anxiety that surrounded Singapore's post-independence air defence...
The boom and excitement of Singapore's rapid ascension as a global air hub...

All these and more are brought together in one comprehensive volume in Where Lions Fly, the first book to undertake the monumental task of collating all the trials and thrills of Singapore's aviation history.

Aviation is a key component of the Singapore economy, and its development is of great national significance. March 2011 marked the 100th anniversary of aviation in Singapore. Where Lions Fly traces both the technological developments in aviation and their economic and social impact in Singapore.

This book is a celebration of decades of achievements and records for posterity the pioneering spirit and innovative planning that will set us towards another 100 years of aviation development and economic growth.

One: The Anthology: Short Stories from Singapore's Best Authors
Robert Yeo (ed.)
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2012
ISBN: 9789814346399

The short story is a form taken up with many international authors. One attempts to anthologise the Singaporean short story with its collection of twenty-one stories from writers as varied as S. Rajaratnam, Catherine Lim, Minfong Ho, Kirpal Singh, Colin Cheong and Alfian Sa'at. Named to make a dramatic point, this anthology selects the best from each according to Robert Yeo - an established name in the Singapore literary scene. At its heart, this one story is not intended to be representative of the author's oeuvre but to discover an instance where an author infuses a story with his or her personality or unique style. The chosen stories are also varied, individually artistically-crafted, and as a whole, display the wide range of themes, some of which are historical. This way, readers can trace the development of a line of writing over several books and decades.

Most importantly, the book shows the developing canon in the Singaporean short story scene and makes a stark statement: these are the twenty-one stories that should stand out and be counted.

Singapore at War: Secrets from the Fall, Liberation & Aftermath of WWII
Romen Bose
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2012
ISBN: 9789814382007

For the first time, three of Romen Bose's groundbreaking works have been brought together in one volume, providing a panoramic account of Singapore's experience in World War II.

SECRETS OF THE BATTLEBOX
Sealed off and forgotten until the late 1980s, the Battlebox beneath Fort Canning served as the British Command HQ in the last days before the fall. What actually happened in this underground nerve centre of the Malayan Campaign? Drawing on first-hand investigation, accounts of survivors, and top-secret documents, the author reveals the fascinating inner workings of the Battlebox.

THE END OF THE WAR
Having lost their "Impregnable Fortress" of Singapore, the British were largely diverted to the European theatre of war. But what went on behind the scenes as they prepared to return to the egion and, when the Japanese surrendered, to re-establish their authority? In unprecedented detail, this book captures the circumstances, events, and unforgettable cast of characters - from swaggering generals to clandestine resistance fighters - that attended the end of World War II.

KRANJI
A picture of serenity today, the war cemetery at Kranji is the final resting place of those who fought and died in the war. But it has been no smooth journey getting here. How are the war dead remembered in post-war Singapore - these men and women who gave their lives, heroes heralded and unheralded, and, till this day amidst them, a traitor?

Future Asian Space: Projecting the Urban Space of New East Asia
Limin Hee, Davisi Boontharm, & Erwin Viray (eds.)
Singapore: NUS Press, 2012
ISBN: 9789971695965

The idea of "Asian space" is undergoing a transformation as a result of rapid technological, economic, social and cultural changes. Following the shift to a global economy and an urban population explosion, Asian cities have projected as one of the mainstays of progress, national pride, identity, and positioning on the global stage. The extraordinary pace and intensity of the changes have created a situation unique in the history of urban development.

Despite the immense diversity of Asian countries, "Asia-ness" is often treated as a distinctive quality that has emerged from unique recent circumstances affecting Asian urbanizations as a whole. In Future Asian Space, 15 authors explore broad concepts relating to the creation and re-creation of "Asian space" and contemporary Asian identity, and their examination of different sites and research approaches illustrates the difficulty pinpointing what "Asia-ness" is, or might become.

Appropriate design and planning of cities is a critical element in building a sustainable future and coping with environmental, social and cultural problems. Future Asian Space is designed to stimulate interests and engagement in discussions of the Asian city, and its trajectories in architecture and urbanism.

The Fall of Singapore: 90 Days: November 1941-February 1942
Justin Corfield and Robin Corfield
Singapore: Talisman, 2012
ISBN: 9789810709846

This book provides a day-by-day history of the Malayan Campaign and the Fall of Singapore from the first alerts as the British prepare to move their forces onto a war footing on 29 November, through the fighting, and the British Surrender, through to the Japanese imposing their rule on Singapore on 26 February - a total of 90 days. For each of the 90 days, all the major developments - military and political - are detailed along with information on ever Allied soldier who died on that day. As such it is the first book which demonstrates the nature of the fighting each day - with intense battles followed by days of relative inactivity. With the Malayan Campaign and the Fall of Singapore symbolizing the end of British power in Southeast Asia, and also the beginning of the end of the British Empire, this book draws from army war diaries, published histories of the campaign, biographies and autobiographies of people involved, and family stories, as well as visiting most of the places connected with the conflict. Accompanying the text are over 2000 maps and illustrations, including many provided by families and never before published.