The Girl Under the Bed
Dave Chua, Xiao Yan (illus.)
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810731106

During the Hungry Ghost Month, the gates of hell open and dead spirits pour into the world of the living. Jingli, a Secondary One student, discovers a ghost named Xiaomei sleeping under her bed. In time, the two develop an uncanny friendship. Together with Weizhong, a boy who is also a medium, they set out to solve the mystery of Xiaomei’s haunting.

Set in modern-day Singapore, The Girl Under the Bed is a gripping coming-of-age tale that will thrill and fascinate readers.

Government in Business: Friend or Foe?: Finding Entry & Exit Points
Lim Hwee Hua
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789814342414

Government in Business: Friend or Foe? sets out the arguments for and against government involvement in business, a topic for debate that arises whenever there is an economic storm.

Former Member of Singapore’s Parliament and top civil servant Lim Hwee Hua has used her active role in this perennial issue to show just how complex the arguments can be.

She answers a list of recurring questions, dealing with the why, when, what and wherefore which public officials, managers of state-owned enterprises and businessmen will find useful when formulating policies, or in their dealings with one another.

The numerous examples she cites from all over the world, of governments’ dreams and nightmares, illustrate factors peculiar to particular situations, but all raise degees of risk best resolved with honesty, particularly with regard to who benefits the most from a decision to get in or out. As Lim explains, the answer can sometimes come as a shock.

The Collected Poems of Arthur Yap
Arthur Yap
Singapore: NUS Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789971696535

Arthur Yap Chioh Hiong (1943-2006) was a Singaporean poet and artist. He held an MA from Leeds and a Ph.D from the National University of Singapore, where he taught in the Department of English Language and Literature from 1979 until 1998. He published a volume of poetry in 1971 under the title Only Lines and later published three more volumes of poetry (Commonplace, Down the Line, and Man Snake Apple) under the Heinemann imprint. His poetry also appears in a variety of periodicals.

The Collected Poems of Arthur Yap gathers the entire corpus of Arthur Yap's poems in a single volume. Yap based his writing on life and events in Singapore, and his contribution to Singapore literature was first acknowledged in 1976, when he won the initial poetry award granted by the National Book Development Council of Singapore for Only Lines. In 1983 he received both the Singapore Cultural Medallion for Literature and the Southeast Asian Write Award. His work is notable for word play, occasional use of the street patois of Singapore, and commentary on the values and priorities expressed by ordinary people in everyday situations.

Straight Talk: Reflections on Singapore Politics, Economy & Society
Raymond Lim
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789814342551

This is a collection of speeches and essays spanning Former Minister Raymond Lim’s 20 years in journalism, finance and politics. The issues he addressed then are still very much alive today.

He lays out his views on Singapore society, politics, the economy, entrepreneurship, foreign affairs and the Asian financial crisis.

The Bedside Palliative Medicine Handbook
Tan Tock Seng Hospital Palliative Care Service, Dr Allyn Hum & Dr Mervyn Koh (eds.)
Singapore: Armour Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789814461641

Palliative care is an approach to treatment of patients suffering from life-limiting illnesses that focuses on improving the quality of life for them and their families, by providing relief from physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. It is now recognised as a specialty and has become an integral part of good patient care in the continuum of treatments for cancer and chronic illnesses.

To be able to provide good palliative care requires both sound clinical knowledge and compassion. The editors and contributors of The Bedside Palliative Medicine Handbook have taken great care to provide readers with a clear, succinct and practical guide to palliative medicine, which will be useful to all medical practitioners by the patient’s bedside.

Azalea Dreams, Bamboo Lives
Wee Kiat
Singapore: Select Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810781071

Azalea Dreams, Bamboo Lives tells the story of Siok Yi and Kok Wah, who grew up amidst the promise of a new China on Gulangyu island during the tumultuous years of the Chinese civil war. Condemned and persecuted for living their ideals, they elope to the colony of Singapore, hoping to build a new world for themselves. Haunted by the ghosts they left behind and faced with the same challenges they thought they had escaped, they find themselves caught in a web of intrigue and deceit, as they struggle to keep their dreams and love alive in a world at war. This sweeping work of historical fiction brings alive the emotions of that turbulent era, when great powers and ideologies tussled for control, inflicting unimaginable costs on the denizens of a Singapore slowly moving towards independence.

My Mother-in-Law's Son: A Novel
Josephine Chia
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810779986

My Mother-In-Law’s Son centres round a Peranakan woman, Swee Gek, who is in an abusive marriage but is constrained by the limitations of women in her time to take positive action.

Her marriage is further strained by Choy Yan, the eponymous Mother-In-Law of the title whose values are archaic and patriarchal. Taking place in a 1949 -1950 Singapore that is just recovering from the onslaught of the Japanese War, Swee Gek’s Chinese husband, Wong Kum Chong, is inadvertently drawn into participating in Communist activity against the Colonial Government by a communist agitator, Teng Xin Nan.

Narrated from the perspectives of different characters, My Mother-In-Law’s Son is a revealing story of a Singapore and her people struggling to find their feet in the aftermath of a war. It also shows how people going through difficult circumstances can be susceptible to revolutionary ideas. Through Swee Gek’s personal fight against her oppressors, this novel also explores the meaning of love: of whether love can be unconditional or that it is always accompanied by possessiveness.

Little Things: An Anthology of Poetry
Loh Chin Ee, Angelia Poon, and Esther Vincent (eds.)
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810771409

Catching crickets after school, waiting for class to end, playing with lanterns during Mid-Autumn festival, observing one’s grandfather cut his nails, watching the rain and the world go by – these are some of the little things that the poems in this anthology explore.

In this selection of more than 80 poems from Singapore and around the world, poets look afresh at things mundane and universal, from birth to growing up and first love to old age and death. Works by established Singapore poets such as Boey Kim Cheng, Lee Tzu Pheng, Arthur Yap and Cyril Wong and well-known international poets such as e. e. cummings, Billy Collins, Derek Walcott and Raymond Carver are set alongside poems by younger published poets such as Joshua Ip, Teng Qian Xi and Theophilus Kwek and previously unpublished poems in this refreshing anthology.

Arranged in six broad sections – Little Things, Growing Up, People Around Us, Going Places, Love and Loss, and On Words – this anthology will appeal to readers both young and old with poems that are quirky, delightful, sad and reflective.

Passages: Stories of Unspoken Journeys
Yong Shu Hoong (ed.)
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776954

Every year, between 2011 and 2013, the Singapore Writers Festival invited eight Singapore writers to embark on a sobering journey – to meet with a segment of Singapore’s population whose plights and struggles in life are often left in the shadows. This special project was named Passages. From informal conversations with senior citizens at a hospice or their homes, low-income families trying to make ends meet, and former offenders who had spent time in prison, these writers were inspired to pen their original tales of hardship and heartbreak, often depicting how the human spirit can triumph over great adversities. This anthology compiles a selection of stories from all the three years of the project.

Featured authors: Stephanie Ye, Yeo Wei Wei, Kristina Tom, O Thiam Chin, Wong Shu Yun, Jeremy Tiang, Noor Hasnah Adam, Quek Shin Yi, S Anparasan, Marc Nair, Han Han and Dave Chua.

The Viewing Party
Yong Shu Hoong
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776947

Singapore Literature Prize winner Yong Shu Hoong’s latest book features more than just poetry. There is also a ghostly tale at its core, complete with prose poems and micro fiction of exactly 100 words each, as well as annotated excerpts from an abandoned work.

In this viewing party, readers are invited to take a peek into the domain of death and cinema. You are part of a mob of dispassionate onlookers. Sometimes, you get to play the voyeuristic judge.

My Kampong Sketches
Ishak bin Ahamad
Singapore: Math Paper Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776732

My Kampong Sketches comprises Ishak’s reminiscences of the kampong he grew up in. Preserved in the form of black-and-white sketches, his childhood memories include now-iconic images of night-soil workers hauling the buckets to a waiting vehicle; a fishmonger smoking opium and enjoying music from his ‘Rediffusion’ set; and children riding their tricycles in the village.

Through this sketchbook, Ishak wishes to share his brand of nostalgia not only with people who have been familiar with the kampong way of life, but also with present children and future generations, who probably will never know it personally.

After You
Cyril Wong
Singapore: Math Paper Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789810772741

In a lasting marriage, one could still outlive the other. A poet gazes upon his older partner, pondering the inevitable. Panic, heartache, and a surprising sense of acceptance, interwoven with instances of joyful resilience, punctuate the ordinariness of their everyday lives and occupy these poems about same-sex love, death, and the fragile art of testimony.

My Father in His Suitcase: In Search of E.J.H. Corner, the Relentless Botanist
John K. Corner
Singapore: Landmark Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789814189477

John (Kay) Corner left home in 1960, aged 19. He would never see his father, E. J. H. Corner, again.

Edred John Henry Corner was one of the most colourful and productive biologists and mycologists of the 20th century. His career began in 1929 as Assistant Director of the Straits Settlements Singapore Botanic Gardens, where he trained monkeys to collect specimens from the treetops of the rainforest, and published Wayside Trees of Malaya, a classic field guide interspersed with his delightful and idiosyncratic observations on plant life. He was key in the creation of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, a 163- hectare plot that contains more tree species than the whole of North America.

When war came, he considered it his responsibility to safeguard the scientific and cultural collections of Singapore during the Japanese Occupation, but was branded by some as a collaborator.

Post-war, after heading the ambitious UNESCO Hylean Amazon Project, he returned to Cambridge University and was appointed Professor of Tropical Botany in 1965. There he propounded his theory that the Durian represented an ancestral type of angiosperm tree. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society, where he promoted the conservation of tropical forests and led expeditions to the British Solomon Islands and Mount Kinabalu. For the latter, he proposed Kinabalu Park which led to its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After 46 years, John Corner faces his estranged father in a suitcase marked: ‘For Kay, wherever he might be.’ The letters, pictures and other memorabilia that spill out led him to search for the father he hardly knew, resulting in an engaging and frank biography of an eminent scientist who put science above all, including his family.

Democracy, Media and Law in Malaysia and Singapore: A Space for Speech
Andrew T. Kenyon, Tim Marjoribanks, and Amanda Whiting (eds.)
London: Routledge, 2013
ISBN: 9780415704090

Commentators on the media in Southeast Asia either emphasise with optimism the prospect for new media to provide possibilities for greater democratic discourse, or else, less optimistically, focus on the continuing ability of governments to exercise tight and sophisticated control of the media. This book explores these issues with reference to Malaysia and Singapore. It analyses how journalists monitor governments and cover elections, discussing what difference journalism makes; it examines citizen journalism, and the constraints on it, often self-imposed constraints; and it assesses how governments control the media, including outlining the development and current application of legal restrictions.

Education and the Nation State: The Selected Works of S. Gopinathan
Saravanan Gopinathan
London: Routledge, 2013
ISBN: 9780415719018

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions - so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. In a career spanning four decades, S. Gopinathan is considered by many to be a pillar of teacher education in Singapore. He has played a key role in the establishment and transformation of Singapore's education system, pioneering many programmes and advising on policy both nationally and internationally. In the process, he has contributed over 25 books (authored, co-authored and edited) and 115 articles and book chapters to the field, and continues to inspire and empower younger colleagues in the region to challenge the cause for excellence in education and education reform.

In Education and the Nation State, S. Gopinathan brings together 14 of his key writings in one volume. Starting with a specially written introduction, which gives an overview of Gopinathan's career and contextualises his selection, the essays are then arranged thematically, providing an overview not just of his own career, but also reflecting the development and key concerns of education in the nation state that is Singapore.

Confrontation: A Novel
Mohamed Latiff Mohamed
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810755577

Adi loves his life in the kampung: climbing the ancient banyan tree, watching ten-cent movies with his friends, fetching worms for the village bomoh. The residents of Kampung Pak Buyung may not have many material goods, but their simple lives are happy. However, looming on the horizon are political upheaval, race riots, gang wars and the Konfrontasi with Indonesia.

Mohamed Latiff Mohamed, three-time winner of the Singapore Literature Prize, brilliantly dramatises the period of uncertainty and change in the years leading up to Singapore's merger with Malaya. Seen through the unique perspective of the young Malay boy Adi, this fundamental period in Singaporean history is brought to life with masterful empathy. In the tradition of Ben Okri's The Famished Road and Anita Desai's The Village By the Sea, Confrontation is an incredible evocation of village life and of the consequences that come from political alignment and re-alignment.

The Wayang at Eight Milestones: Stories & Essays
Gregory Nalpon
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810764579

This long overdue collection gathers together sixteen of Gregory Nalpon's short stories, eleven of his essays, and a selection of his sketches of life in coffee shops, hawker stalls and samshu shops. Through his writing, Nalpon poignantly records a lost, rich world: the colourful, exciting and sometimes perilous Singapore of half a century ago.

With this collection, a vital Singaporean voice is finally recovered. Nalpon's inspired blend of close observation, legend, local superstition and peculiarly eclectic reading results in some of the most imaginative and exciting writing produced in Singapore during the 1960s and 1970s, including authentic descriptions of indigenous culture and working-class men and women rarely found in Singaporean writing of the period.

The Tower: A Novel
Isa Kamari
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810767822

The Tower tells the story of Ilham, an architect who is visiting the tower which he helped to design and build. As he climbs the tower with his clerk-of-works, Ilham reflects upon his life, revealing a deep sense of alienation and loss. What will he find when he eventually reaches the top? From Cultural Medallion winner Isa Kamari comes a masterful allegorical tale of success and failure, which is translated for the first time into English by Alfian Sa'at, his debut work of translation.

Durians are Not the Only Fruit: Notes From the Tropics
Wong Yoon Wah
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810766702

In this mix of memoir, lyric essay and nature writing, Wong Yoon Wah takes the unusual approach of turning his gaze away from the people of Nanyang, and examining instead what surrounds us: the fruits we grow, the food we eat, the trees and animals that thrive in our midst. Along the way, he throws us fascinating cultural insights: how thunder tea rice, which contains neither thunder nor tea, acquired its name; how early settlers used the raintree to tell the time; how the behaviour of ants can tell us when a monsoon is about to arrive. Throughout, Wong explores the myths and seduction of Singapore and Malaysia's tropical rainforest landscape and the rubber plantations of his childhood, getting at the very essence of humans' profound attachment to place.

Other Cities, Other Lives
Chew Kok Chang
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810766726

Other Cities, Other Lives is a collection of micro-fiction from one of Singapore's pioneer Chinese writers that features characters living through a time of volatile change in the region. Short travelogues are populated with swindlers and enterprising tour guides, where nothing is as it seems. Closer to home, husbands, wives and children are captured in a state of flux. Told in the elegant, spare style of a Chinese scholar, this is the first collection of Chew Kok Chang's works to be translated into English.

Myth of the Stone
Gwee Li Sui
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810766160

A curious young boy opens a door and is thrust into the Architrave, a fantastical, fractured world upheld by four Columns. Arriving as the Great Gateway War draws to a start, Li-Hsu must fight bravely alongside a host of strange creatures in order to find his way back home.

Gwee Li Sui's Myth of the Stone, first published in 1993, is an endearing tale of one unlikely hero's journey through an unfamiliar landscape.

The Last Lesson of Mrs De Souza: A Novel
Cyril Wong
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810762322

One last time and on her birthday, Rose de Souza is returning to school to give a final lesson to her classroom of secondary school boys before retiring from her long teaching career. What ensues is an unexpected confession in which she recounts the tragic and traumatic story of Amir, a student from her past who overturned the way she saw herself as a teacher, and changed her life forever.

The stunning first novel from award-winning poet Cyril Wong, The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza is a tour de force, an exceptional examination of the power of choice and the unreliability of memory.

Ministry of Moral Panic
Amanda Lee Koe
SIngapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810757328

Meet an over-the-hill Pop Ye-ye singer with a faulty heart, two conservative middle-aged women holding hands in the Galapagos, and the proprietor of a Laundromat with a penchant for Cantonese songs of heartbreak. Rehash national icons: the truth about racial riot fodder-girl Maria Hertogh living out her days as a chambermaid in Lake Tahoe, a mirage of the Merlion as a ladyboy working Orchard Towers, and a high-stakes fantasy starring the still-suave lead of the 1990s TV hit serial The Unbeatables.

Heartfelt and sexy, the stories of Amanda Lee Koe encompasses a skewed world fraught with prestige anxiety, moral relativism, sexual frankness, and the improbable necessity of human connection. Told in strikingly original prose, these are fictions that plough, relentlessly, the possibilities of understanding Singapore and her denizens discursively, off-centre. Ministry of Moral Panic is an extraordinary debut collection and the introduction of a revelatory new voice.

The Good, the Bad, and the PSLE: Trials of an Almost Kiasu Mother
Monica Lim
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810765996

To succeed in life, you must top your class, get Band One for school tests, and obtain four A stars for the PSLE.

Or at least, that is the world according to Ling, a typical Singaporean mum who has made it her goal in life to help her children succeed in school. Ling's older daughter, April, has all the makings of a model student and looks set to ace the Primary Six national exams. In the meantime, Ling's younger son, Noah, is free-spirited and more interested in canteen food than what goes on in class.

This (almost) kiasu mum records her journey diary-style, describing hilarious episodes involving crazy worksheets, assessment book overload and jittery parent-teacher meetings. Ling's humorous take on surviving Singapore schools will have you laughing and give you serious food for thought, all at the same time!

Plusixfive: A Singaporean Supper Club Cookbook
Goz Lee and Friends
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810759063

Lamenting the lack of good Singaporean food in London (Singapore fried noodles doesn't count), Goz Lee started the plusixfive supper club out of his one-bedroom flat in Islington, determined to showcase his country's cooking to hungry Londoners. Since its founding, plusixfive has taken the London supper-club world by storm, regularly selling out its monthly dinners and counting among its guests celebrity chefs, food critics, bloggers and television stars.

Taking its name from Singapore's international dialling code, plusixfive is the result of one young, homesick and hungry Singaporean's desire to share the spirit of delicious food and good company. Along the way, Goz found two like-minded, food-obsessed Singaporean food bloggers to continue his culinary legacy while he moved to Hong Kong to expand plusixfive's ventures abroad. He also picked up a motley crew of volunteers, all of whom contribute to the supper club in ntheir free time.

Structured like a regular supper-club night, Plusixfive: A Singaporean Supper Club Cookbook is packed with stories about plusixfive's signature dishes, memories of Singapore and guest recipes from the likes of Momofuku Seiobo head chef Ben Greeno, Hollow Legs food blogger Lizzie Mabbot and The Straits Times food editor Tan Hsueh Yun. With passion and irreverence, Goz and his team demystify local hawker favourites like satay and chwee kueh and staples of Peranakan cooking like babi pongteh and ayam buah keluak, teaching you how to cook delicious Singaporean food right out of your own kitchen.

Love, or Something Like Love
O Thiam Chin
Singapore: Math Paper Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776718

A woman reminded of her past through the acts of her grandson. A band of swordsmen on a failed mission. The forbidden love of Zheng He, the great Chinese Admiral. A young daughter forming a strange bond with her deceased father’s cat. Presenting ten stories in his fifth collection, O Thiam Chin plumbs the joy and despair, hopes and fears of men and women caught up by their past and confounded by lost loves. Taut, dark and visceral, these stories reveal, once again, the mysteries that lie in the heart of man.

Balik Kampung 2B: Contemplations
Verena Tay (ed.)
Singapore: Math Paper Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776541

Balik Kampung 2B: Contemplations presents nine new tales by authors who have lived in the respective neighbourhoods for at least ten years. How does one's environment affect one's outlook in life? Is your home your identity? How do people react to a specific place over time? The various short stories within this collection ponder over these questions and more. By the time you reach the last page, you are guaranteed to view parts of Singapore with a fresh perspective.

Balik Kampung 2A: People and Places
Verena Tay (ed.)
Singapore: Math Paper Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776558

Balik Kampung 2A: People and Places presents eleven new tales by authors who have lived in the respective neighbourhoods for at least ten years. What was it like to grow up in a particular district of Singapore during a specific decade? How can you go for a peaceful walk around your home if the area is being constantly remodelled by demolition and construction? How do present perceptions of space contrast with memory? Such questions fill the various stories that are inhabited with vivid characters and strong portrayals of different locales. If you wish to discover new perspectives about parts of Singapore that you may or may not have previously been aware of, then read this book.

From the Belly of the Cat
Stephanie Ye (ed.)
Singapore: Math Paper Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789810776565

Writers and cats have long enjoyed a special affinity, unsurprisingly since both spend much time sitting around and judging people. Discover the Lion City through the eyes of its cats and their humans in From the Belly of the Cat, an anthology of fifteen feline tales by some of the citystate’s most exciting writers and notorious cat sympathisers. For best results, read this book at home on the sofa on a rainy afternoon, with a cup of warm tea within reach, and a cat by your side.

(Almost) Uniquely Singapore: 18 Objects
Pang Eng Fong (ed.)
Singapore: Select Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810763466

Ever wonder what the thumbdrive, SAR-21, Tiger Beer, RISIS orchid and the parking coupon have in common? These and another 13 objects are all (almost) uniquely Singapore in their origin or association with the city-state. This book, written by Singapore Management University undergraduates, tells the fascinating stories behind these objects. Its unusual perspective will interest Singaporeans as well as visitors keen to understand Singapore's creative mix of enterprise, innovation and organisation.