Sensing Singapore: Reflections in a Time of Change
Devadas Krishnadas
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810789398

In his new book, Sensing Singapore: Reflections in a Time of Change, entrepreneur, thought leader and political commentator Devadas Krishnadas provides an insight into what these events say about Singapore’s present and near future. The commentaries are interwoven with the author’s personal story of his learning journey as he sets out on new professional and personal directions.

The book includes a foreword by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law as well as a note by Ms Nicole Seah, a young political activist who captured the imagination of the electorate during the 2011 General Election. They highlight the need for public intellectuals in Singapore to provide an objective discourse on issues of national importance.

More Than a Mountain: The Journey of Singapore's First Women's Team to the Summit of Mount Everest
Singapore Women's Everest Team
Singapore: Singapore Women's Everest Team, 2014
ISBN: 9789810768140

“When we first started telling people that we wanted to climb Mount Everest, the most common question we got was, ‘Wow that’s great! But surely you mean to Everest Base Camp?’”

The Singapore Women’s Everest Team presents a unique and inspiring success story about a team of six young women who started off as strangers, united by a common love for the mountains, coming together in a five-year journey that defied all doubts and culminated with two spectacular days on the summit of Mount Everest.

More Than A Mountain brings to life the team’s journey through personal stories, anecdotes and humbling experiences – told through a series of captivating photographs, illustrations and never-been-told before accounts of what truly went on in the Everest expedition. Through personal journal entries and behind-the-scene stories, the book also provides a first-person’s insight into the massive planning and preparation necessary for the mammoth task of climbing Mount Everest.

Man of Malaysia
Tan Kok Seng
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810768348

In this revealing sequel to his bestselling autobiography Son of Singapore, Tan Kok Seng finds himself in Malaysia as a British diplomat’s chauffeur. While driving luminaries like author Han Suyin around, Tan falls in love with Heung, a servant girl with dark brown eyes. Despite parental objections, they marry and have a child in secret. When he is laid off, Tan’s comfortable life suddenly collapses. To support his family, he must take on a variety of jobs, including working as a soap salesman, egg seller and extra on a William Holden film, manoeuvring through unethical bosses, corrupt policemen and violent villagers. As much a timeless account of an enterprising spirit as a travelogue through 1960s Southeast Asia, Man of Malaysia entertains and inspires while telling of a life fully lived.

Son of Singapore
Tan Kok Seng
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810768324

A publishing sensation in the 1970s and 1980s, Son of Singapore traces the extraordinary upbringing of an Everyman. As a Teochew farm boy coming of age during the Japanese Occupation, Tan Kok Seng enters the “university of the world” at only 15, becoming a coolie at the Orchard Road market. On his rounds to the homes of the “Red Hairs”, he befriends a group of Chinese dialect-speaking Caucasians who inspire him to improve himself beyond his humble roots. Set against Singapore’s push towards self-governance, Tan’s engaging autobiography reflects the pioneering spirit of the times. Written in deceptively simple prose, notable for its English transliteration of Teochew adages, Son of Singapore sensitively captures fast-disappearing places, people and everyday ways of living.

We ♥ Katong
Urban Sketchers Singapore
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810766078

The artists from Urban Sketchers Singapore capture the conserved architecture, mouth-watering cuisine and fascinating confluence of cultures in this celebrated East Coast neighbourhood.

Singapore National Wages Council: An Insider's View
Lim Chong Yah
Singapore: World Scientific, 2014
ISBN: 9789814525749

Written by Emeritus Professor Lim Chong-Yah, founding chairman of the tripartite National Wages Council (NWC), this unique volume offers readers an insider's view of the genesis and the evolution of the wage determination mechanism and system in Singapore under the aegis of the NWC. As a tripartite body dealing with wages, wage policies and wage-related matters and promoting Growth with Equity, the NWC played a critical role in transforming industrial relations in Singapore from the then confrontational approach to that of mutual understanding, esprit de corps and social co-partnership. Drawing from his 30-year experience as NWC Chairman (1972–2001), Singapore's eminent economics professor shares with readers the important process and problems of seeking equitable wage increases through tripartite consensus based on a yearly national wage guideline system. The book also chronicles the role of the NWC in crisis management in 1974, 1985 and 1998, and in economic restructuring, 1979–1981. The structure and operation of this unique Singapore institution and the interesting problems of securing unanimity of support from the three tripartite partners are revealed in the book. Some important NWC personalities and their concerns and unique contributions are interestingly covered, anecdotally.