Naked Ape, Naked Boss: The Man Behind the Singapore Zoo & the World's First Night Safari: Bernard Harrison
Kirpal Singh
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2014
ISBN: 9789814351720

Bernard Harrison is credited for having shaped Singapore's most attractive and iconic leisure destinations — the Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari. For nearly 30 years he was intimately involved and engaged with the transformation and creative developments of these nature parks.

This book explores Harrison's journey and focuses on the critical phases which served as moments of reckoning. How easy was it for this passionate and determined man who couldn't and wouldn't take "no" for an answer to do what he really and truly wanted? What shaped his personality? What problems did he encounter in wanting to create a zoo and a night safari that Singapore could be, and is, proud of? In both the personal and the professional fields, his positioning of certain beliefs and value-systems are put in context and readers will be made aware of the intimate drivers of his passions.

The Ruling Elite of Singapore: Networks of Power and Influence
Michael Barr
London: I.B. Tauris, 2014
ISBN: 9781780762340

The Republic of Singapore was born on 9 August 1965 through a formal act of separation from the Federation of Malaysia. It was greeted by many with fireworks in the streets, but by the end of the year it appeared that Singapore would have to seek re-entry on humiliating terms. Then, shortly after National Day celebration in 1966, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew delivered a seminal speech. Setting out the fundamental principles on which Singapore's national ideology and founding mythology were to rest, Lee promised a hierarchical and unashamedly elitist society, whose harsh edges were justified in the short term by the urgent need to work for Singapore's survival. In effect, he was presenting a blueprint for the manufacture of the elite that has ruled ever since.

Michael Barr explores the complex and covert networks of power at work in one of the world's most prosperous countries - the city-state of Singapore. He argues that the contemporary networks of power result from a deliberate project initiated and managed by Lee Kuan Yew - Singapore's 'founding father' - designed to empower himself and his family. By tracing the evolutionary changes that have occurred in these networks, as well as the durable patterns that underlie them, the author is able to cast fresh light on the existing elite. He identifies the crucial institutions of power - including the cabinet, the military, the country's sovereign wealth funds, and the government-linked companies - and five critical features that provide the key to understanding the nature and character of the networks of power. The author concludes with an assessment of possible shifts of power within the elite in the wake of Lee Kuan Yew's son, Lee Hsien Loong, assuming power, and considers the possibility of a more fundamental democratic shift in Singapore's political system. The result is a powerful and revealing insight into one of the world's leading financial centres that will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand present and future power relationships in Singapore politics and society.

Beyond the Tea Dance: The Story of Singapore Sixties Music, Vol. 2
Joseph C. Pereira
Singapore: Select Books, 2014
ISBN: 9789810792848

Beyond the Tea Dance is the second volume of Joseph Pereira’s comprehensive survey of the Singapore pop music scene in the 1960s. Apache over Singapore, the first volume, was published in 2011.

The second half of the sixties saw seismic shifts in the global music scene. In Singapore, newer breed of bands was coming to the fore, many with outlandish names. Tea dances became increasingly popular. Discotheques started sprouting up to cater to a new hip crowd. Pop Yeh Yeh, which had always been active alongside the mainstream pop music scene, came into its own with many releases. Singapore bands were very active playing the British services circuit and in Vietnam.

But, as the decade drew to a close, several pivotal events signalled the end of this glorious era for Singapore pop music.

Beyond the Tea Dance examines in rich detail all the major bands and singers in this turbulent period.

Body Boundaries: The EtiquetteSG Anthologies Volume I
Tania Rozario, Zarina Muhammad & Krishna Udayasankar (eds.)
Singapore: The Literary Centre, 2014
ISBN: 9789810789466

Body Boundaries is an anthology of words by twenty‐seven women writers from Singapore. Comprising works of poetry and prose, the collection breaks down barriers between public and private, personal and political, to reveal both collective and diverse experiences threaded together and defied by identity markers of gender and geography.

The collection is the first volume of a series by EtiquetteSG, a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to developing and showcasing art, writing, film and music created by women in Singapore.