Singapore Chronicles: Colonial Singapore
Nicholas Tarling
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789814747042

This book is a history of Singapore from the founding of a settlement by Raffles in 1819, to the post-imperial phase inaugurated by World War II and the Japanese invasion. It shows how colonial Singapore matured as an economy and developed as a society even as it grew into a commercial centre that was also a centre for the movement of people and ideas. The book captures the essence of the island-city's place in the Asian economic and political scheme of things as European imperialism reached its zenith before giving way to Japan's military advance. The fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 embodied the new times. The return of the British after the Japanese defeat in 1945 set the stage for a fresh phase of Singapore's political development as the anti-colonial movement grew in strength.

Singapore Chronicles: Diplomacy
Evelyn Goh & Daniel Chua
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789814747080

Diplomacy has been crucial for Singapore's success abroad over the past 50 years. This book describes the many daunting challenges Singapore faced: separation from Malaysia; uncertain independence; tensions with its immediate neighbours; wars in Southeast Asia; oil shocks and financial crises; the waxing and waning power of the United States and China; and new security threats, including global terrorism, pandemics and trans-boundary pollution. The book demonstrates that Singapore's diplomacy has distinctively combined the characteristics of overcoming vulnerability; linking national security with economic development; playing a proactive role in international affairs; and emphasising cooperation with multiple partners. International events will continue to be unpredictable, and this book derives lessons from the past that can help Singapore develop even more agile diplomatic responses and far-sighted strategic planning.

Singapore Chronicles: Presidency
Thio Li-Ann
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789814747011

The Elected Presidency represents one of the most distinctive institutional innovations that Singapore has made to the constitutional order in the first 50 years of its existence. Its original primary intention was to serve as a check on a powerful Parliament that could bankrupt the national reserves either through buying votes, fraud or sheer incompetence. However, experience has shown that the elected President has evolved in ways unanticipated by its original design. This book traces the fascinating twists and turns of the relatively short history of the Elected Presidency in Singapore and how it has reached a new equilibrium.

25 Years of The Substation: Reflections on Singapore's First Independent Art Centre
The Substation
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2015
ISBN: 9789810967987

INDEPENDENCE. OPPORTUNITY. RAW. EXPERIMENTAL. FRINGE. PROGRESS. RESPONSIVE. EMPATHY. FEARLESS. IMAGINATION. PERSEVERANCE. CHALLENGE. INCUBATOR. SUPPORTIVE. CONTEMPORARY. MULTIDISCIPLINARY. SOCIOPOLITICAL. CRITICALITY. OPENNESS. DIVERSITY. COMMUNITY. POSSIBILITIES. PASSIONATE. PROCESS. HOME.

25 Years of The Substation features the accounts of 25 artists and people who have been associated with The Substation since its founding in 1990. The book is organised around 25 words, which serve as entry points for an extended conversation about The Substation, its stakeholders, and Singaporean society and the arts.

SG100?: Leading Thinkers Envision Singapore in 2065
Chua Mui Hoong (ed.)
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789814642514

Compiled into one exciting volume by Chua Mui Hoong, Opinion Editor of The Straits Times, leading thinkers give their take on trends that will shape Singapore in the next 50 years.

Will there even be a Singapore?
A Lee Kuan Yew-inspired New World Order?
How to face the 'Chinese dilemma' as China rises?
Politics in 2065: Primal or pragmatic?
Do you still need cows, if you can 3D print beef slices?
Can robot chefs serve quality char kway teow?
Cereal made from good bacteria, for your gut’s sake?
Will driverless cars become a reality?

Futurist guru Peter Schwart, leading "global city" sociologist Saskia Sassen, Prof Tommy Koh, Prof Wang Gungwu, diplomat Bilahari Kausikan, business guru Ho Kwon Ping and other opinion leaders explore the answers to these questions with thought-provoking musings that thrill, inspire and amuse.

It Never Rains on National Day: Stories
Jeremy Tiang
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2015
ISBN: 9789814655644

A woman fleeing her previous existence meets a fellow Singaporean on an overnight train in Norway. A foreign worker is decapitated in an HDB building site accident. A Singaporean wife must negotiate Beijing as her British husband awaits a heart transplant. And in different corners of the world, Singaporeans and exiles mark National Day in their own ways.

Jeremy Tiang's debut collection weaves together the lives of its characters across the world—from Switzerland, Norway, Germany, China, Canada, Thailand, New York City and back to Singapore. These wry, unsettling stories ask how we decide where we belong, and what happens to those who don't.

When a Flower Dies
Josephine Chia
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2015
ISBN: 9789810963149

What can we recover after a life passes on? A novel about love, forgetting and remembering. Pansy Lim, a Peranakan girl, was brought up in a seaside village in colonial Singapore in the 1940s. She inherits her mother's love for flowers, nature, the sea, and their healing qualities. Educated by English nuns, she learns and grows to love English, literature and poetry. We see her at the start of the novel, aged, forgetful, and desperately clinging to memories of her recently deceased husband. Through her recollections, she remembers George Chan, the village life that they shared, and the communal past left behind by a nation always on the move.

Cherry Days
David Leo
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2015
ISBN: 9789810964870

A coming-of-age story set in 1950s Singapore, written with photorealistic clarity. Skinny and his friends grow up in a self-sufficient kampong along an unnamed road. Reading about their lives, a distinctive character of their long-gone childhood and of Singapore emerges -- raw from a recently concluded war, alive with student riots and social movements.

Among the themes explored by the narrator is one of change, such as the transition from rural to urban living and the role of women in a developing society, as if inevitably the road must lead to it. Stories of love, death and forgiveness line the unnamed road at the heart of life in the kampong.

What's Inside the Red Box?
Phua San San
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2015
ISBN: 9789814642279

This is a story about a box that holds big dreams for a little country.

There is a man whose red box is always by his side. What's inside the red box? Three children are determined to find out.

This book is inspired by Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his red box, which he used while he was in political office. It contained his work -- papers, speech drafts, letters, readings, notes and cassette tapes with his recorded instructions.

Today, the red box has become a symbol of his unwavering passion for and dedication to Singapore.

What's Inside The Red Box? gives children a peek into the big dreams Mr Lee had for the nation.

Heart of Public Service: Our Institutions / Our People
Prime Minister's Office
Singapore: Prime Minister's Office, 2015
ISBN: 9789810946883

Heart of Public Service is a two-volume book-set that honours the institutions and officers of the Singapore Public Service. Touching on key milestones in our history, Heart of Public Service brings alive Singapore's development via 11 chapters on our institutions and 50 compelling human-interest stories. Featuring stellar archival and contemporary images, Heart of Public Service is an eloquent testament to the relentless effort to build the best Public Service for the nation.