The Little Singapore Book


Book Description




The Singapore Grip


Book Description

Singapore, 1939: life on the eve of World War II just isn't what it used to be for Walter Blackett, head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. No matter how forcefully the police break one strike, the natives go on strike somewhere else. His daughter keeps entangling herself with the most unsuitable beaus, while her intended match, the son of Blackett's partner, is an idealistic sympathizer with the League of Nations and a vegetarian. Business may be booming—what with the war in Europe, the Allies are desperate for rubber and helpless to resist Blackett's price-fixing and market manipulation—but something is wrong. No one suspects that the world of the British Empire, of fixed boundaries between classes and nations, is about to come to a terrible end. A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip completes the “Empire Trilogy” that began withTroubles and the Booker prize-winning Siege of Krishnapur.




West from Singapore


Book Description

He’s a two-fisted American adventurer and veteran of a hundred waterfront brawls. He’s “Ponga Jim” Mayo, and he minds his own business and leaves international intrigue to others. But, as master of his own tramp freighter, trouble seeks him out as he navigates the treacherous East Indian seas from Borneo to Singapore. Never one to back away from danger, Jim straps on his Colt automatic and takes the helm of the Semiramis, ready to battle pirates and spies, dope peddlers and gunrunners and whoever else dares to challenge his command . . . and God help the man who crosses Jim Mayo.




Hard at Work


Book Description

For most of us, work is a basic daily fact of life. But that simple fact encompasses an incredibly wide range of experiences. Hard at Work takes readers into the day-to-day work experiences of more than fifty working people in Singapore who hold jobs that run from the ordinary to the unusual: from ice cream vendors, baristas, police officers and funeral directors to academic ghostwriters, temple flower sellers, and Thai disco girl agents. Through first-person narratives based on detailed interviews, vividly augmented with color photographs, Hard at Work reminds us of the everyday labor that continually goes on around us, and that every job can reveal something interesting if we just look closely enough. It shows us too the ways inequalities of status and income are felt and internalized in this highly globalized society.




Big Panda and Tiny Dragon


Book Description

“Food for the soul.” —CBS Mornings A thought-provoking journey of companionship, courage, tenderness, and tea. Big Panda and Tiny Dragon embark on a journey through the seasons of the year together. They get lost, as many of us do. But while lost, they discover many beautiful sights they'd never have found had they gone the right way. Told through a series of beautiful drawings and quiet, sometimes silly, conversations, the panda and the dragon explore the thoughts and emotions, hardships and happiness that connect us all. In nature, they learn how to live in the moment, how to be at peace with uncertainty, and how to find the strength to overcome life's obstacles together. Inspired by Buddhist philosophy and spirituality, British author and artist James Norbury created the adventures of Big Panda and Tiny Dragon to share ideas that have helped him through difficult times. The book’s series of vignettes can be read cover to cover or dipped into whenever inspiration is needed. James hopes the book’s words and images will inspire others to pause, enjoy the stillness, and look at life in a positive new way. WORDS OF WISDOM: The seemingly simple, and often silly, conversations between Big Panda and Tiny Dragon reveal meaningful insights on friendship, inner wisdom, and self-acceptance. INSPIRING IMAGES: Depicted in bold brush strokes reminiscent of calligraphy, big, fluffy Panda and tiny, wiry Dragon journey through rolling hills, wooded forests, and blooming meadows in more than 120 elegant black-and-white and full-color scenes. FOR READERS OF ALL AGES: From youngsters at story time to new graduates with the world ahead of them to adults in moments of challenge or transition, Big Panda and Tiny Dragon offer comfort, inspiration, and a wry smile for every reader. WORK OF ART: Featuring a beautiful cover and a collection of stunning illustrations, each one more beautiful than the next, every page in this book is worthy of framing. HEARTFELT GIFT: Full of wisdom and touching humor, Big Panda and Tiny Dragon makes a thoughtful gift to be treasured.




Singapore Noir


Book Description

The dark side of The Lion City is explored in a thrilling anthology that gives “plenty of new and unfamiliar voices a chance to shine” (San Francisco Book Review). The island city-state of Singapore harbors unique customs and traditions largely unknown to the West. A booming economy and embrace of conformity overshadow its gambling dens, red-light districts, and a collective passion for ghostly and gory tales. Now, in Singapore Noir, some of its best contemporary authors delve into its seedy side, including three winners of the Singapore Literature Prize: Simon Tay (writing as Donald Tee Quee Ho), Colin Cheong, and Suchen Christine Lim, whose contribution was named a finalist for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best P.I. Short Story. Eleven more tales showcase the talents of Colin Goh, Philip Jeyaretnam, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Monica Bhide, S.J. Rozan, Lawrence Osborne, Ovidia Yu, Damon Chua, Johann S. Lee, Dave Chua, and Nury Vittachi. “Singapore, with its great wealth and great poverty existing amid ethnic, linguistic, and cultural tensions, offers fertile ground for bleak fiction . . . Tan has assembled a strong lineup of Singapore natives and knowledgeable visitors for this volume exploring the dark side of a fascinating country.” —Publishers Weekly




The Psychology of Money


Book Description

Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. Money—investing, personal finance, and business decisions—is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics.




Singapore Sapphire


Book Description

Early twentieth-century Singapore is a place where a person can disappear, and Harriet Gordon hopes to make a new life for herself there, leaving her tragic memories behind her--but murder gets in the way. Singapore, 1910--Desperate for a fresh start, Harriet Gordon finds herself living with her brother, a reverend and headmaster of a school for boys, in Singapore at the height of colonial rule. Hoping to gain some financial independence, she advertises her services as a personal secretary. It is unfortunate that she should discover her first client, Sir Oswald Newbold--explorer, mine magnate and president of the exclusive Explorers and Geographers Club--dead with a knife in his throat. When Inspector Robert Curran is put on the case, he realizes that he has an unusual witness in Harriet. Harriet's keen eye for detail and strong sense of duty interests him, as does her distrust of the police and her traumatic past, which she is at pains to keep secret from the gossips of Singapore society. When another body is dragged from the canal, Harriet feels compelled to help with the case. She and Curran are soon drawn into a murderous web of treachery and deceit and find themselves face-to-face with a ruthless cabal that has no qualms about killing again to protect its secrets.




The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse


Book Description

Streaming on Apple TV+ on Christmas Day #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER · USA TODAY BESTSELLER “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is not only a thought-provoking, discussion-worthy story, the book itself is an object of art.”- Elizabeth Egan, The New York Times From British illustrator, artist, and author Charlie Mackesy comes a journey for all ages that explores life’s universal lessons, featuring 100 color and black-and-white drawings. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole. “Kind,” said the boy. Charlie Mackesy offers inspiration and hope in uncertain times in this beautiful book, following the tale of a curious boy, a greedy mole, a wary fox and a wise horse who find themselves together in sometimes difficult terrain, sharing their greatest fears and biggest discoveries about vulnerability, kindness, hope, friendship and love. The shared adventures and important conversations between the four friends are full of life lessons that have connected with readers of all ages.




From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000


Book Description

Few gave tiny Singapore much chance of survival when independence was thrust upon it in 1965. Today the former British trading post is a thriving Asian metropolis with one of the world’s highest per capita income. The story of that transformation is told here by Singapore’s charismatic, controversial founding father Lee Kuan Yew. From Third World To First continues where the best-selling first volume, The Singapore Story, left off, and brings up to date the story of Singapore’s dramatic rise. It was first published in 2000. Delving deep into his own meticulous notes and previously unpublished papers and cabinet records, Lee details the extraordinary efforts it took for an island city-state in Southeast Asia to survive, with just “a razor’s edge” to manoeuvre in, as Albert Winsemius, Singapore’s economic advisor in the 1960s, put it.We read how a young man of 42 and his cabinet colleagues finished off the communist threat to the fledging state’s security, and began the long, hard work of building a nation: creating an army from scratch, stamping out corruption, providing mass public housing, and masterminding a national airline and airport. Lee writes frankly about his trenchant approach to political opponents and his often unorthodox views on human rights, democracy and inherited intelligence, aiming always “to be correct, not politically correct”. Nothing about Singapore escaped his watchful eye: whether choosing shrubs for roadsides, restoring the romance of historic Raffles Hotel of persuading young men to marry women as well-educated as themselves. Today’s safe, tidy Singapore certainly bears his stamp, but as he writes, “If this is a nanny state, I am proud to have fostered one.”