Singapore Shelf: Spotlight on Singapore’s society, sovereignty and more
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SINGAPORE – In this week’s Singapore Shelf, The Straits Times looks at seven books fresh off the press in both fiction and non-fiction. Buy the books at Amazon
Book review: Red Dust, White Snow struggles to balance philosophy and accessibility
Singaporean author Pan Huiting debuts with a lightly sci-fi novel, Red Dust, White Snow.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF WENJIA TANG, PAN HUITING
Red Dust, White Snow features a lightly sci-fi setting of Singapore at an undisclosed point in the future. Its philosophical musings and writing style can both attract or repel readers.
Singaporean author Pan Huiting questions the meaning of dreams and reality in her debut novel, a different venture from her usual artistic medium of paintings. Her work has been exhibited in Singapore and London.
The narrative follows an unnamed female character who seems to be more an empty vessel for ideas than a fully fledged person.
Her monotonous routine is disrupted when a mysterious device appears and transports her to an alternate universe while she sleeps. The more time she spends there, the more the narrator has to decide what reality means to her.
Poetry review: Madeleine Lee’s observations of Raffles Hotel and Ashley Koh’s skewering of teenage politics
PHOTOS: RAFFLES HOTEL, LIANHE ZAOBAO
After American travel writer Pico Iyer and New Zealand author Vicki Virtue, third time is the charm for Raffles Hotel’s writer’s residency programme as it welcomes its first Singaporean.
Madeleine Lee, 61, stayed at the hotel over several periods between October 2022 and May 2023, and completed her poetry collection How To Build A Lux Hotel in July.
The veteran author of 11 volumes of English poetry settles on the quiet and intimate in this project: Casual encounters and bite-size histories of the hotel are interspersed with flitting interactions with staff and guests, many pointedly named.
Though some may be disappointed with the lack of salacious details – and Raffles Hotel has borne witness to many private scandals – the sanitised, pristine product is befitting of the practised 136-year-old institution.
Book review: Travelogue Bugis Nights exoticises South-east Asia with little insight
Chris Stowers is the author of Bugis Nights, which follows his adventures exploring South-east Asia.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF EARNSHAW BOOKS, CHRIS STOWERS
If you thought the age of Western travelogues exploring South-east Asia’s islands was confined to the literary output of the 19th century, think again.
Chris Stowers’ Bugis Nights is subtitled “the true story of an extraordinary voyage”. It tells of this young English backpacker’s adventures in the 1980s sailing the Kurnia Ilahi – the name of a traditional Bugis perahu or sailing boat – from Maumere on Indonesia’s Flores Island through the Java Sea to Singapore.
Interspersed throughout this adventurous tale on the high seas is a romantic thread, set in Tibet, with love interest Claudia at its core.
Book review: Three non-fiction books on Singapore’s policy issues
PHOTOS: ST PRESS, NUS PRESS, ETHOS BOOKS
Last weekend, on the occasion of United States President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi, Vietnam upgraded its diplomatic ties with the US to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest of its three diplomatic levels.
This put the US in the same category as China and Russia (as well as India and South Korea) with regard to the ruling communist party of Vietnam, and incidentally proved former Singapore diplomat Bilahari Kausikan right.
One of the many insights he allows readers in his new book, Singapore Is Still Not An Island, is that the rest of South-east Asia is finally catching up to what the Republic has consistently advocated for decades. In the face of a more aggressive China, more actively engaging the US in the region will give states here more, not less, manoeuvrability.
The Straits Times’ Weekly Bestsellers Sept 16
PHOTO: HARPER PERENNIAL, WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING COMPANY INC, COURTESY OF SCHOLASTIC
This week’s bestsellers see Satoshi Yagisawa’s translated book about bookstores return to the top spot for fiction.
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