FICTION

IMPRACTICAL USES OF CAKE

By Yeoh Jo-Ann

Epigram Books/Paperback/234 pages/ $24.90/Major bookstores, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop and shop.epigrambooks.sg

Sukhin is 35. He hates his teaching job. He spends lunch breaks hiding in his office from his colleagues. One day, an errand in Chinatown brings him into contact with his ex-girlfriend, who is now living on the streets in a house made of cardboard boxes. Yeoh's debut novel, which won last year's Epigram Books Fiction Prize, is a wry take on the mid-life crisis and the cracks in Singapore society.

THE MOVIE THAT NO ONE SAW

By May Seah

Epigram Books/Paperback/150 pages/ $24.90/Major bookstores, Huggs-Epigram Coffee Bookshop and shop.epigrambooks.sg

Adjonis Keh (the "d" is silent) is a successful actor with a dark secret: He cannot actually act. He has succeeded so far in fooling the world, but his undoing might be an inquisitive young journalist with whom he strikes up an unexpected friendship.

Seah, a journalist herself, was a finalist for last year's Epigram Books Fiction Prize.

NON-FICTION

A BRITISH SERIAL KILLER IN SINGAPORE

By Tan Ooi Boon

Straits Times Press/Paperback/ 215 pages/$26.75/Major bookstores

The gruesome tale of serial killer John Martin Scripps returns in a stark new edition. Tan, who covered the case as a crime reporter in 1995, details how Martin posed as a tourist to murder holidaymakers and how he was finally apprehended by the Singapore Police Force.

CHILDREN'S

THE YUMMIEST CUPCAKE

By Leila Boukarim, illustrated by Barbara Moxham

Marshall Cavendish/Hardcover/ 16 pages/$13.86/Major bookstores

Little Alex loves to bake cupcakes of many different flavours, but he is only ever allowed to eat one.