POETRY
AN EPIC OF DURABLE DEPARTURES
By Jason Wee
Math Paper Press/ Paperback/ 85 pages/ $16 before GST/ BooksActually
Wee, an artist who made his poetry debut in 2013 with The Monsters Between Us, opens with obituaries and ends with beginnings in this restrained, elegiac collection of haiku-based poems, in which he tries to come to terms with the Parkinson's disease of his friend, artist and Cultural Medallion recipient Lee Wen.
ANIMA METHODI: THE POETICS OF MIRRORING
Edited by Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde and Eric Tinsay Valles
Squircle Line Press/ Paperback/ 184 pages/ $17.12/ Books Kinokuniya, selectbooks.com.sg and localbooks.sg
More than 70 poets try their hand at the anima methodi ("spirit of the method" in Latin), a 16-line form invented by poets Kon and Valles, which has two mirroring stanzas, with the last line of the first stanza moving seamlessly across the break into the first line of the second stanza.
FICTION
THE GODS WILL HEAR US EVENTUALLY
By Jinny Koh
Ethos Books/ Paperback/ 292 pages/ $19.90/ Books Kinokuniya, selected Times bookstores, Grassroots Book Room and ethosbooks.com.sg
When seven-year-old Anna plays a prank on her older sister Angie, Angie goes missing. Koh's debut novel traces the slow dissolution of a family in the wake of tragedy, as Anna's mother Su Lai places her hopes for finding Angie in the hands of a medium while Anna is stricken with guilt.
NON-FICTION
LOST AT 15, FOUND AT 50
By Ashwini Devare
Marshall Cavendish/ Paperback/ 256 pages/ $23.01/ Books Kinokuniya, Times and localbooks.sg
Singapore-based journalist and author Devare, whose 2014 short story collection Batik Rain was longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, writes her globetrotting memoir, which moves from her childhood in Moscow during the Cold War to attending military college in South Korea and reporting on crime in the United States.
CHILDREN'S
PRINCESS INCOGNITO: A ROYAL PAIN IN THE CLASS
By Neil Humphreys
Marshall Cavendish/ Paperback/ 184 pages/ $14.95 before GST/ Major bookstores
The first instalment of a new children's series by Singapore-based humorist Humphreys features Sabrina Valence, a young princess who is exiled to a working-class town to avoid a political mess at home. Now she must adjust to life on a housing estate and survive the school bully.
THE ONE AND ONLY INUKA
By Alan John and Quek Hong Shin
Straits Times Press/ Paperback/ 36 pages/ $16/ Major bookstores
This picture book commemorates Inuka, the first polar bear born in the tropics, beloved by many Singaporeans, who died earlier this year.
ONCE UPON A SINGAPORE... TRADERS
By Tina Sim and Alan Bay
Asiapac Books/ Paperback/ 144 pages/ $17.01/ Major bookstores
In this lively heritage comic, Aloysius and his grandfather are transported from the modern day to 1900s Singapore, where they meet the people who practised vanishing trades such as cinema-on-wheels operators, kite-makers and kacang puteh sellers.
FREDDY THE EAGER FUNDRAISER
By Swapnil Mishra and Lai Hui Li
Epigram Books/ Paperback/ 156 pages/$13.80/ Major bookstores
When 10-year-old Freddy learns about the Nepal earthquake, he decides to put football playing aside to raise funds for the Singapore Red Cross, but his plans fall through.
