The most recommended books about Singapore

I definitely had travel on the brain this year. The Singapore Stunt delivered! I was instantly pulled into the story and found myself rooting for both characters.

I highly recommend this one if you are looking for adventure, lovable characters, and a feel-good story. This satisfying and snappy book is the perfect weekend read.

Even before Archibald Edmund Filby embarked on his famous African expeditions, he took advantage of a government-sponsored scheme to migrate to Australia. It was 1921 and his daredevil nature soon had him performing reckless feats as a buckjumper in a popular circus rodeo. Whilst trekking through this vast continent, he embraced the opportunity to become a jockey, photographer, actor, pilot, car salesman, and pearl diver.

Not only was A E Filby a famous British explorer, but he was also my Uncle Archie. What a shame he never saw his memoirs published before his death in 1942.

Would you like to know how it feels to be a celebrated star trader, while you’re actually hiding a secret and illegal loss of hundreds of millions of dollars? Rogue Trader is a stomach-turning account of how far someone might go to fit in and avoid being seen as a failure. This is a true story of how Leeson hid a small loss rather than admitting a mistake, and how that small loss grew into the secret 800 million dollar loss account which brought down one of the world’s oldest banks. 

In a world where the old school tie and family pedigree are paramount, maintaining the image of a successful star trader was his only way of fitting in, and with the substantial paper profits he posted, no one wanted to question him. Not until it was too late to save the bank. 

I love how this novel veers between the comic (the preening self-importance of a British family that runs a trading company) and the tragic (death and mayhem as Japanese troops set Singapore on fire in 1942). Father cynically manipulates markets; daughter carries on with unsuitable men; approved suitor arrives from Europe to reveal himself as an idealist who spouts praise for the League of Nations. You’ll learn a thing or two about how colonial companies of the time built enormous wealth by squeezing it from impoverished plantation workers, and how the war turned everything upside down.

Since my own novel is set partly in post-war England, I was drawn to Ondaatje’s Warlight, which begins in 1945 London as the city is recovering from brutal bombing. Another hook for me was the youthful characters; my book is also populated with war-confused children. Ondaatje’s narrator, 14-year-old Nathaniel, recalls his youth with the benefit of adult wisdom. He and his sister Rachel are abandoned by their parents to the care of some eccentric and slightly dangerous characters. Their teen years are marked by many mysterious events and experiences, only beginning to clarify in retrospect. Do we ever know what’s really happening?

I first met Peter when he attended my training in Singapore.

As a surgeon he had become frustrated at the limits of medical solutions and wanted a more holistic approach. Delighted with the results of the past life regression therapy he started a small practice in hospital and gave talks to other hospital staff about his amazing results. One day he was approached by one of the psychiatrists and told to stop as it was his area of expertise. Peter gave him a copy of this book and was never bothered again.

What I like about the book is the description the amazing transformational journey of a young nurse who had depression, insomnia, dissociative amnesia, suicidal thoughts, auditory hallucinations, and flashbacks. It shows when a traditional medical approach does not work how past life regression therapy can help.

The story of women trafficked into military brothels is one of the untold histories of war, as is the use of rape as a military weapon. The victims were often too ashamed of their wartime experiences, or too frightened of being accused of collaboration to speak out and as a result, the women’s voices and their traumas are silenced. Jing Jing Lee’s novel is about one such moment – that of Chinese women in Singapore forced to work as prostitutes for the Japanese soldiers. It is a masterpiece of storytelling. Evocative and heart rending, it tells of one woman’s survival and the quest of a child to solve a family mystery. It is beautifully written, exquisitely crafted, utterly compelling.

James Clavell’s first book, King Rat, is the story of allied servicemen trapped by the Japanese in Singapore at the beginning of World War II and held captive for the duration in the infamous Changi prison. The captured consisted of some 10,000 men made up of a British regiment, a few Australian companies, and one small American platoon. After three years of brutal, virtually starvation conditions even the British Commanding General was reduced to a uniform of nothing more than rags. Only one prisoner, an American Corporal, had lost no weight, wore a freshly pressed uniform and spit-shined shoes every day. With physical courage and an understanding of human weaknesses and breaking points he dominated all the other prisoners and many of the guards as well. When the camp was liberated he was the only man among the survivors who left without one friend. Why? The key to both his… show more.

When I visited Asian countries of China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, food was always a highlight. But what also stood out for me was the social nature of eating. I was also struck by the simple gestures of people that indicated politeness and respect. We might think of culture as influencing behavior, but this book argues that culture can penetrate our thinking.

Nisbett contrasts how eastern and western cultures think differently about context, the individual vs. the group, and our relationship to the environment, among other differences.

In our age of the Internet, cultural differences on the surface may be eroding globally but there may be deeper influences of culture on thought that are harder to erase.

This is what I said when Singapore Unbound invited me to nominate my personal Book of the Year on their blog, Suspect: “Rachel Heng's The Great Reclamation is a novel that thoroughly deserves the moniker of the Great Singapore Novel.”

And I mean it: I’m hardly patriotic, so trust me when I say that I was totally swept away with its vision, its heart, its loving attention to detail. Here, the only parallel realities that split our lovers apart are the sides of history they’ve chosen to occupy.