Building People: Sunday Emails From a CEO (Volume 3)
Liew Mun Leong
Singapore: John Wiley, 2013
ISBN: 9781118469422

This title offers valuable insights into the life and philosophy of one of Asia's keenest and most effective business minds. Tagged by CNN as one of the twenty-five most powerful businesspeople in Asia, Liew Mun Leong, President and CEO of the Singapore-based real estate empire, CapitaLand, rose from very humble beginnings to become one of the world's wealthiest people.

Since joining the company Liew has been communicating regularly and frankly with his staff in various ways, including emails. Like the previous two volumes in his internationally acclaimed Building People: Sunday Emails from a CEO, this compilation offers fascinating and instructive insights into Liew Mun Leong's inimitable character and his management philosophy.

It delivers powerful lessons on leadership, communication, strategy, decision-making, application vs. theory, motivating people and much more. It offers fascinating glimpses into the life of a visionary leader, including his many interesting work experiences and challenges. For easy reference, the communiques are gathered under the four main categories of competition, people, corporate culture and strategy.

Sam Leong: Defining a Cultural Icon
Sam Leong & Stephen Lee
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2013
ISBN: 9789814398220

Sam Leong is one of the most forward-thinking, talked about, celebrated and controversial chefs of his generation. This entertaining and often amusing account of Sam's life and career examines his rise from troubled childhood to Modern Chinese culinary maestro and famed celebrity chef. Sam's innovations and achievements are viewed through the lens of local and international gastronomy, in order to better understand his place in Singapore's haute cuisine landscape.

Filled with fascinating insights, this biography of one man's amazing journey through food and cooking will engage not only epicureans, but anyone interested in the extraordinary culinary revolution unfolding today.

Singapore & the Silk Road of the Sea, 1300-1800
John N. Miksic
Singapore: NUS Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789971695583

Temasik, an early name for Singapore, is the first settlement in Southeast Asia mentioned in a historical source, an account prepared in 1349. Situated at the southern end of the Straits of Melaka, Temasik was a logical stopping-off point between east and west for sailing ships, which could not travel through from India to China in a single monsoon. Archaeological research in Singapore has confirmed that a 14th-century settlement existed near the mouth of the Singapore River, and excavations there have recovered large quantities of local and imported artefacts. Thanks to twenty-five years of archaeological research, combined with written accounts, scholars can reconstruct the 14th-century port of Singapore in greater detail than is possible for any other early Southeast Asian city.

Beyond the Singapore Girl: Discourses of Gender and Nation in Singapore
Chris Hudson
Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2013
ISBN: 9788776941253

The branding of Singapore International Airlines with the image of a beautiful, petite, and servile "Oriental" woman dressed in figure-hugging sarong-kebaya is one of the world's longest running and most successful advertising campaigns. But this image does not simply advertise a service; it is a part of a global and national regime of symbolic constructions of gender that today is seen as outdated and sexist, and bearing little relation to modern Singapore where women have good access to education and increased life choices resulting from engagement in the wage economy.

The failure of these campaigns and rethinking of the Singapore Girl highlight a key premise of this book: there are limits to the power of discursive constructions of gender in the national interest.

Kampong Boy
M. Ravi
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810757557

Over the last decade, M Ravi has been involved in some of the most high profile and politically sensitive constitutional cases in Singapore. He has taken a courageous stand against the mandatory death penalty; argued for the right to free assembly, freedom of expression, the right to by-election, and equal rights for members of the LGBT community. Because of his advocacy for these issues, he has come to be seen as Singapore's leading human rights lawyer, one of the few willing to battle away on these important issues.

Taking up human rights causes in the Lion City is often perceived by the authorities as an act of disloyalty, and those labelled as disloyal can see their own rights and liberties impinged upon. What are the springs of this commitment and the moral strength that have allowed Ravi to continue on this sometimes perilous path?

To answer this, Ravi takes us back to his roots in one of Singapore's few multi-racial villages, or kampongs. The lessons he learnt there – about family, cooperation with others and compassion – have infused much of his life and guided him on his path towards the pursuit of justice.

The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2013
ISBN: 9789814385282

Lee Kuan Yew played the pivotal role in Singapore's transition from British Crown Colony to independent developing nation, and on to the economically powerful and diplomatically influential city-state it is today. Throughout this surprising and at times painful journey, he has proved a charismatic and occasionally controversial leader. Lee is a conviction politician whose speeches are unambiguous, characterful and eminently quotable; this collection of almost 600 short quotations provides a compelling summary of his views on a wide range of topics from Singapore's past, present and future. In Lee's own words: "I have been accused of many things in my lfe, but not even my worst enemy has ever accused me of being afraid to speak my mind."

Tan Kah-Kee: The Making of an Overseas Chinese Legend (revised ed.)
Ching Fatt Yong
Singapore: World Scientific, 2013
ISBN: 9789814447898

This is an in-depth study of one of the most important and prominent Hua-ch'iao (Overseas Chinese) of twentieth-century Southeast Asia and China - Tan Kah-Kee (1874-1961). For a Chinese immigrant in Southeast Asia to make good is not unique, but what is unique in Tan Kah-Kee's case is his enormous contribution to employment and economic development in Singapore and Malaya. He was the only Chinese in history to have single-handedly founded a private university in Amoy and financially maintained it for sixteen years. He was the only Hua-ch'iao of his generation to have led the Chinese in Southeast Asia to help China to resist the Japanese invasion in a concerted and coordinated manner. Moreover, he was the only Hua-ch'iao leader to have played both Singapore and China politics and affairs in close quarters, rubbing shoulders with British governors, Chinese officials and commanders. Finally, it is important to point out that Tan Kah-Kee was the only Hua-ch'iao in his time to have combined his community and political power and influences for the advancement of community, regional and national goals.

This revised edition sets the scene by providing a historical background of China where he was born and Singapore where he prospered under colonial rule. It then goes on to analyse his entrepreneurship, his community and power bases, his educational investment as a strategy for nation-building, his non-partisan leadership in China politics, his contribution to the defence of Singapore in 1941 and 1942, his support for Mao Tse-Tung in the Chinese Civil War (1946-49) and his personal participation in China's nation-building programs (1950-61). While the book closely covers his career in Singapore and his final exit to China in 1950, it highlights his roots in Singapore and his numerous contributions to his adopted land in the fields of business empire building, education, philanthropy, community services, and political leadership and power. He left behind worthy legacies, some of which, such as education and "the Spirit of Tan Kah-Kee" are still being felt in Singapore and in his home province, Fukien.

Student Plays
Desmond Sim
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810756918

In veteran playwright Desmond Sim's first collection for students, food and family ground seven heartwarming plays as sons and daughters, fathers and grandmothers fight, heal and find love in the kitchen and around the dining table. This collection includes Drunken Prawns, winner of the first Hewlett Packard/Action Theatre Ten-Minute Play Contest, and other critically acclaimed plays such as Teochew Porridge and The Durian Man and His Daughters, with a foreword by Dr. K.K. Seet.

Six Plays
Desmond Sim
Singapore: Epigram Books, 2013
ISBN: 9789810756895

From one of Singapore's most garlanded playwrights comes his first collection of published plays, including Autumn Tomyam, winner of Best Original Script and Play of the Year in the 2002 DBS Life! Theatre Awards. Guaranteed to challenge readers' prejudices, Desmond Sim's Six Plays is a bold and often hilarious exploration of sexuality, polygamy and love in all its guises.