Not a fan of parades and fireworks? We have some great Singapore book recommendations for a quiet stay-home National Day next week.
While we love our JK Rowlings and Colleen Hoovers, they could never write us a book that resonates with the Singaporean inside us. Reading about familiar places like the void deck below a HDB block or characters eating caifan out of a Styrofoam box always hits a special part of our hearts.
Most Singaporeans (of a certain generation) would recall classics like Catherine Lim’s Or Else, The Lightning God which is now a Ministry of Education Literature textbook. Other books that have enjoyed great popularity include The Teenage Textbook (and its sequel The Teenage Workbook) by the late, great Adrian Tan and the Singapore Ghost Stories series by Russell Lee.
Since National Day is near, City News has selected some novels set on our favourite sunny island. They are packed with nuance that only we, the citizens of Singapore, appreciate.
Impractical Uses Of Cake by Yeoh Jo-Ann
A grumpy, no-nonsense junior college English teacher, Sukhin Dhillon bumps into a homeless person one day and discovers she is his ex-girlfriend, Jinn, a girl from a wealthy family who has run away from home.
The story tells of how Jinn, who is voluntarily homeless, finds herself when she chooses to help others. Those suffering from persistent mid-life crises may be able to empathise with and find some peace through the characters as they learn to resolve their issues. Their struggles are so relatable because it’s exactly how many of us live in Singapore.
While the subject of homelessness is a heavy one, the author packaged it in a light-hearted, witty parcel with a dose of Singlish. As we follow Sukhin to discover Jinn’s alternative choice of life, this 2018 winner of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize reminds readers to take another look at the society we live in and remember the underprivileged living among us.
17A Keong Saik Road by Charmaine Leung
The author has written a memoir of her mother’s life growing up on Keong Saik Road. Earlier generations of Singaporeans will know Keong Saik Road as a notorious red-light district, but the only remaining structure of that era is the famous old-school style kopitiam, Tong Ah Eating House.
While the book is written somewhat like an English composition, the historical content will draw any history buff in. Charmaine’s mother was a little girl sold to a majie, a Cantonese female servant, who took over a brothel after her retirement. Charmaine’s mother hence grew up helping out in the brothel. With no education and no knowledge of the world beyond the brothel, Charmaine’s mother saw no other option but to take over the business. This book follows her life, and then little Charmaine’s, giving rare insight into life inside a brothel. There is no R21 material; rather this is a sad story of little girls who have had to grow up in that environment.
Today, Keong Saik Road is filled with hipster cafes and little shops. It’s hard to imagine the tawdry businesses that occupied those buildings just 30 or 40 years ago. This book is a gentle reminder of how Singapore has grown up over the years and how the lives of Singaporeans have improved vastly in just a few decades. Read if you’re in a nostalgic mood this National Day.
The Aunty Lee’s mystery series by Ovidia Yu
Peranakan food lovers beware! You will experience many cravings while reading these books. Rosie Lee is your typical Nonya aunty who loves to feed anyone that walks through her doors. She has built a culinary empire, Aunty Lee’s Delights, serving spicy local cuisine. Like any true blue Nonya, she is also very kaypoh and possesses the ability to sniff out trouble.
No thanks to her keen sense of curiosity, and ability to find clues Aunty Lee finds herself entangled in more crimes than is safe for anyone well into their Eldershield years. However, the feisty aunty takes it all in her strike and lures the killer in with her delectable dishes every time.
The Aunty Lee series makes for a light-hearted, entertaining read. If you love a good cosy mystery with a side of sambal, this series is definitely for you.
The Mount Emily series by Low Ying Ping
Patsy Goh is the most ordinary Secondary One student one can find at Mount Emily Girls’ School. In fact, she constantly feels inferior to her best friend Elena Tan who is pretty and popular. That quickly changes when the duo is whisked back in time and land in 1987, trapped in their mothers’ bodies.
The girls are introduced to the concept of a magic time crystal and have to race against the clock to find it in order to return home to their own bodies and era. In the rest of the books in the series, Patsy and Elena go on many more time-related adventures. The Mount Emily books are great teen fiction and make for a nice read on the train. Set in the familiar Selegie and Upper Bukit Timah areas, both in old and modern Singapore, adult readers will bask in the nostalgia of the yesteryears.
Novels For Young Readers
I recently watched a young boy (my son) fall in love with the Sherlock Sam series written by the husband-and-wife team, AJ Low, so I thought I should include it. We’re introduced to Samuel Tan Cher Lock and his robot Watson in the first book Sherlock Sam And The Missing Heirloom In Katong.
Why is the robot named Watson, you ask? When Sam was about to name his robot, his father mistakenly thought Sam was asking him a question and replied “What, son?” If your children laugh over jokes like this, they may be the next Sherlock Sam fans.
As the name suggests, Sherlock Sam and Watson are a couple of detectives who go on adventures solving mysteries with the Supper Club, made up of Sam’s sister and their classmates. In the 17 books, the young detectives solve mysteries from Katong to Bras Basah, and most recently, Taipei.
The books offer a well-paced and entertaining read, while introducing readers to different cultures and cuisines in Singapore and the other cities the Supper Club finds itself. Even grown-up kids will enjoy this series.
Some of you fearless readers might have grown up reading the Mr Midnight series by James Lee. The series was a hit in the 2000s and surprisingly, it’s just as popular today. Recently, an 8-year-old proudly told me that he has read “every single Mr Midnight in the school library”.
A cross between Goosebumps and True Singapore Ghost Stories, Mr Midnight features children’s horror in the local context. Each book features two different horror stories set in an Asia backdrop.
All the books featured are available at Kinokuniya and select book stores. You can also borrow these books or e-books from the National Library.
