Book picks similar to
One Fierce Hour by Alfian Sa'at


poetry
singapore
singlit
singaporean-literature

In These Days of Prohibition


Caroline Bird - 2017
    As always, she is a poet of dark hilarity and telling social comment. Shifting between poetic and vulgar registers, the surreal imagery of her early work is re-deployed to venture into the badlands of the human psyche. Her poems hold their subjects in an unflinching grip, addressing faces behind the veneer, asking what it is that keeps us alive. These days of prohibition are days of intoxication and inebriation, rehab in a desert and adultery for atheists, until finally Bird edges us out of danger, ‘revving on a wish’.

Death of Dreams


Shruti Agrawal
    It is deep dive into emotions, empathy, acceptance, healing and insights into a different perspective towards life. The book embraces you in silence and stillness of thoughts. The book is an attempt to connect to souls, to reflect upon them, unbiased and together embrace a new beginning and a beautiful journey called life.

Revolution on Canvas, Volume 1 : Poetry from the Indie Music Scene


Rich Balling - 2006
    These are their words. This is their revolution.

Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs


Beth Ann Fennelly - 2017
    Ranging from childhood recollections to quirky cultural observations, these micro-memoirs build on one another to arrive at a portrait of Beth Ann Fennelly as a wife, mother, writer, and deeply original observer of life’s challenges and joys.Some pieces are wistful, some wry, and many reveal the humor buried in our everyday interactions. Heating Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs shapes a life from unexpectedly illuminating moments, and awakens us to these moments as they appear in the margins of our lives.

If I Had My Life to Live Over I Would Pick More Daisies


Sandra Martz - 1992
    Vintage softcover

Oak Creek: The Complete Small-Town Romance Series


Lainey Davis - 2020
    The four Crawford siblings might know all there is to know about their chosen careers, but they have no idea how relationships work. Growing up in a small town full of nosy neighbors, hilarious antics, and family that never butts out, you'd think they'd figure it out.Between the axe throwing, the apology chickens and competitive Scrabble, our heroes just might find true love. Eventually.This complete series features four full-length romantic comedies that will have you snorting with laughter as you follow Hunter, Diana, Archer and Fletcher Crawford up the creek with broken paddles.Can the Crawfords get their act together and figure out how to love? Dive into this steamy series (try to avoid the mating skunks) and escape with feel-good fiction.This set includes:The Nerd and the NeighborThe Botanist and the BillionaireThe Midwife and the MoneyThe Planner and the Player

Cat Poems


Elizabeth Bishop - 2018
    To poets, in particular, these enigmatic creatures are the most delightful and beguiling of muses, as they purr, prowl, hunt, play, meow, and nap, often oblivious to their so-called masters. Cat Poems offers a litter of odes to our beloved felines by some of the greatest poets of all time.

To The Women: words to live by


Donna Ashworth - 2020
    

If I'm Scared We Can't Win


Emily Berry - 2016
    Every volume brings together representative selections from the work of three poets now writing, allowing the curious reader and the seasoned lover of poetry to encounter the most exciting voices of our moment.". . . And I was grown up, with your face on,heating spice after spice to smoke out the smell of books, to burnthe taste buds off this bitten tongue, avoid ever speaking of you."- Emily Berry, 'Her Inheritance'"If you are not the free person you want to be you must find a place to tell the truth about that. To tell how things go for you."- Anne Carson, 'Candor'"I had a moment thereamong the balustradesand once that moment had expiredit graduatedfrom a moment to a life"- Sophie Collins, 'Dear No. 24601'

Nimita's Place


Akshita Nanda - 2018
    As she accepts her fate and marries, religious upheaval is splitting the country and forcing her family to find a new home.In 2014, her granddaughter, molecular biologist Nimita Sachdev, escapes India to run away from the prospect of an arranged marriage. Staking out a future in Singapore, she faces rising anger against immigrants and uncertainty about her new home.Two generations apart, these two women walk divergent paths but face the same quandaries: who are we, and what is home?

Neither Civil Nor Servant


Shing Huei Peh
    He prefers action over talk,cartoons over words and speed over due process. The maverick wasblunt, direct and not afraid to challenge the status quo, earninghim a reputation not only as one of Singapore’s most accomplishedgovernment officials, but also among its most colourful bureaucrats. Neither Civil Nor Servant captures the half a century career of theformer Economic Development Board chairman, telling the storiesof brilliant achievements almost unparalleled in the history of theSingapore civil service. Yeo was the man who turned Batam into ahousehold name in Singapore, created Jurong Island from seawaterand put the country on the biomedical map globally with its iconicBiopolis. The famous rule breaker bulldozed his way through thebureaucracy he was a part of, blazing new paths in a manner moreakin to an entrepreneur than a civil servant. In the process, he offendedmore than a few and was never afraid to challenge naysayers publicly,regardless of status and background. In the hands of acclaimed journalist and author Peh Shing Huei,this authorised biography brings out Philip Yeo the private man behindthe public figure and uncovers the behind-the-scene stories of someof Singapore’s biggest post-independence military, economic andpolitical adventures. Neither Civil Nor Servant is an engaging andenthralling book, offering fascinating insights

Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits


Michael Harter - 1993
    The prayers compiled in this unique book are gleaned from the rich tradition of Jesuit reflection on the human hunger for God.

Singapore Noir


Cheryl Lu-Lien TanSuchen Christine Lim - 2014
    Rozan, Lawrence Osborne, Suchen Christine Lim, Ovidia Yu, Damon Chua, Johann S. Lee, Dave Chua, and Nury Vittachi.From the introduction by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan:"Say Singapore to anyone and you'll likely hear one of a few words: Caning. Fines. Chewing gum.For much of the West, the narrative of Singapore--a modern Southeast Asian city-state perched on an island on the tip of the Malay Peninsula--has been marked largely by its government's strict laws and unwavering enforcement of them...As much as I understand these outside viewpoints, I have always lamented that the quirky and dark complexities of my native country's culture rarely seem to make it past its borders...Beneath its sparkling veneer is a country teeming with shadows...And its stories remain. The rich stories that attracted literary lions W. Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling to hold court at the Raffles Hotel (where the Singapore Sling was created) are still sprinkled throughout its neighborhoods. And in the following pages, you'll get the chance to discover some of them...You'll find stories from some of the best contemporary writers in Singapore--three of them winners of the Singapore Literature Prize, essentially the country's Pulitzer: Simon Tay, writing as Donald Tee Quee Ho, tells the story of a hard-boiled detective who inadvertently wends his way into the underbelly of organized crime, Colin Cheong shows us a surprising side to the country's ubiquitous cheerful 'taxi uncle,' while Suchen Christine Lim spins a wistful tale of a Chinese temple medium whose past resurges to haunt her...As for mine, I chose a setting close to my heart--the kelongs, or old fisheries on stilts, that once dotted the waters of Singapore but are gradually disappearing. I have a deep sense of romance about these kelongs, along with the many other settings, characters, nuances, and quirks that you'll see in these stories. They're intense, inky, nebulous. There is evil, sadness, a foreboding. And liars, cheaters, the valiant abound.This is a Singapore rarely explored in Western literature--until now. No Disneyland here; but there is a death penalty."

Passionate Hearts: The Poetry of Sexual Love


Wendy Maltz - 1997
    Culled from classic works of poetry, unpublished work solicited especially for the book, and poetry and erotica journals, these poems celebrate sexual connection and expression. Contributors include Sharon Olds, Gary Soto, E. E. cummings, Marge Piercy, Raymond Carver, Galway Kinnell, Pablo Neruda, and Tess Gallagher.

Singapore: A Biography


Mark R. Frost - 2009
    A sense of the physical past is consequently imited. This new work, based on research done in collaboration with curators of the National Museum, seeks to invigorate links to Singapore's past by weaving a cohesive narrative out of fragments of eyewitness accounts, correspondences and descriptions. Taking readers through the earliest Ming dynasty Chinese accounts of the island, the founding of modern Singapore, its growth as an emporium and port city, the Japanese occupation, and finally self-determination and independence, this book lets the experiences of historical individuals speak to a modern audience, allowing them to reconnect with and find meaning in the past.