Search results for ""Penguin Random House Sea""

The future of relationships in a complicated world. As the good ship 'McCarthy' wends its way from the UK to China across troubled waters, Susan and Howard - two employees in a shipping and logistics company - establish an extraordinary friendship in cyberspace. Entrusted with ensuring the timely delivery of a valuable cargo, they discuss everything under the sun (and then some) as their relationship develops with each passing port of call.Only Connect examines the very nature of human interaction and the desperate need for connection in an increasingly fraught world in which things are not always what they might seem. The Asian leg of the ship's journey leads to a potentially catastrophic geopolitical flashpoint, as revelations are made that result in dramatic and fascinating consequences.

Read more less

Malaya, 1788: Aspiring journalist Jim Lloyd jeopardises his future in ways he never could have imagined. He risks his wealthy father’s wrath to ride the coat-tails of Captain Francis Light, an adventurer governing the East India Company’s new trading settlement on Penang. Once arrived on the island, Jim-as Light’s assistant-hopes that chronicling his employer’s achievements will propel them both to enduring fame. But the naÏve young man soon discovers that years of deception and double-dealing have strained relations between Light and Penang’s legal owner, Sultan Abdullah of Queda, almost to the point of war. Tensions mount: Pirate activity escalates, traders complain about Light’s monopolies, and inhabitants threaten to flee, fearing a battle the fledgling settlement cannot hope to win against the Malays. Jim realises that a shared obsession with renown has brought him and Light perilously close to infamy: a fate the younger man, at least, fears more than death. Yet Jim will not leave Penang because of his dedication to Light’s young son, William, and his perplexing attraction to a mercurial Dutchman. He must stay and confront his own misguided ambitions as well as help save the legacy of a man he has come to despise.Inspired by true events, Lies That Blind is a story featuring historical character Francis Light (1740-1794) who, in an effort to defy his mortality, was seemingly willing to put the lives and livelihoods of a thousand souls on Penang at risk.

Read more less

A collection of juicy tales about individuals hungering for a better life.In the terrain of untidy relationships lies an ensemble of individuals coupled or alone, each driven by desire, cravings, or folly. How To Hunger is a smorgasbord of short stories about how humans hunger— for love, lust, and loyalty—where their voracity for the ordinary and sublime consumes them to the very end.A Singapore emigrant chews over her sense of belonging. A vegetarian Western tourist finds a meatier version of Asia in a massage parlour. A young couple deepens their romance through home-cooked cuisine. A friendship between Taiwanese and Singaporeans ages over a decade like fine wine. An office worker’s submerged desires bubble over in a hotpot restaurant. A married woman is tempted by the sweet gifts of a suitor. An undertaker gets a taste of a spicy side of life. And a widower gets triggered by the scent of a curry puff.

Read more less

A decade ago, Burma was full of light and hope. Today, it has descended into darkness and despair. The once promising political and opening up of the country has been set back, possibly for a long time. How did this happen? This book will provide a timely and insightful account of the political situation in Burma, assessing why the country experienced the coup, what the implications are for the people of Burma and the Southeast Asian region, and what role the international community can play to prevent Burma becoming a failed state.

Read more less

‘An engrossing read … a testimony of Eva Wong Nava’s attention to period details and exquisite storytelling skills’- Felix Cheong, award-winning author of Sprawl: A Graphic Novel ‘A beautiful, haunting, visceral experience. You'll savour the sights, sounds and smells of pre-WW II Singapore and be mesmerized by a cast of characters as delicately layered and sumptuously rich as a delicious kueh lapis. If this book were a dish, it would deserve five Michelin Stars. Eva Wong-Nava cooks up a special tale that will be savoured by generations to come.’- Dave Seow, children’s book author of more than 45 books A SUPERNATURAL EXPOSÉ OF A PAST SYSTEM THAT STILL HAS A TIGHT GRIP ON CONTEMPORARY SINGAPORE AND MALAYSIA It's August of 1931 in Singapore, sixteen-year-old Lim Mei Mei (Ah Mei) arrives at the home of Eminent Mister Lee on the eve of the Hungry Ghost Month. She has been sold to the family as a mui tsai, an indentured servant girl. At the Lee household, Lim Mei Mei's life education begins. There she encounters the spirit of Ah Lian, a mui tsai, who paid the ultimate price for her mistake. Through Ah Lian, Ah Mei discovers the plight of mui tsai, who are both helpless and powerful, and uncovers a shameful secret lurking in the shadows in the Lee house. Ah Mei also meets and falls in love with Hassan Mohamed, an Indian-Muslim and an aspiring poet, breaking every clause in the rule book of love in 1930s British Malaya. She becomes Hassan's Polar Star, and the young lovers must find a way to stay together. Through a twist of fate, Ah Mei finds a solution that will keep her and Hassan together, at the same time gaining agency that will secure her own future as an uneducated servant girl in British Malaya.

Read more less

A coming-of-age tale of love and cultural reconnection set in modern-day Kuala Lumpur.Katie Chen, 16, lives in the unremarkable suburb of Narre Warren in Australia with her somewhat reclusive Malaysian father. Coming to Australia when she was 5 and losing her mother at 7, she has always struggled with issues of identity.One day, she goes back to Malaysia for her grandmother’s funeral and discovers that her mother – long-thought-dead – is alive. Set in a fictionalised Kuala Lumpur (KL), Katie struggles to reconnect with her mother whom she discovers is Malay.Navigating KL’s underground music scene and the underlying tensions of a country she doesn’t understand, how far is Katie willing to go to find a place to belong?

Read more less

It’s not where you start, it’s how you move forward with purpose. Learn, unlearn, relearn the A-Z’s of life to move towards your goals and a more purposeful life.Let’s face it. Achieving what we set out to do can be one of life’s greatest challenges. From botched New Years’resolutions to dreams and aspirations that never came to be, setbacks are a common albeit discouraging or disheartening occurrence in our lives. However, as many often say, the road to success is paved with failures. With the right knowledge and some inspiration, anyone can turn things around and savour success in a quicker and easier manner.You Don’t Suck explores the realities of what it takes to achieve one’s goals and lead a more purposeful life. It introduces readers to three general phases in their journey to success—setting up, sustaining and reflecting—and guides them through:•timeless truths•unconventional perspectives•well-known studies•light-hearted and serious examples•personal and second-hand anecdotes•practical approaches and advice•simple wisdom for thought

Read more less

Phoebe Wong would do anything to escape a British winter. But it may cost her more than her airfare. Sunsets, tacos and margaritas all sound perfect to exhausted forty-three-year-old single mum Phoebe with a dead-end job in Southwark. When her long-distance boyfriend in New York invites her to meet him in Florida, she couldn't wait to jump on a plane with her toddler. Arriving with her teething child at her boyfriend's Key West 'vacay home' before him, she is robbed on her first night. With no money, cards or passports, she is grateful for the support of friendly locals. At a BBQ, she meets an old expat British businessman. Her boyfriend arrives eventually, apologetic, and takes her out to a posh seafood dinner. But when the British expat is shot that night in the same restaurant's car park, Phoebe is trapped in a put-up job, and her boyfriend's delayed arrival is suspiciously timed. If this place has turned darker and chillier than London, she wants out.Will she be able to pull herself and her daughter away from danger? Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Jennifer Hillier and Colleen Hoover. Dive in and start your adventure now.

Read more less

We are going to help him die Cassie", Shantavi told me that afternoon, over steaming cups of soy milk latte, as casually as if announcing a gardening project. Cassie was an international student at Harvard, the most prestigious university in the world. She was shy and observant, yet underneath her quiet disposition was a desire to experience the world to the fullest, beyond her traditional boundaries and limitations. One fateful night at the university campus, a free-spirited, daredevil student from the extension school named Shantavi came into her life and they became fast friends over the next four years. In the spring semester of Cassie’s senior year, Shantavi disclosed to her that she was looking for a partner-in-crime to consort with a wealthy elderly benefactor who planned to kill himself in a year’s time. In exchange for companionship and assistance in the suicide process, they would inherit all his assets and properties after his death.Thus began the premise for a thrillingly seductive spiral down a rabbit hole over the spring break in Florida, where Cassie inevitably had to cross a point of no return.

Read more less

Not your typical business-autobiography-‘I’ve made it in life’ book I started a blog. I borrowed USD 16,000. And now, I’ve built a multimillion dollar fashion company, garnered 1.8 million followers on Instagram and managed to squeeze in time to get married and give birth to not one, but four children.Perfect for young entrepreneurs, this book shares the secrets of my entrepreneurial journey so far—from starting a business with my boyfriend (telling my dad sure was fun), to fundraising, to managing a team of 400 people, to dealing with the good and bad of social media, and to pretending to nod when my tech team talks about cookies.I share my proud wins for you to get inspired by, and my juicy failures for you to eat popcorn to. Always a work in progress, my story is unfinished.But for now, allow me to present to you, The First Decade.

Read more less

A nation is exiled from itself to prison; a nation is re-awakened through the storytelling of its origins; understand Indonesia through Pramoedya’s books In 1981, a new company, Hasta Mitra, founded by three men just released from over a decade in prison, published a novel written in a prison camp by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The novel was This Earth of Mankind. It told the story of the early gestation of the Indonesian national awakening. The dictatorship eventually banned it after several months of tactical struggle by the three men, Pramoedya himself and the fighters of Hasta Mitra, Joeoef Isak and Hasyim Rachman. In defiance of the dictatorship, they went on to publish the three sequels to This Earth of Mankind, each time followed by another battle and then a ban.

Read more less

Nuanced portraits of the lives of Chinese-Indian couples adn struggles to cope within a polarised world. Humourous and heart-breaking while demonstrating love's power to transform society. You shouldn’t be with a Chinese girl… that should be my girl’, a man in Singapore allegedly said this to a Chinese-Indian couple as he spat towards them. In a world brimming with such prejudice and cultural tensions, a remarkable phenomenon emerges - nearly one in five marriages in the US and in Singapore are now interracial. This book explores this phenomenon through real stories of Indian-Chinese relationships, delving into the love and turmoil in such lives, where cultural boundaries are shattered and hearts are forged against all odds.

Read more less

This book helps you transform your most embarrassing characteristics into your greatest secrets for success.When you’re born into this world, you aren’t born knowing you are different, till someone points it out. And makes a bigger deal of it than he or she needs to. Uma Rudd Chia was different for a few reasons. She had clinical ADHD which was only diagnosed when she was sixteen, because of a tragedy—but even when she found out, she desperately tried to keep it a secret because there was no worse crime than being different. The reality is we are all different. But we live in a society and go through an education system that defines what normal looks like. This may prepare you to be an obedient memberof society—one that’s predictable and easy to control. But does it make you the best version of you?

Read more less

Generations of prolonged drought and hunger have allowed the harsher voices of the Zarda tribe to set edicts of discrimination against their fair skin members. Ghar, a dark skin cave painter and Dun, his fair skin brother, push back on this discrimination to ensure that Dun and the fair skins can take part in the Hunter's Walk, a Zardan rite of passage. When a fair skin is caught defying the ban on hunting, the fair skins are expelled from the tribe. Ghar has trouble coming to terms with the expulsion, and eventually he himself is cast out. After a giant wolf attack leaves him close to death, he is saved by Mai, a healer from the Khamma tribe. A new unseen kind of storm hits the Khamma. Ghar and Mai try to prepare their tribe for the new challenges the storm brings, but the same forces that mislead the Zarda now grow in the Khamma. Can Ghar and Mai push back on tribalism and exclusion by being inclusive and willing to take on 'foreign' ideas? Will Ghar ever meet Dun and the fair skins again? Will they ever complete the Hunter's Walk?,

Read more less

How far would you go to visit that place in your head?All Gemma Young remembers of her childhood are her regular visits to the idyllic, imaginary Neverland before her mother fell sick.When Gemma meets Cole, a disenchanted boy who stirs up more than just memories of her adventures in Neverland, she begins to piece together her half forgotten childhood: her mother sick with longing for Neverland, the accident that ripped her family apart, and her father who abandoned her when she was a child.But now, Gemma’s near-obsessive quest to find her father sends her spiralling deeper into Neverland just like her mother had. As the boundaries blur between the real world and Neverland, Gemma must sift through fact and fiction, discern between truth and make-believe, to find out what happened to her mother and rebuild a new life with her father.

Read more less

A heart-wrenchingly honest chronicle of an introverted gamer geek who tries to win his best friend’s heart but is forced to rethink his game plan when a new challenger steps into the ring Eighteen-year-old Nathaniel Carpio has been having chicken inasal with his best friend Elena Dizon at their favourite sidewalk grillery for four years now, but when Lena whips out a silly ‘six-peso coin’ to comfort him on a bad day, Nat realizes that he’s fallen in love with her.Eager to spend the rest of his life with Lena, lovesick Nat believes they should both apply to the college program held by the developers of their favourite real-time strategy game, Mitolohiya. But just when his game plan is coming along nicely, in pops a new challenger - Rafael Antonio, the world-renowned Filipino voice actor for the hero Apolaki in the game. Now, star-struck Lena spends all her time bonding with her online idol and Nat starts to feel more and more like a boring NPC.With his future hanging in the balance, Nat embarks on an epic quest to compete with the celebrity in a real-world PvP match he’s not ready for.

Read more less

Get a gripping glimpse into the therapy room and most powerful boardrooms in Asia in this first ever self-help collection of essays by an expatriate therapist from New York City. In more than a decade as a psychotherapist to some of Asia’s most powerful couples and business people, expat New Yorker Allison Heiliczer has seen it all.From toxic offices and complex relationships, boardroom power and bedroom failure, doomed marriages and ill-advised affairs, workaholism, loneliness, lies; these are struggles more common than many of us care to admit. Heiliczer lays them all bare through the prism of culture and is expert in understanding what makes those embroiled in them tick.

Read more less

Radical Islam is an enduring global challenge that presents a national and international security threat. Instigation by hate preachers, inadequate government, societal attention, religious and reciprocal radicalization have allowed this threat to manifest into terrorist violence. Extremist ideologies have infiltrated religious, educational, and digital spaces and thus, terrorism’s shadow continues to shroud the safety and stability of countries and communities worldwide today.On 21 April 2019, the world’s most dangerous threat movement, the Islamic State, mounted one of its deadliest attacks in Sri Lanka. The surge of fear, suspicion, and prejudice following what is now known as ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Massacre’ fragmented the country, imbuing hatred and anger against the Muslim community. Years later, the radicalization pipeline remains intact, and the threat persists. With the global expansion of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, will the world witness attacks of a similar or greater scale in the future?Equal parts treatise and reference material, this book answers this question by tracing the genesis, threat trajectory, and aftermath of the bombings and the personalities behind them. With unprecedented access to accounts from Islamic State detainees, affected families, intelligence specialists, and investigators, the book reflects on lessons learned and provides insight into how such attacks are organized and what measures can be taken to prevent or respond to these threats effectively.

Read more less

As a British teenager, I meet a beautiful Burmese girl on the school bus. Her family self-exiled in 1964, soon after the military coup, to start a new life in England. My fascination is fired for this far-off land.How did Burma, with such a regal past, swathed in natural beauty and populated by a people of unmistakable poise and serenity slide into repression and obscurity? How can the up-beat memories of April's parents be reconciled with Myanmar's current malaise?Over 16 years I recorded the oral history, anecdotes and reminiscences of her family who were eye witnesses to momentous events in mid-century Burma. These together with more recent conversations - with Aung San Suu Kyi and a range of Burmese millennials - provide a unique portrait of Myanmar stretching back to April's great, great grandfather in 1852.For all the woes of this country, whispers of hope can be heard.

Read more less

DISCOVER THE WONDERS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA THROUGH ARTExploring Southeast Asia with Anita Magsaysay-Ho focuses on the Filipina artist who was part of a group of artists known as the Thirteen Moderns in the Philippines. She was the only woman in the group. Magsaysay-Ho is a Social Realist painter who documented the life and culture of the Philippines in the early 20th century. Through her art, the story will take readers through the history of the Philippines and how women formed a large part of the labour force. The story invites young readers to examine the life of a female artist, the constraints as well as the liberty of being the only woman in a group of renowned male artists.

Read more less

When the prophesied hero dies one day before the world needs saving, 13 year-old Julian Kee is randomly chosen as a last-minute replacement. With absolutely no world-saving skills whatsoever, he must nonetheless lead his friends into the Underworld to retrieve a magical rock that can save their world. The problem is that the ruling council of the Underworld objects to their quest, and the rock can only be obtained by passing through a series of terrible trials, including navigating an unsolvable maze, enduring unspeakable tortures in the dungeons of the council’s citadel, and facing a really cute bunny. And is the Underworlder who cheerfully volunteers to risk her life to help them simply a girl with a very kind, selfless heart, or is she really a spy for the council?A fast-paced adventure filled with lots of exciting twists and turns, this hilarious spoof of adventure/hero stories will be enjoyed by both the young and the not-so-young!

Read more less

Explore the most widespread myths concerning women in the workplace, then dismantle them with facts, arguments, logic, and tactics. Every organization has stories about women in the workplace that live on through constant retelling: ‘Women are too emotional’; ‘ Women are not interested in a career’; and ‘We are hiring the best person for the job, regardless of gender’. We need to dispel these myths that are keeping women on a lesser footing. Here are the tools for doing just that. This book will shatter ongoing workplace gender myths. Narratives provides context for these stories and offers women— and men— the powerful arguments and tools they need to counteract them and ensure a fairer and more competitive workplace— and a better business overall.

Read more less

In Song Dynasty China, a young servant of a magistrate searches for the killers of a mentally-disabled boy shunned by the community. A mentally-disabled boy is found dead in a small town. All signs point to his mother, a poor and ailing widow, as the one who caused his death. But as Liu Yong, the lowly attendant of the magistrate, delves deeper, he finds that things may not be what they seem. The young man’s investigations take him to the unfamiliar territory of the Capital, where he must contend with naked prejudice, bent officials and powerful foes. For help, Yong turns to the enigmatic Beggars’ Sect, a network comprising street people of variable character: good and bad, righteous and criminal. There is little room for error. One wrong step could bring failure, or worse. In a strict, hierarchical society, Yong needs to dig deep to find the truth against the odds and, in the process, discover his own worth.

Read more less

The foundation of great leadership is kindness The world needs leaders who have the strength to be kind. The Return on Kindness challenges companies to set a higher bar and reimagine what great leadership looks like. Kindness isn’t what you think it is. Kind leaders, far from being soft or weak, are caring and tough. The Return on Kindness makes a compelling, evidence-based case for why kind leadership is good for business and how kind leaders create value through prioritizing the mental health and wellbeing of their people. Bonnie Hayden Cheng, organizational psychologist, researcher, and consultant to Fortune 500 companies, combines extensive research, storytelling, and in-depth interviews with influential executives across a wide range of industries to reveal the transformative power of kindness in driving business success. The Return on Kindness provides a simple but impactful RISE framework to inspire kind leadership, accompanied by practical touchpoints for successfully implementing kind leadership in organizations.

Read more less

Unlocking the unspoken stories of the traumatized self and inviting a shift towards compassion and healing'Why am I like this?' If you've asked this question to yourself quietly time and again... get ready to unpack and process like never before. Embark on a textured journey that will illuminate the hidden, unspoken and often unconscious experiences of the traumatized self. Chapter by chapter, you'll make sense of your emotions, body, nervous system and relationships.Through concept, vulnerable story-telling and self-inquiry, author Natalia Rachel ignites a shift towards self-compassion and the dissolving of shame. Like the brilliant formations of a kaleidoscope, your awareness will continue to morph, crystalize and clarify until you make the utmost sense. Natalia's life journey as a patient turned therapist opens an incredibly special doorway to trauma recovery, healing and post-traumatic growth.

Read more less

A story of two young Peranakans growing up and falling in love in pre-war colonial SingaporeInspired by a true story, Showers of Luck follows the life of two characters, Lily and Khalid. Lily is a hard-working young nyonya who stays with a distant aunt’s family, following the advice of a fortune-teller that she should be given away after birth. She develops a crush on her handsome Muslim neighbour, Khalid, who is trying to fulfil his filial duties to his estranged parents and to do his best for the upcoming Senior Cambridge Examinations. Spanning a period of two years in pre-war Singapore, against the backdrop of a world preparing to go to war, Lily and Khalid’s paths intersect time and again. Consumed by their desires, the couple navigate societal judgment and challenge familial expectations in a brave attempt to start a new life together.

Read more less

Stories that showcase a uniquely human connection to hitherto undocumented lives of migrant workers in Asia—some shocking, some redeeming, yet all very realA domestic worker from the Philippines runs away from her husband who’s set out to kill her. A mine-blaster looks at his X-ray scan to realize that all he has earned from his sixteen years of work is a catalogue of chronic diseases. An undocumented factory worker in Malaysia takes refuge in the wild to escape from the police. A construction worker in India is abducted and sold as a bride to a stranger. Migrant sex workers in Thailand scrimp to stretch their vanishing savings, having lost all their customers due to COVID-19. A cleaner from China struggles to cope with the cultural oddities while working in an Indian restaurant. Domestic workers in Singapore lament the hopelessness of finding love in a foreign land. A landscaper tries to rebuild his life with a reconstructed ‘alien’ face after he suffers a massive explosion. A project engineer who once hated his native village, now plants trees to preserve its nature.

Read more less

My boots-on-the-ground work to fight human trafficking throughout Asia.There are more slaves in the world today than any other time in history.Enter the world of human trafficking and explore what we can do together to end this global crime. Where Were You?: A Profile of Modern Slavery by Matthew Friedman provides an up-to-date overview of human trafficking, a largely ignored present-day evil, and recounts true stories of enslavement in Asia today. Former United Nations and USAID expert Matthew Friedman obtained in-depth first-hand knowledge with boots-on-the-ground work over 30 years throughout Asia. Human trafficking exists in nearly every nation on earth and Friedman has personally interviewed hundreds of freed slaves and imprisoned traffickers throughout South and Southeast Asia.The modern slave trade operates in brothels, fisheries, clothing and chocolate industries, as well as a myriad of other manufacturing jobs and is a billion dollar business that continues to grow unchecked.Even with the collective response of governments, the UN and civil society partners, less than 0.2 percent of the victims are assisted.

Read more less

What happens when one goes from obscurity to celebrity, overnight?Thirty-year-old Arya Alvarez is a travel manager at Isle Z, a luxury travel company in Singapore where she creates bespoke trips for celebrities and influencers. Discretion is her specialty at work and personal life: Few people know that she’s fled her home city, Manila, to get away from the scene of a devastating break-up.When she travels to Svaneti, in the Republic of Georgia, Arya briefly encounters the mysterious Dave in a remote village high up the Caucasus mountains. Intrigued, she posts his photos on Instagram—which goes viral the very next day. Turns out, Dave is Davit Nadibaidze, a famous yet reclusive artist who’d retreated from the public five years ago and Arya is the first person to see him since he disappeared.In less than twenty-four hours, Arya gains hundreds of thousands of followers. She’s deluged with invitations to talk shows, influencer parties, and celebrity junkets, all as her social media apps overflow with DMs, tags, and comments, both nice and nasty. Men are suddenly vying for her attention, including her ex, Jake.

Read more less

Life and leadership lessons from an Asian perspective, based on the career of a man who has risen to the top of the Western corporate ladder and left it all behind to start something new Chris Lee had a cushy role. For a decade, he led the Asia-Pacific division of Medtronic, a multibillion dollar business and one of the world's largest manufacturers of medical devices, and consistently produced excellent business outcomes. Then, at fifty-six, he threw all of that away to start VentureBlick, an international fundraising platform matching healthcare startups and medical investors. Why did Lee do that? Lee takes us through his journey as one of the youngest Asian leaders in an MNC (youngest director in Merck at age twenty-seven, youngest country manager at thirty, first Asia-Pacific leader reporting to Bayer HQ at thirty-nine), how he brought Asian leadership sensibilities into multiple global companies, and reveals why he believes it's important for corporate leaders to adopt an Asian le

Read more less

A collection of personal essays about growing up and becoming a father. From the landscapes of the Philippine countrysides to the fringes and streetways of ManilaIn within these ten personal essays: a father confesses in gripping narratives his coming of age without a father, of working at an early age, of finding love in hopeless places, of losing a son to leukemia, and of accepting the language of pain.In Six Saturdays of Beyblade & Other Essays, bestselling author Ferdinand Pisigan Jarin brings us back to memories of being a tennis ball picker in a lavish country club, of achieving his dreams as the smallest member of a countryside marching band, and of drinking Michael Jordan and Olajuwon as breakfast juice inside a walk-in freezer with fellow service crew members.He also introduces us to his exes and lost first loves. He lends us a list of his fist fights, those he knocked down during drinking sessions or brawls, his antics in the field of love, and the truth behind escaping the convent. Sometimes he is a son, sometimes a father, and sometimes a friend who vividly shares without beating around the bush.

Read more less

"I'd travel with Mami Suzuki anywhere in Japan." —Naomi Hirahara, author, Clark and Division Single mother and straight-talking private eye Mami Suzuki takes cases the Kobe police have little time for and proves that quick wits and compassion solve mysteries faster. Beneath the sheen of its orderly streets and obedient populace, all is not well in the port city of Kobe. Business is as brisk as the Haru-ichiban spring breeze for Mami Suzuki, a hotel clerk by day, a private investigator by night. Who's stealing from Japan's biggest pearl trader? Where's the master sushi chef and why are his knives missing? How did the tea ceremony teacher's brother really die? And what does an island of cats have to do with a pregnant Shinto shrine maiden? From Kobe wharves to the rugged Japan Sea coast, the subtropics of Okinawa, and a remote island community in the Seto Inland Sea, each new adventure ends with a universal truth-that there are two sides to every story of misfortune.

Read more less

A scintillating futurist sprawl through and within the Southeast Asian ecological apocalypse of the year 2050Destination: SEA 2050 A.D. is the first Southeast Asian fiction anthology that imagines—based on scientific projections—the world of the year 2050, the same year when ninety per cent of the planet’s coral reefs are expected to decline, when plastic is found inside ninety-nine per cent of all the world’s seabirds, when there is severe water shortage in Asia, when growth in the world’s populations stops, and when the elderly outnumber children in most places on Earth. Short stories and graphic narratives from Duanwad Pimwana, Vincent Lapuz, Sokunthary Svay, Mui Poopoksakul, Kathrina Mohd Daud, Tunku Halim, Rio Johan, Tr?n Th? NgH, Paul Christiansen, Nguy?n L m Th?o Thi, Julius Villanueva, Edgar Calabia Samar, Francezca Kwe, Bryan Thao Worra—a veritable literary supergroup from all over Southeast Asia and with each story painstakingly annotated—will paint a vivid, often disquieting but at times hopeful, vision of an environmental futurist spread.

Read more less

The first of the Das Sisters Mystery Series finds Inspector Dolly Das of the Singapore CID and her sister, Lily, on the trail of a cold-blooded murderer in the Singapore heartland. It is 2009.On a dark, hazy December night, Mary Jacob's dead body is found at Silver Springs Condominium in the Singapore heartland. Is it a suicide, or did someone push Mary out of her kitchen window? Forensics investigation points tomurder.Inspector Dolly Das of the Singapore CID is assigned to the case. Multiple suspects have means and motives for murdering Mary, ranging from her estranged husband to her neighbours. When two more murders occur, pressuremounts on Dolly putting her job at risk. Desperately, she turns to her sister, Lily, for help in solving the murders. Lily runs a café and minimart at Silver Springs Condominium, placing her in a good position to gain information that the police cannot access. Supported by Uma, their sharp-tongued 78-year-old mother, Lily's assistant, Vernon, his girlfriend, Angie, and Lily's domestic helper, Girlie, the Das Sisters team up to solve the murders.What will Lily do when she finds herself drawn to one of the chief suspects?

Read more less

The Elephant Trophy and Other Stories is a collection of 18 slice-of-life short stories featuring nuanced and diverse depictions of the Indian community in Malaysia. The overall theme of this collection echoes the outer and inner demons that possess the Malaysian Indian community. Specifically, the stories dictate the outlook of their lives as both Indians and Malaysians. The collection covers themes such as socio-politics, socio-economic imbalance, gender issues, social class juxtaposed to community values.

Read more less

A compelling story of friendship that starts in a university dormitory and stretches over time and across continents as each roommate chases her unique destinyRoom 216 is about four strong female characters and their complex experiences. It tells the story of university roommates, each with a unique motivation and struggle. After graduation, Sandy, Tintin, Serene, and Issa embark on separate journeys that take them to different parts of the world. Over time and across continents, the roommates chase their respective destiniessome pursuits end in triumph, while others in unbearable loss.

Read more less