High Browse Online

Title: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats: A Novel Author: Jan-Phillipp Sendker Publisher: New York: Other Press [2011], c2006 Call No.: English SEN Imagine being blind, and possessing such acute hearing that you could hear heartbeats – of a yet unhatched chick, or of a loved one standing across the room. Meet Tin Win, father of [...]

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This month, I want to be self-indulgent and talk about one of my favourite kinds of books – Epic Historical Novels. Think Jean A Auel’s Earth’s Children series (starting with Clan of the Cave Bears and recently concluded with The Land of Painted Caves) and Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd. When it comes to epic tales, [...]

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The shortlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction was announced on 17 April. The Orange Prize for Fiction is an annual fiction award in the UK honouring female writers. 6 books made the shortlist. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright Half Blood Blues,Esi Esi Edugyan Painter of Silence, Georgina Harding The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller [...]

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(This is the second in two reviews on new British mysteries.) London Calling is a first novel by journalist James Craig. A body was found in a luxury London hotel room. Investigating this murder led Inspector John Carlyle of London’s Metropolitan Police to uncover the sordid ongoings in British ruling classes. Edgar Carlton, the man [...]

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This seems to be the year of Snow White with two blockbusters Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Hunstman in the cinemas. Both are based on the fairytale by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves but with their own twists and reinvention. I like reinvented fairytales, particularly those that reference contemporary [...]

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(This is the first in a series of two reviews on new British mysteries.) Compare an American to a British mystery, and one always gets a stronger sense of place in the latter. While the American detective zips around one crime scene to another in less than a sentence, the British detective will walk you [...]

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As we celebrate International Women’s Day today, an exciting piece of news was released – the longlist for the 2012 Orange Prize of Fiction has been announced! The Orange Prize for Fiction is the only award in the UK that honours only female writers. Past winners include Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife in 2011 (which [...]

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Do you know what Epistolary Fiction refers to? I didn’t know what that meant until recently. Epistolary Fiction refers to fiction written in correspondences, or letters. The eighteenth and nineteenth century saw the rise of epistolary fiction as travelling became more common and so did correspondences. Some scholars regard the Epistolary style to be exclusive [...]

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We are discussing the classic work 1984 by George Orwell. This will be our first ebook discussion for the year. Date/Time: 5.00 pm, Friday 24 February 2012 Venue: The Activity Room, Bukit Batok Public Library Author/Title: 1984 by George Orwell. Call No.: ORW Facilitator: Mr. Paul Fitzpatrick, Lecturer The free ebook version can be downloaded [...]

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Title: Please Look After Mom: a novel Author: Kyung-sook Shin Publisher: New York : A.A. Knopf, c2011 Call No.: English SIN Nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize, Please Look After Mom is a bestselling novel by Shin Kyung-sook, published in 2009, translated in 2011. The title does not shy from its emotional plot; an [...]

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