June 2015

165 286

BOOKS
165 June15
WHAT
ARE YOU
READING?
To tell us what books are piled up on your bedside table, or
what you’ve recently downloaded to your Kindle, dash off
an email to won’t take long!
Raelee
Chapman
Australian
AS THE
HEART BONES
BREAK, BY
SINGAPOREAN
AUTHOR
AUDREY CHIN
Genre?
Literary/War/Historical
How did you get hold of it?
I was sitting by the coffee cart at the Singapore
Writers Festival last year when I met Audrey by
chance. I was soembarrassed to learn that not only
was she anauthor I hadnever heardof, but that she
was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize!
I rushed straight over to the Popular stand and
bought her book. Many months later I contacted
her and asked her to attend my book club as a
special guest, which she did!
How far have you got with it?
Just finished.
What do you think of it?
I have never read another book like it. It has
a second person “you” narrative placing the
reader in the shoes of Thong Tran and following
his life in Vietnam before, during and after
America’s involvement in the war. The novel is
about divided loyalties and a crisis of identity as
Thong is influenced by three key male mentors in
his life: his adopted bourgeois father, his swamp-
fighter biological father, and his English teacher:
a journalist and communist spy.
Would you recommend it?
Yes! Forty years after
t h e V i e t n am Wa r
ended, it is amazing
to read about how
the characters’ lives
were shaped by the
war; even those in the
diaspora, like Thong’s
wife, who wasn’t there
but was nevertheless
intricately linked to in
so many ways.
Check out Raelee’s book club at
singaporeladiesasianliterarybookgroup.
In honour of World Book Day, Madanmohan
Rao sent us a host of lovely quotes on the joy
of reading. Here are our 10 favourites:
1. A writer only begins a book. A reader
finishes it. – Samuel Johnson
2. Always read something that will make you
look good if you die in the middle of it. –
P. J. O’Rourke
3. Books are the plane, and the train, and
the road. They are the destination, and the
journey. They are home. – Anna Quindlen
4. Good friends, good books, and a sleepy
conscience: this is the ideal life. – Mark
Twain
5. I find television to be very educating.
Every time somebody turns on the set, I
go in the other room and read a book. –
Groucho Marx
6. If you only read the books that everyone
else is reading, you can only think
what everyone else is thinking. – Haruki
Murakami
7. My test of a good novel is dreading to
begin the last chapter. – Thomas Helm
8. Never judge a book by its movie. – J.W.
Eagan
9. Nopersonwho can read is ever successful
at cleaning out an attic. – Ann Landers
10. So many books, so little time. – Frank Zappa
QUOTABLE
QUOTES
JULY COURSES
from ALAP, the Academy of Literary Arts
& Publishing, Singapore.
Advanced Manuscript Editing
Trainer: Shelley Kenigsberg, Director of
SK Publishing
13 July 2015, 9.30am to 5.30pm, $288.25
Managing an Editorial Project
Trainer: Shelley Kenigsberg
14 July 2015, 9.30am to 5.30pm, $329.25
Writing Textbooks
Shelley Kenigsberg
16 July 2015, 9.30am to 5.30pm, $288.25
Fiction Writing (Advanced)
Samantha de Silva, author, Director of
Firebird Communication
25 July 2015, 9.30am to 5.30pm, $73
Register at .