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The Book of Jakarta (Reading the City)

The Book of Jakarta (Reading the City)
  • Author(s): Maesy Ang (Editor), Teddy W Kusuma (Editor)
  • Location(s): Jakarta (Batavia)
  • Genre(s): Short Stories
  • Era(s): Contemporary

A young woman takes a driverless taxi through the streets of Jakarta, only to discover that the destination she is hurtling towards is now entirely submerged… A group of elderly women visit a famous amusement park for one last...

The Great Reclamation

The Great Reclamation
  • Author(s): Rachel Heng
  • Location(s): Singapore
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 1941-1963

On a quiet moonlit night, Ah Boon, young and terrified, takes his first trip out to sea in his father’s fishing boat – a rite of passage for the boys of the kampong village. As the air hums and...

The House of Doors

The House of Doors
  • Author(s): Tan Twan Eng
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya), Penang
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): Early 20th Century

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes...

The Lotus Eaters

The Lotus Eaters
  • Author(s): Tatjana Soli
  • Location(s): Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1970s

As the fall of Saigon begins in 1975, two lovers make their way through the streets, desperately trying to catch one of the last planes out. Helen Adams, a photojournalist, must leave behind a war she has become addicted...

The Night Tiger

The Night Tiger
  • Author(s): Yangsze Choo
  • Location(s): Malaysia (Malaya)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1930s

In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master’s severed finger and reunite...

The Railway Man

The Railway Man
  • Author(s): Eric Lomax
  • Location(s): Burma (Myanmar)
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs
  • Era(s): WW2

During the Second World War Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio. Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for...

The Women

The Women
  • Author(s): Kristin Hannah
  • Location(s): Vietnam, Coronado Island
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 1960s/1970s

It would be the journey of a lifetime . . . ‘Women can be heroes, too’. When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances “Frankie” McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on California’s idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered...

Tindog Tacloban

Tindog Tacloban
  • Author(s): Claire Morley
  • Location(s): The Philippines
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Suspense
  • Era(s): 2013

In the aftermath of the fiercest typhoon on record to hit land, banners bearing the words Tindog Tacloban started to appear all over the city. Meaning Rise Up Tacloban, they were a testament to the determination and resilience of...

In The Shadow of the Banyan

In The Shadow of the Banyan
  • Author(s): Vaddey Ratner
  • Location(s): Cambodia
  • Genre(s): Autobiography/Memoirs, Fiction, Historical
  • Era(s): 1970s

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon...

The Road to Rangoon

The Road to Rangoon
  • Author(s): Lucy Cruickshanks
  • Location(s): Burma (Myanmar)
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1980s

In 1980s Burma, the British ambassador’s son goes missing. Discovered in the north of the country, Michael Atwood is in imminent danger, trapped between sides fighting a bitter civil war and with no way of getting back to Rangoon....

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