My Book of the Year 2020

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

For SP Blog’s 7th Annual Books Round-up, 41 Singaporean writers, artists, and thinkers, living in Singapore and abroad, give their favorite read of the year. What is striking in this year’s recommendations is the variety of presses publishing Singaporean works. One of these presses is the new indie comics publisher Difference Engine, which released the recommended SOUND: A Comics Anthology. We may well be seeing a publishing renaissance in Singapore that overcomes the challenges of pandemic publishing. Big thanks to all our contributors who wrote so passionately about their recommendations. We hope you enjoy reading all the contributions as much as we’ve enjoyed compiling them. Please support independent publishers and booksellers by ordering from them directly.

Join us for holiday festivities at Second Saturdays on Saturday, December 12, 7.30 pm ET. Our featured author, multiple award-winning crime writer SJ Rozan, will be reading from her hot-off-the-press novel The Art of Violence (see below). Plus! A mystery guest will join us for a reunion of a very special kind. The discussion after the readings is moderated by yours truly. RSVP Jee at jkoh@singaporeunbound.org for the Zoom link.

Do you know that Gaudy Boy's titles are available in Singapore as well as the US? Our Singapore online bookseller SGBookshelf is offering 20% discount and FREE local delivery with minimum purchase of SGD50 in a single order. Use the promo code GIFT20 to get Lawrence Lacambra Ypil's The Experiment of the Tropics, Jenifer Sang Eun Park's Autobiography of Horse, Paula Mendoza's Play for Time, and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco's The Foley Artist, at reduced prices! Get them for family and friends! If you'd rather just give us a direct donation, you can do so at Fractured Atlas, our fiscal sponsor.

Our team is growing, as you may have observed from the last few newsletters, and we have room for more people who believe passionately in what we are doing for literary exchange and equal rights. Apply to be our Editorial Intern (SP Blog), Publicity Intern (Gaudy Boy), or Student Co-host of the Second Saturdays Reading Series. Details here.

Jee Leong Koh
December 3, 2020

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