We're now publishing our scholarly titles under the imprint NUS PRESS instead of Singapore University Press in an effort to align ourselves closer to the university's overall branding.

The 2006-07 catalogue is now available, showcasing the line-up in the next 8 months.

If you want your own printed copy, please send us an e-mail (nusbooks@nus.edu.sg) or drop in at our office on the NUS campus.

The Guardian carried a report on the state of independent bookstores in the UK today. Interesting mix of views about the future of these community-based stores. If you thought books were expensive in Asia, take a look at the prices quoted in this piece!

In Singapore, we have Select Books at Tanglin Shopping Centre. We used to have Skoob Books, but they went out of the retail business because they couldn't afford retail space rentals. Recently, Research Books at UE Sqaure also closed. Knowing that the stuggle of indie bookstores is a world-wide phenomenon... will the likes of Select Books survive? I certainly hope they can and do survive... not just because we need them professionally, but for me personally, it's such a joy of a place to go to!

NUS Publishing and Institute of Policy Studies launched Cherian's new book yesterday, amidst the sad news of the passing of Singapore's former Foreign Minister, Mr Rajaratnam, who was a journalist and editor before he embarked on a career in politics. We observed a minute's silence to remember Mr Rajaratnam and his invaluable contributions to Singapore.

Cherian gave a short talk on his book, highlighting some inherent issues in journalims, e.g. myth of "objective" journalism, and pointing out that human ingenuity, not technological "hardware", is the main ingredient to more democratic dialogue and endeavours. This is clearly evident when he compared alternative media sites in Malaysia with those in Singapore.

You've got to read the book! :)

Launching soon, a new book by Cherian George entitled Contentious Journalism and the Internet: Towards Democratic Discourse in Malaysia and Singapore .

Cherian George wrote the bestseller Singapore: The Air-conditioned Nation, published in 2000. In his new book, which is based on his PhD thesis, he turns his attention to journalism and examines how the Internet technology has impacted the nature of journalism and the wider implications of civil society's engagement with the government in Malaysia and in Singapore. It's an engaging read for anyone interested in politics and the media.

Details of the launch will follow next week, so come visit our site again!

Last posting for the year and we take the chance to wish everyone happy holidays and happy reading. With some many other available distractions, it's getting harder to find time to read even during holidays! Maybe reading will one day be paid work ;)

In the meantime, we're still open during the the NUS holidays, except for Boxing Day and the weekends. Drop in for a browse if you're on campus...we have some new books, which we'll only send out alerts in the new year.

China: An International Journal is indexed by the International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS). What does this mean? It means that you can google scholar search the titles of the articles in the journal, right down to keywords of the article. For research scholars, it means your articles are more likely to be found and read!


IBSS is based in the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. For more info on IBSS, see http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/IBSS/about/about_IBSS.htm

Believe it or not but three of our staff, Valee, Lena and Santha have been with the Press for more than 20 years respectively!! Singapore University Press has been around since 1972 after the University was renamed to reflect the separation of Malaysia and SIngapore. Hey... the Press is a part of the nation's history! Seriously though... it's wonderful to work with them because they are ever dependable and really know their stuff.

Sadly, Peter Schoppert, our managing director (and in-house blogger), left the Press in mid September for greener pastures. We wish him all the best and thanks for all the Fish during his time with us :) Meanwhile, Paul Kratoska is our acting director.

If you're reading this, you're invited.

NUS Publishing invites you to afternoon tea

to celebrate long service awards for three of our staff -- Valee, Lena and Santha -- and to bid farewell and best wishes to our director, Peter Schoppert.


Prof Paul Kratoska will take over as Acting Director, NUS Publishing, with effect from September 14, 2005.

Place: SUP office at AS3-01-02. 3 Arts Link, Singapore 117569.
(next to LT 13 in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences)

Date: 9 September 2005
Time: 4 pm
Dress: Office attire. Bring/wear something bright
Nibbles, tea, wine and fruit juice will be served

RSVP to Winnifred Wong at winnifred@nus.edu.sg or 6874 8186 by 7 September

The definitive Anglo-Indian dictionary has been posted online by the University of Chicago's Digital South Asia project. This is a real joy... Hours of fun. Some places to start:

shampoo, pajamas, pundit, cashmere, veranda, pariah, thug, cummerbund, rattan, shawl, loot, punch, jungle, khaki, calico, cushy, dinghy, dungaree, juggernaut, bungalow, bandana, toddy, chintz

Thanks to Amardeep Singh of Lehigh University.

Pick of the week last month, but we just received our copy today.

«Goenawan Mohamad has been at odds with the prevailing powers in Indonesia almost since his birth. His father was executed by Dutch occupying forces in 1947; when in his 20s Mohamad was denounced by the Indonesian Community Party and fled to Europe. The magazine, Tempo, which he founded in 1971, was banned by Soeharto’s regime in 1984. Under Soeharto, he developed an oblique and allegorical style of writing to avoid censorship. Unlike most opinion pieces, Mohamad’s essays written for Tempo are tantalisingly subtle and nuanced. Instead of easy outrage at the murder of a girl by her Palestinian father, Mohamad approaches this tragedy through a contemplation of the notions of “difference” and “sameness”. This tension between the “I” and the “not I” is teased out in another essay about monotheistic fundamentalism and its need to crush the “other”. Like all good essayists, Mohamad is more interested in meditating on the complexities of modern multicultural societies than offering up simplistic solutions.»

- Fiona Capp, Review, The Age, July 23, 2005

Conversations with Difference is published by Tempo, Indonesia, but distributed in rest of Asia and Australia by Singapore University Press.

Technorati Tags: literaryreviews

Yesterday the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies hosted a very nice "evening with Jomo" which was an opportunity to launch Malaysian 'Bail Outs'? Capital Controls, Restructuring and Recovery and After the Storm: Crisis, Recovery and Sustaining Development in Four East Asian Economies, both recently published by Singapore University Press. In addition, ISEAS took the opportunity to launchReforming Corporate Governance in Southeast Asia: Economics, Politics and Regulations, Ho Khai Leong (editor).

Jomo spoke on his overall research projects and direction, and fielded questions, among them "now that you have become a UN bureaucrat does it mean you will stop thinking...".

Many thanks to Director Kesavapany for hosting a lovely evening. NUS Publishing brought the wine...

Sample a bit of this extraordinary life story through excerpts posted online. Says Insun Sony Mustapha, Mustapha Husain's daughter who translated his memoirs, they were "written in 1976 when he was 66 years old and 31 years after World War II ended. Despite his feeble health and long years of silence, these episodes of his life remained vivid in his mind..." NUS Publishing is distributing this book outside Malaysia on behalf of Malaysian publisher Utusan Publications & Distributors Sdn Bhd.

This terrific article in the New York Times argues that used book sales are *good* for publishers. Article bolsters its case by linking to some academic papers freely available on the web, and it specifically examines university textbooks as an area where this is true.

Singapore's National Library can play a key role in Singapore's publishing ecosystem, and they have some ambitions in this area. [Update: The new Library 2010 plan has just been posted on the NLB website. It is a 2 MB download.]

David Chew's article in Today covers the closing of arts publication Vehicle, and bemoans the state of arts journalism in Singapore. David mentions Vehicle, The Arts Magazine and FOCAS (we help a bit with their circulation: FOCAS is not closed but having a hiatus.) It is not just arts and culture: Singapore has no "quality" weekly or monthly, no "review" of cultural, political and social affairs. No obvious place to review university press books...