SM

For a book about beauty and the power of design, this was a little dry and painful to read. Also couldn't help noticing, as always, that a majority of the examples and quotes are from men. Yawn...

Started becoming a list of all the good things and achievements, without going very in-depth into what made each one successful or applicable. Would probably work better as a documentary.

Small book, many short essays with big words and interesting ideas. My favourites are the chapters by Dr Nuraliah Norasid, Halijah Mohamad and Faris Joraimi. Not all the ideas are new to me, so several essays are very readable and skimmable, but it's a nice compilation of all these ideas and I like that a lot of the sources are listed for further reading. (Minus one star for the number of editing/proofreading errors - but I've noticed this seems to be a thing in most library copies of books. 🤨)

Good read. But I thought the title didn't have much to do with the real story, which (I feel) is more about a family coping with life in a different country that happens to be ‘less developed'. I don't think the protagonist even fully grasps what ‘democracy' is, yet. The more interesting story for me was the roles the main character had to play within her family and all the accompanying emotional struggles. Everything else was just... kind of background.

The story is a fun, quick read, and helps kids learn about bees, busting a lot of bee myths along the way. The illustrations are a delight and it's great to see Bee Boy's classmates looking like communities in real life. His crush is an Indian girl! I thought that was cool.

I'm glad this beautiful book cover caught my eye in a bookstore. The first book I've had to read with the aid of Google Translate instant! A fast, fun read with lines that made me laugh out loud, especially in the chapter about being married. I haven't come across a book like this before, filled with a politician's witty bon mots and selected speeches given at universities, as well as a pages-long resume, interspersed with delightful cartoons by the “Philippines' best young illustrators”. Will probably read again, especially in the run-up to the 2016 Philippine presidential elections and for future Singapore elections too. This definitely makes me want to find out more about Senator Miriam.

An adaptation of one of the first books to make me stay up all night to finish reading, way back in my teenage years. The graphics are beautiful but the story somehow felt like it ended abruptly and with less of the emotional impact of the novel itself. Still a good read though.

First, full disclosure: I got to read early drafts of a few chapters and give some feedback (not a lot). I really enjoyed reading this book, right from the draft stage.

The analogy of considering the structure of a home for building a relationship is nice. It's not often that a self-published book is of such high quality, from the writing style right down to the feel of the book in hand through the choice of paper and size. What I like best is that the advice is inclusive. Anyone can read it whether you are single and looking (or not looking), happily loved up and married, heterosexual or not, of any faith or spirituality. It also covers cultural differences.

It's all useful advice that would benefit anyone looking for better relationships, and yet feels personal because there are guided exercises that get you to reflect on what you wish for in a partner or relationship. Though focused on romantic relationships, some of the advice is definitely also applicable to platonic or professional relationships. I also like the easy, breezy, conversational style of writing - it reads like a friend is speaking to you, and a frank one who doesn't shy away from addressing the more intimate, complicated, messy matters of relationships, too.

The illustrations are gorgeous! I find myself wanting to know more about the Monster...

Through this quick read, I learned that some types of dementia cause visual hallucinations...

Loved this, would read again. Weaves the history of the world and some of the author's personal history with materials science. And for a book about materials, this book feels great to hold too.

LOVE the illustrations and learnt a surprising number of hilarious, amusing facts for what I thought would be a simple picture book.

WILD. Lovely. I either screamed or smiled through most of the short stories. Read the e-book version but will now look for the print version if it exists because the illustrations are delightful.

My favourites are Koa, Ronaldo and Fester :) but all are charming in their own way.

Like a student's literature text, complete with discussion questions at the back of the book. It sure seemed intriguing at first glance and in the beginning, but the middle part dragged for a long time before it finally picked up again in the end. Not really as haunting or provocative as the blurbs say it is.

Loved the illustrations for this simplest of stories.

I loved the guessing game format and the tactility to show how the bones fit beneath the animals' form was genius. Very fun.

A very quick read for pointers on how to unlock creativity. Nothing really groundbreaking here, but put together like this, it's a great start for anyone needing a kick in the butt to pursue their ideas or get unstuck. There are fun reflection exercises and the book (printed in $ingapore!) is beautifully produced with thoughtful and surprising typography and illustrations.

Devoured half the book in one night. My copy had four pages of high praise as blurbs and reviews for the book, and all of them are deserved.

I liked listening to her speeches within the book. Great delivery of the main text by the author too.

Found this title while looking up actual Chinese-English dictionaries. It was very amusing and engrossing for the first half of the book and then the pace slowed down (for me, anyway) along with the lovers' ardour for each other. I liked the observations of the differences between east/west culture, told through the main character's gradually improving English. I'd enjoy re-reading this.

Some interesting prose that made me think, but very unsubtle. Quick read in the first half – ‘unputdownable' as a review on the cover says – but got boring about 3/4 of the way in and picked up again in the last quarter.

Beautifully illustrated 

"You know, Paris is tough," Christian said in English. "I would not want to live here if I could choose a different history."

He said Paris was probably the worst European city after London. "London is the worst. Weather is shitty. You cannot walk around. People are closed off, and they hate Jews. None of this will change." But Paris was too expensive, he said, too conservative, too self-protective. "Paris had, like, the nineteenth century. But look, we are all very lucky at this table - we're white, you see? Paris is the most hard on immigrants. And immigrants are really important, I think, to the life of the city."

—

At a nearby Metro station, a man played accordion on the crowded platform, but we couldn't hear him because we all wore headphones. People waiting stood four ranks deep. The cars were packed. When a train arrived, filled to capacity, desperate commuters would throw themselves at the fleshy spots, and either they fell back stunned or they stuck for a moment and used the closing doors to pinch their asses and squeeze them in.Finally I got a spot. Everyone was pressed together, but no one spoke. At night, Paris swayed home in silence, all of us leaning on one another. At worst, people got hooked on each other's earbud cables, and they'd apologize while they helped one another unwind.---The day we met, Sebastien showed me how his iPod rang an alarm whenever his girlfriend had her period, so he'd know when not to initiate a fuck.---Marrakech was a tourist city just like Paris -- snake charmers in lieu of accordion players, but still the same, if not more purely about its business. Mercantile, abrasive, and more welcoming. Please, come into my stall, sit, have some tea, now buy something.If cities like Paris and Marrakech had realized tourism was their most profitable enterprise, why should they resist? Why not play up the image, act the part the visitors wanted, cater to their whims and pocket the cash?---Then five American women came out of the station to wait for the train. They were winded from hiking, but had no trouble speaking at a volume that in France was reserved for emergencies.How immense Americans made themselves when abroad, how bullying when we roamed. Some teenage French boys appeared. They overheard the women and started addressing them in English, with attempted Southern accents....I started laughing to myself. Maybe it was all the wine I'd drunk, or it was the Americans' ankle socks and their forward-facing backpacks, but I couldn't stop.One of the teenagers caught my eye and winked, taking me for a co-conspirator.On the day we'd decided to leave Paris, I became French.

I prefer to see this as a history of comics through the lens of the history of Singapore, rather than the other way round, but perhaps only because I'm a lot more familiar with the history (and counter-histories?) of Singapore. But the book does both equally well. I particularly enjoyed the representation of historical figures as animals in a Sang Kancil tale and a night soil man as local superhero Roachman. Those who are interested in or familiar with Singapore and Malaya's history would enjoy the retelling of it in different graphic/comic forms.