05 May Bestsellers: April 2016

Once again we look back at the month just gone – and wonder why the year seems to be flying by, what with anniversaries to celebrate and new plans to bring to fruition. It comes as no surprise – given his appearance at a Nusantara Forum a month ago – to tell you that Rehman Rashid’s fine new book, Peninsula: A Story of Malaysia (Fergana Art), emerged as top of the pops, and that Rehman’s classic A Malaysian Journey was hard on its heels in second place. Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain (Myrmidon Books) is obviously the gift that keeps giving and has a podium place for the first time. There is an interesting pattern in some of the other top-ten titles. Ferdinand M. Bertholet, Lambert van der Aalsvoort and Regine Thiriez’s wonderful Among the Celestials: China in Early Photographs (Yale University Press) and Julia Lovell’s The Opium War (Picador) offers contrasting accounts of China’s history in the nineteenth century. Sonny Liew’s tremendous The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Epigram Books) is deservedly finding admiring readers, while Poh Soo Kai’s powerful memoir Living in a Time of Deception (Function 8) also offers a more personal take on Singapore’s contested history. Victor King’s edited collection, UNESCO in Southeast Asia: World Heritage Sites in Comparative Perspective (NIAS Press) offers important insights into the vexed arena of heritage, and sold out within a week. A personal favourite also made a mark – Putera Cilik (Peanutzin), Ezzah Mahmud’s lovely Malay-language translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic Little Prince. Here’s the full list:

1  Rehman Rashid, Peninsula: A Story of Malaysia (Fergana Art)
2  Rehman Rashid, A Malaysian Journey (RR)
3  Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain (Myrmidon Books)
4  Sonny Liew, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Epigram Books)
5  Ferdinand M. Bertholet, Lambert van der Aalsvoort and Regine Thiriez, Among the Celestials: China in Early Photographs (Yale University Press)
6  Poh Soo Kai, Living in a Time of Deception (Function 8)
7  Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Putera Cilik, trans. Ezzah Mahmud (Peanutzin)
8  Loh Wei Leng and Badriyah Haji Salleh (eds), Glimpses of Penang’s Past (Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society)
9  Victor King (ed.), UNESCO in Southeast Asia: World Heritage Sites in Comparative Perspective (NIAS Press)
10  Julia Lovell, The Opium War (Picador)