Books Read in May 2023

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1) The Tiger Mom’s Tale by Lyn Liao Butler

2) Why Didn’t You Tell Me? by Carmen Rita Wong

3) An Honest Lie by Tarryn Fisher

4) The Arrangement by Robyn Harding

5) Her One Mistake by Heidi Perks

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6) Come Back To Me by Heidi Perks

7) Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

8) At Any Cost by Andrea Kane

9) Overkill by Sandra Brown

10) Daniel Craig – The Definitive Biography by Sarah Marshall

11) Revenge : Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors by Tom Bower

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12) The Younger Woman by Mandy Byatt

13) Survival of the Thickest by Michelle Buteau

14) Just Got Real by Jane Fallon

15) Central Places by Delia Cai

16) The Best Asian Short Stories 2019 & 2020 edited by Zafar Anjum

17) Exile or Pursuit by Chia Joo Ming (Translated from Chinese: 放逐与追逐)

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18) The Heatwave by Katerina Diamond

Divas of the Decades

Today’s performer at the monthly Coffee Morning and Afternoon Tea is the iconic Rahimah Rahim who has been performing for more than six decades since she was 6 years old.

It is an extremely enjoyable show. Besides songs by Anne Murray (You Needed Me), The Carpenters (Close To You, Top of the World, Jumbalaya, Yesterday Once More) and Olivia Newton-John (ONJ), Rahimah Rahim also sang in Malay (Burong Kakak Dua) and Mandarin (欢乐今宵– Enjoy Tonight and 甜蜜蜜– So Sweet). There are a few more which I can’t recall.

There were two guests (which I did not expect but then Rahimah Rahim said she needed the breather because “you can’t expect a 68- year-old to sing for 60 minutes non- stop”). Sheila De Niro (who introduced “CMAT and the boss Christopher Rozerio” to Rahimah) and Rosie Rahim (Rahimah’s youngest sister “who dares to call Rahimah by her name and not kakak only on stage” ) sang songs like ONJ’s Hopelessly Devoted To You, Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were and Carole King’s You’ve Got A Friend.

The three- piece band consists of the pianist Mansor (“the Dustin Hoffman of Singapore”), guitarist Shukor (“forever thankful”) and vocal backup Rosie (“youngest but already collected her CPF”).

With the appreciative audience clamouring for an encore, Rahimah burst into an a capella rendition of 今天不回家(loosely translated as Not Going Home Today) in the midst of another banter. Wow, very impressive indeed!

Piano Recital by Hong Xiang

A friend invited me to a private piano recital by Hong Xiang at the Bechstein Music Studio at the Singapore Conference Hall this afternoon.

Of the three pieces performed, my favourite is Chopin’s Andante Spianato und Grand Polonaise Op 22 at the end.

The first piece is Prokofiev ‘s Piano Sonata Op 84 No 8, which took up the entire first half of the recital. There are three movements, all of which sound tonally unstable to me, whether they are melodramatic or virtuosic.

The second piece is Brahms’ Drei Intermezzi Op 117, three lullabies that convey a huge range of different emotions and shades of colour with tenderness and grace but are also subtle and complex.

From the quiet rippling effect in the introductory section to the gentle and serene middle and the chordal and more processional at the end, I enjoyed the Chopin so much that I think I’m going to re- watch the 2002 film The Pianist to relive the scene during which Andante Spianato und Grand Polonaise is played.