THIS is a true story of an extraordinary love affair that was documented by a vast collection of love letters sent by British army officer Captain Arthur Hart-Synnot to his Japanese lover, Masa Suzuki. The letters, with postmarks dating back to 1904, were found in a Japanese trunk in 1982. There were a total of 800 letters and in many of them were pressed leaves and flowers, poppies, primroses and forget-me-nots.

The two met when Arthur was posted to Tokyo and within weeks, were living together. They pledged eternal love for each other but after he was posted back to England, they ended spending more years apart. For over a decade, they sustained their love through letters. Masa raised two sons alone in Japan while waiting for Arthur to return from his army posting. But tragedy struck and he never did.

DO not mistake this book for Sue Kaufman's humorous and insightful Diary of a Mad Housewife. Where Kaufman's protagonist, Bettina Balser tries to find meaning in her dreary existence as a wife to a social climber and mother of two girls, Chew Lee Li's heroine Andie Ang Poh Choo is contented with her dull albeit pampered tai tai life. Andie is married to a filthy-rich banker, has a pair of twin boys, lives in a humongous apartment in a swanky part of town, drives a Jaguar, is not required to lift a finger at home, and spends her days having lunch and tea with friends. And where Kaufman's writing was a classic women's fiction that gave a wry voice to the growing feminist stirrings of the 1960s and helped incite a revolution in the consciousness of a generation, Chew tells us that becoming a housewife is the best job that any woman can aspire to. After all, why should a woman work to support herself when she can get a man to do it for her? But Andie's picture-perfect life comes to an abrupt halt when her diligent husband faces the prospect of losing his job.

THIS is an autobiographical, coming-of-age account of an adopted child who grew up in a poverty-stricken Chinese village in Malaya. His mother died during childbirth and his father, who was unable to cope financially with a brood of four, gave them away. The youngest of the four, the author was less than a year old when a relative, who had three of his own, adopted him. Life was difficult especially with his (adoptive) mother's constant verbal abuse. When he gradually realises that he was adopted only to be exploited for child labour, he becomes determined to break free from the grinding poverty and suffocating Chinese traditions to seek a better life elsewhere. For My Hands Only is more than a memoir. It is also weaves a tapestry of life in an ethnic Chinese village before the country attained independence. Readers will also gain insight into how the Chinese strived to make a better life for themselves in their adopted homeland.

IT has been two months since the World Cup ended. The post-World Cup blues should have receded by now but if you want a memento of the event, it makes perfect sense to get this official round-up guide as it perfectly encapsulates the feverish hysteria surrounding the game and its over 30 billion fans.

World-renowned football journalist Brian Glanville gets things rolling with an insightful commentary on an “incident-packed World Cup that deepened football's mystique and in which no one team dominated.” This is followed by a blow-by blow account of the matches and gorgeous pictures of players in action. A perfect little memento of the 2006 World Cup, which should keep footie fanatics perfectly satiated until the 2010 World Cup in Africa.

THE Samurai is a piece of historical fiction, originally published in Japanese in 1959. Nevertheless, it presents an accurate portrait of the Japanese Warring period or Sengoku jidai (1467-1573). It was a time when Japan was ruled by three young powerful warlords: Takeda Shingen, Iwagawa Yoshimoto and Hojo Ujiyasu.

The story focuses on the proud and confident Shingen, who was exalted as the strongest warrior of the Sengoku period, and his one-eyed, crippled strategist Yamamoto Kansuke. Shingen wants to expand his territory and he finds the perfect conspirator in Kansuke, whose diplomacy and war strategy skills lead Shingen's clan to great success.

THIS is the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the enigmatic and iconic figures of the 20th century. He was an American theoretical physicist, who led efforts to build the atomic bomb. Popularly known as the “father of the atomic bomb”, Oppenheimer had been heralded a hero by his countrymen following their victory in World War II after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But his fall from grace was equally swift.

Using his position as chief advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission, Oppenheimer, who lamented the weapon's killing power, lobbied for international control of atomic energy and to avert the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. He further invoked the indignation of many politicians and scientists with his outspoken political opinions during the anti-Communist witch-hunt. The authors took 25 years to research and write this book. The result is an honest, compelling and complete biography of this historical icon.

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