april 1–15, 2019

Books

  • Aatish Taseer, The Twice Born: Life and Death on the Ganges
  • Ross Macdonald, The Wycherly Woman
  • Niviaq Korneliussen, Last Night in Nuuk, translated by Anna Halager 
  • Sharlene Teo, Ponti
  • Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt & John Marincola
  • Magnus Hirschfeld, Berlin’s Third Sex, trans. James J. Conway
  • Ronald Allan, The Mystery of “A Yellow Sleuth”
  • Gopal Baratham, A Candle or the Sun
  • Gopal Baratham, Sayang

There isn’t much Singaporean fiction that I would recommend as interesting to a reader not specifically interested in Singapore, but A Candle or the Sun, a forthright and penetrating study of power, culture, and the state, would make that list. Baratham might not be widely celebrated in part because he followed that book up with the hilariously stupid Sayang, a ludicrous story about the danger of drugs in which everyone dies of AIDS and doctors have uncommonly poor bedside manner. Sayang also manages to hit the reader over the head with overdetermined Christian symbology, a weirdly common pitfall in Singaporean fiction. 

  • Franziska zu Reventlow, The Guesthouse at the Sign of the Teetering Globe, trans. James J. Conway

Films

  • Зеркало (Mirror), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Exhibits

  • National Museum of Taiwanese Literature, Tainan, Taiwan
  • Anping Tree House, Tainan, Taiwan
  • “Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei
  • “A Romance between Plants and Insects,” National Taiwan Museum
  • “Microfossil: The Exquisite Beauty under the Sea,” National Taiwan Museum
  • “Silhouette of a Great Master: A Retrospective of Chang Dai-chien’s Art on the 120th Anniversary of His Birth,” National Palace Museum, Taipei
  • “Traditional Chinese Medical Texts on Life, Health and Longevity in the Collection of the National Palace Museum,” National Palace Museum, Taipei
  • “Painting Animation: Along the River During the Qingming Festival,” National Palace Museum, Taipei
  • “Madhvi Subrahmanian & Nandita Mukand: From Lost Roots to Urban Meadows,” The Private Museum, Singapore

march 16–31, 2019

Books

  • Romain Gary, The Dance of Genghis Cohn, translated by Camilla Sykes
  • Fanny Howe, The Needle’s Eye: Passing Through Youth
  • César Aira, On Contemporary Art, trans. Katherine Silver
  • Józef Czapski, Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp, trans. Eric Karpeles
  • Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Revolt of the Cockroach People

Films

  • The Razor’s Edge, directed by John Byrum

march 1–15, 2019

Books

  • Evelyn Juers, House of Exile: The Lives and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann
  • Renee Gladman, Calamaties
  • Tommy Orange, There There
  • Hermann Hesse, Singapore Dream and Other Adventures: Travel Writings from an Asian Journey, translated by Sherab Chodzin Kohn
  • Roberto Bolaño, The Spirit of Science Fiction, trans. Natasha Wimmer
  • Patrick Modiano, So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood, trans. Euan Cameron
  • Langston Hughes, I Wonder as I Wander
  • Kingsley Amis, New Maps of Hell
  • W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge
  • Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Television, trans. Jordan Stump
  • Michèle Audin, One Hundred Twenty-One Days, trans. Christiana Hills
  • The Homeric Hymns, trans. Diane J. Rayor
  • Eliot Weinberger, An Elemental Thing

Films

  • Eva Hesse, directed by Marcie Begleiter
  • 幻土 (A Land Imagined), dir. Yeo Siew Hua
  • In weiter Ferne, so nah! (Faraway, So Close!), dir. Wim Wenders

february 16–28, 2019

Books

  • Tim Parks, Europa
  • John Darnielle, Master of Reality
  • Anthony Burgess, You’ve Had Your Time
  • Mike McGonigal, Loveless
  • Michael Allen Zell, City Krystal Soulman
  • Remedios Varo, Letters, Dreams & Other Writings, translated by Margaret Carson
  • Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
  • Antonio Tabucchi, The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico, trans. Tim Parks
  • Nora Krug, Heimat: A German Family Album

Films

  • Passport to Pimlico, directed by Henry Cornelius
  • 밀양 (Secret Sunshine), dir. Lee Chang-dong

february 1–15, 2019

Books

  • Ricardo Piglia, The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years, translated by Robert Croll
  • Paul Blackburn & Julio Cortázar, “Querido Pablito”/”Julissimo Querido”: Selected Correspondence 1958–1971
  • Lugwig Hohl, Ascent, trans. Donna Stonecipher
  • Luigi Pirandello, One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand, trans. William Weaver
  • Patrick Modiano, The Search Warrant, trans. Joanna Kilmartin
  • Joshua Cohen, Moving Kings
  • Patrick Modiano, Honeymoon, trans. Barbara Wright
  • Roberto Bolaño, The Insufferable Gaucho, trans. Chris Andrews
  • Geeta Dayal, Another Green World
  • Patrick Modiano, Villa Triste, trans. John Cullen
  • Raymond Queneau, Hitting the Streets, trans. Rachel Galvin
  • Carl Wilson, Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste
  • David Stuart MacLean, The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Tale of Amnesia

Films

  • One More Time with Feeling, directed by Andrew Dominik
  • Tiger Bay, dir. J. Lee Thompson
  • Support the Girls, dir. Andrew Bujalski
  • Popeye, dir. Robert Altman
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
  • Harvey, dir. Henry Koster

january 16–31, 2019

Books

  • Patrick Modiano, Sleep of Memory, translated by Mark Polizzotti
  • Wallace Stevens, Harmonium
  • Othman Wok, Malayan Horror: Macabre Tales of Singapore and Malaysia in the 50’s, trans. Tuminah Sapawi & M. M. Basalamah
  • Wallace Stevens, Ideas of Order
  • Patrick Modiano, The Black Notebook, trans. Mark Polizzotti
  • Patrick Modiano, The Night Watch, trans. Patricia Wolf & Frank Wynne
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littín, trans. Asa Zatz
  • Charles Willeford, Pick-up
  • Patrick Modiano, Ring Roads, tras. Caroline Hillier & Frank Wynne
  • James Fenton, Selected Poems
  • Patrick Modiano, Missing Person, trans. Daniel Weissbort
  • Keith Gessen, A Terrible Country
  • Matt Ruff, Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy
  • José Saramago, Small Memories, trans. Margaret Jull Costa
  • Edmund White, The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading
  • Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar
  • Wallace Stevens, Parts of a World
  • Wallace Stevens, Transport to Summer
  • Patrick Modiano, Pedigree, trans. Mark Polizzotti
  • Langston Hughes, The Big Sea

Films

  • Roma, directed by Alfonso Cuarón
  • Brainstorm, dir. Douglas Trumbull

Exhibits

  • “Jef Geys: Quadra Medicinale Singapore,” NTU CCA
  • “Izat Arif: Semangat Kejiranan / everybody loves good neighbours,” NTU CCA
  • “Buddhist Archive of Photography/Amy Lien/Enzo Camacho: And in the Chapel and in the Temples,” NTU CCA
  • “Michelangelo Pistoletto: The Third Paradise – Between Observe and Reverse,” Partners + Mucciaccia
  • “Women’s Work: Contemporary Art from Asia and the Middle East,” Sundaram Tagore
  • “Hopes & Dialogues in Rumah Kijang,” Mizuma Gallery
  • “Cheng Ran: The Lament: Mountain Ghost,” Ota Fine Arts
  • “Boedi Widjaja: Rivers and Lakes / Tanah dan Air,” Shanghart Gallery
  • “Frictional: Ben Loong & Zulkifli Lee,” Pearl Lam Galleries

january 1–15, 2019

Books

  • Francis M. Naumann, Mentors: The Making of an Art Historian
  • Gabriel García Márquez, News of a Kidnapping, translated by Edith Grossman
  • Michael D. Gordin, The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
  • Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key
  • Patrick Modiano, La Place de l’Étoile, trans. Caroline Hillier
  • Samanta Schweblin, Fever Dream, trans. Megan McDowell
  • Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
  • Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
  • Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
  • Cyril Wong, After You
  • Cyril Wong, Oneiros
  • Herman Melville, Typee
  • Ross Macdonald, The Galton Case
  • Jason Wee, An Epic of Durable Departures
  • Ross Macdonald, The Ferguson Affair
  • Ross Macdonald, Blue City

Movies

  • Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull

december 16–31, 2018

Books

  • James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
  • Lynne Murphy, The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
  • Javier Cercas, The Impostor: A True Story, translated by Frank Wynne
  • Robert Sheckley, Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley
  • Gabriel García Márquez, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, trans. Randolph Hogan
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, trans. Edith Grossman
  • Thorkild Hansen, Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761–1767, trans. James McFarlane & Kathleen McFarlane
  • Julie J. Thomson, ed., That Was the Answer: Interviews with Ray Johnson
  • Tiziano Terzani, A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
  • Iris Murdoch, A Word Child

Films

  • Shirkers, directed by Sandi Tan

december 1–15, 2018

Books

  • Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl
  • Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
  • Ryszard Kapuściński, Travels with Herodotus, translated by Klara Glowczewska
  • Domenico Starnone, Trick, trans. Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus
  • Claudia Rankine, The End of the Alphabet
  • Nigel Barley, Island of Demons
  • Malcolm X & Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Films

  • Doubles vies (Non-Fiction), directed by Olivier Assayas
  • Nuestro tiempo (Our Time), dir. Carlos Reygadas
  • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

november 16–30, 2018

Books

  • Filippo-Tommaso Marinetti, Mafarka the Futurist, translated by Carol Diethe & Steve Cox
  • Domenico Starnone, Ties, trans. Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues, trans. Dick Davis
  • Dag Solstad, Professor Anderson’s Night, trans. Agnes Scott Langeland
  • Amir D. Aczel, The Jesuit & the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man
  • R. O. Kwon, The Incendiaries

Films

  • Sorry to Bother You, directed by Boots Riley
  • The Hudsucker Proxy, dir. Joel Coen
  • The Big Lebowski, dir. Joel Coen
  • Le Livre d’image (The Image Book), dir. Jean-Luc Godard