Perspectives on life

This week, we have nonfiction books that offer many different views of what life can be like.

We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere

Authors: Gillian Anderson & Jennifer Nadel

Publisher: Thorsons, self-help BRITISH actress Gillian “Scully” Anderson got together with longtime friend and journalist Jennifer Nadel to write this book positing a sisterhood that challenges today’s “have-it-all” superwoman culture. Using psychological, political and spiritual perspectives, the book examines why women still, in this day and age, become depressed and addicted and self-criticise so much that even self-harming becomes a coping mechanism.

What if, the authors ask, women changed the patterns of competition, criticism, and comparison with collaboration, cooperation, and compassion?

How To Be A Bawse: A Guide To Conquering Life

Author: Lilly Singh

Publisher: Ballantine Books, memoir IN Lilly Singh’s world, there are no escalators, only stairs. Because in her world, things like success and happiness must be fought for – albeit with lots of humour.

This is a book by the YouTube personality whose channel, Superwoman, has nine million followers. The actress and comedian tackles everything from relationships and careers to learning how to love yourself by sharing her life story and how she took the world by storm.

Once Upon A Miao 2: More Stories From The Other Side Of Malaysia

Author: Jian Goh

Publisher: Goh Kheng Swee, memoir AFTER a successful outing with his first book about the cartoon cat Miao, Sarawakian engineer-turned-graphic designer Jian Goh once again shares stories from his childhood through his funny comic strips featuring Miao and the hamsters Wafu and Pafu.

Using Miao as his avatar, and other animals for friends and family, Goh recalls the silly times from when he was growing up in Kuching, as well as the things and people he loves in the Land of the Hornbills.

Paracosm

Author: Arina

Publisher: Tun Suffian Foundation Incorporated, nonfiction THIS collection of prose, poetry, and illustrations is an invitation by its author Arina – the 17-year-old Puteri Fateh Arina Merican – to step into her world, her “paracosm” (a term used to describe a highly detailed imaginary world).

While Arina was brought up with all the material comforts an upper middle-class family can offer, she shares that, like any teen, she still struggles with finding acceptance and her own identity in the face of familial and social expectations.

And, like many young people today, she also struggles with the violence of a world in which toddlers can wash up dead on a beach – the poem “Sleep Well, My Brother” addresses the pain she felt at the image of the body of threeyear-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi lying on a Greek beach in 2015.

Balik Kampung: Memories Of Fulbright ETAs In Malaysia

Editor & Publisher: Malaysian-American Commission on Educational Exchange, memoir THINKING your neighbour is a stalker, teaching a student named Michael Jordan how to play basketball, going to school in a student uniform when you’re supposed to be the teacher – these are some of the funny incidents that appear in this compilation of stories written by English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) who served in mostly rural Malaysian schools under the Fulbright scholarship programme.

The American ETAs from 10 years of the programme – from 2006 to 2016 – share their memories in essays, stories, and reflections celebrating the wide range of experiences they had and the deep connections made between two countries by this programme. In Malaysia, it is administered by the Malaysian-American Commission on Educational Exchange (Macee).

T For Teacher: Navigating The School Front

Author: Cheryl Ann Fernando Publisher: MPH, nonfiction AUTHOR Cheryl Ann Fernando’s experiences of teaching English in a rural school were the basis for the local film Adiwiraku (My Superheroes) that was released earlier this year.

This is Fernando’s own take on her three-year stint of “mayhem, tears and tiny glimpses of success” at SMK Pinang Tunggal in Sungai Petani, Kedah. Despite not having any teaching experience, Fernando left a job in Kuala Lumpur in 2012 to work with education NGO Teach For Malaysia and caught social media attention when her students entered a national-level choral speaking competition.