Michael Wise

Mun Him Wise

Here are the real-life stories of over 70 observant travellers telling of their varied encounters while in Singapore. Men and women of many nationalities graphically portray life and adventure in the days when Singapore was still but a distant tropic outpost of the British Empire. This new edition has been enlarged to include several items not previously published in the original collection. Vividly told, the Tales are by turns informative or astounding, moving or amusing, but always entertaining. "The picture that emerges is . . . a vignette of a Singapore long disappeared: idyllic, romantic. exotic." Illustrated with vintage black-&-white photographs and drawings.

Travellers' Tales of Old Singapore

Peter Kacsuk

Leading international contributors present papers pertaining to current approaches in the design and implementation of distributed logic languages that are a generation beyond standard Prolog, all of them introducing ideas of distributed and parallel programming in an attempt to bring high performance features to logic programming applications. Details all aspects of underlying research at a number of global centers including language, implementation models and techniques, hardware architecture, performance results, applications and more.

Implementations of Distributed Prolog

One otherwise regular January morning in 2009, Michael Wise’s world was thrown into turmoil. He was at the peak of his career as an internationally renowned specialist dental surgeon when he was struck by an exceptionally rare, near-fatal, streptococcal blood infection. Within hours, his vital organs failed as this catastrophic illness swept through his entire body. He was in a coma and on life support for ten days, careering ever closer to death. On The Toss of a Coin is a raw and honest account of Michael’s fight for survival and rehabilitation, charting his gruelling journey from health, to near-death, kidney dialysis, a kidney transplant from a live donor and recovery. He was both patient and clinician, which gave him a unique insight. In part one, the reader enters the strange mind of a person in a coma; parts two to four describe the physical and emotional stages of the illness following intensive care. Michael remained on the critical list for several weeks as doctors battled to save his life. Kept alive by dialysis, Michael needed a kidney transplant, and after fourteen months a donor was found, leaving him to additionally contend with recovering from surgery. Meanwhile, the possibility that he would lose his dental practice and income also plagued his mind, affecting his recovery. Despite the overwhelming odds, Michael remained positive, helped by coping strategies that empowered him to be involved in his predicament rather than swept along as a victim. The long-term psychological effects of his battle are explored in part five, where he recounts the importance of life, and how, as an atheist, he was facing death. Only once did he lose the will to live. “It was impossible to face my mortality and for it not to influence my approach to life,” he recalls. According to doctors, Michael should never have lived and, if he miraculously survived, he should be severely incapacitated. He is neither; he is fit and lives a full and active life. On The Toss of a Coin will inspire anyone facing or supporting a loved one experiencing health battles, and will enthral fans of biographies, memoirs and those interested in the human condition.

'A memoir of a near-death illness... and my fight for survival'

On the Toss of a Coin

This book begins with an imaginary meeting with my Lord Abbot John Draper III of Christ Church priory and continues with comments from the Abbot at appropriate moments in the story...

The Abbot & The Wise Man

Ever since the days when tigers stalked the land and pirates roamed the southern seas, travellers from far and wide have been drawn to Singapore, the melting-pot of the east. Merchants and missionaries, princes and policemen, sailors, soldiers, adventurers and tourists — all came to see the island for themselves. In this new expanded Bicentennial edition of Travellers’ Tales, more than 80 visitors from the past provide readers of today with authentic portraits of old singapore. These vivid first-hand accounts — in letters, diaries and memoirs — bring the past fully alive, from the founding of Singapore in 1819 to the Japanese surrender. First published in 1985, this classic is bound to entertain and inform a whole new generation of readers

Michael Wise

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