The 21 essays in this collection are a treasure trove of reminiscences of Singapore’s recent past, imaginatively organised around the concept of neighbourhoods. Many if not most of the neighbourhoods depicted have been completely transformed or even disappeared since the writers inhabited them. With them has gone much of the “soul of the nation”, which this volume makes an admirable attempt to recapture through the childhood memories of Singaporeans who grew up here in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.