By Sia Ling Xin

YOU can now read about Singapore's history in almost the same way people living in an earlier era did - through newspaper and magazine reports from those times.

Publishing company Editions Didier Millet (EDM) and the National Library Board are jointly publishing a book this month, which presents the last 50 years of Singapore's history in a compilation of newspaper and magazine reports.

Unlike conventional history books by academics, who record facts after the events, this book pulls together news reports written in the thick of action, said its chief editor, Mr Peter Lim, 71, who served as the editor-in-chief of Singapore Press Holdings' (SPH) Straits Times Press for nine years, until 1987.

In this sense, it is as objective as reports can get, without any additional input from historians, he said.

The 380-page Chronicle Of Singapore contains about 45 articles from each year.

They cover issues from politics and nation-building, to sports and entertainment, as the team behind it wanted it to "tell real-life stories people can relate to", Mr Lim said.

A 35-man team helmed by Mr Lim spent 15 months on the project.

It pored through more than 18,000 editions of The Straits Times and other newspapers and magazines to select stories that would best give readers a representative overview of past headline events.

"The hardest part of this project was deciding which stories had to be taken out, as there were so many we wanted to include," Mr Lim said.

It is not a book to be read in one sitting, but to be flipped through by people who choose years significant to them, so that they can see what was happening in the country at the time, he added.

The idea for this book originated from Chronicle Of Malaysia, which was published in 2007 by EDM.

The publishing company then approached Mr Lim to work on this project in the middle of last year.

He decided to take it up "both to keep my mind active and to replenish my savings".

The production of the book was guided by an advisory board chaired by Temasek Holdings chairman S. Dhanabalan.

The publishers will donate $30,000 from the sales of the book to SPH?s The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund.

The book, which will launched this Friday by President S R Nathan, will be available in bookstores at $59.90 (inclusive of GST) from the same day.

lingxin@sph.com.sg

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